About me
Hi, my name is...
Sabrina Staniewska — an Australian User Experience designer and innovation strategist with over a decade of experience across research, service design (UX), innovation programme leadership, and startup coaching. I've worked inside corporate innovation labs, run accelerators, mentored founders through funding milestones, and built communities of practice across Poland and Europe.
My journey
Group Senior Innovation Expert & Coach
Ringier
UX Lead, Innovation Expert,Innovation Lab
Roche
Consulting UX & Service Design
ING, Allianz, Raiffeisen bank, Bluemedia
UX & UI Designer
VML
Art Director
TBWA
13+
years in research & design
CHF 100 mln
revenue target coached toward
9
sectors led innovation in
What I bring
Evidence over assumption. Every engagement I've led — from a usability study to a corporate accelerator — asks the same question: what's true, and what do we do about it. I bring that discipline to teams that move fast but don't always test what they believe, and to leadership that needs decisions grounded in something more than conviction. The result is fewer expensive mistakes, faster validated decisions, and teams that learn how to ask the right question themselves.
Where I'm heading
I'm looking for roles where design and innovation operate at the strategic level — where the work shapes organisational direction, builds the culture that makes better products possible, and develops the capability of the teams around me. Head of Innovation, Design and Innovation Director, or Senior Innovation Coach roles, at organisations serious about building innovation capacity from the inside.
Let's talk about what that could look like at your organisation.
Contact me.
How I work
I still think like a service designer — mapping the full journey, not just the interface — even when the room I'm in is a corporate boardroom
RESEARCH
what's actually true.
BUILD
a testable version
LEARN
Evidence, not opinion
ITERATE
Repeat with evidence
I research first.
Not because it's the process — because it's the only way to know whether you're solving the right problem. The most valuable outputs I've produced aren't prototypes or frameworks. They're reframes: moments where evidence revealed that the question being asked was the wrong one.
I think in systems.
Whether designing a product interface, an innovation programme, or a learning experience, I'm thinking about the components, the connections, and the sustainability that holds it together. Design systems, innovation ecosystems, communities of practice — same underlying logic.
I work across functions and hierarchies.
Some of my most important work has happened in rooms where I had no formal authority — facilitating alignment between executives, coaches, startup founders, and corporate teams. Creating the conditions for good decisions is a design skill, and it doesn't depend on the position I hold.
My Toolset
The AI Thread
I've been working at the intersection of AI and innovation for five years — before most organisations had an AI strategy. At Roche IT R&D (2019), I co-presented research priorities that included AI, intelligent assistants, and intelligent automation to senior architecture leadership. At Ringier (2023–2025), I worked within an innovation function led by a Chief Innovation and AI Officer, coaching AI-enabled projects and contributing to a leadership programme that brought the former CTO of OpenAI as a speaker. This is a documented track record, not a retrospective claim.
Certified
Practice and community
In 2016 I co-founded Ladies UX Warsaw — a community I built because the one I needed didn't exist. I've mentored designers through Tech Leaders and Engage, spoken at WUD Trójmiasto, Girls Geek Carrots, and Design Practice events, and completed a PGCEI, spending a year teaching in primary and secondary schools — an experience that changed how I think about learning, behaviour change, and what it means to design for people at different stages of understanding.
