Iva Pérez

Co-founder of Designful, building an inspiring ecosystem rooted in design.

I have 2 days/week availability for strategic UX and design projects.

We help organisations navigate complexity through strategic UX, product and service design, and brand positioning.

What we do at Designful:

We align teams before building, specialising in product design (complex apps,

platforms and systems), enterprise and government websites, service and UX

strategy, brand positioning and business design, AI strategy, multi-stakeholder

alignment, content strategy, and DSA compliance.

We work with governments, enterprises, and regulated industries on high-

stakes digital products and services where clarity drives results.

Our approach: Aligned by Design™—uniting product, UX, tech, and legal

teams to align goals and requirements proactively, minimising friction and

accelerating decisions through shared understanding before action.

The ecosystem vision:

- Studio (now): Client services for organisational challenges

- Institute (2026): Standards and certification for ethical design

- Community (future): Network for strategic design peers

I led a multidisciplinary team of UX, service and content designers and researchers at Emakina (now EPAM - EmpathyLab). We helped clients align business goals with user needs, creating products and services that enriched people's lives and strengthened brands. Along with my leadership role, I also worked on projects that shaped the experience, information architecture and UX direction based on research and evidence, guided and aligned clients through difficult choices, and coordinated design sprints closely with development teams to ensure seamless delivery.

My focus was on the Fintech and Banking sectors, two industries that were undergoing a rapid transformation fueled by game-changing innovations like PSD2, Blockchain, machine learning, AI chatbots, and personalization. It was an exciting time to work in the money biz.