Florian Jörgensen

Design Leadership Product Strategy AI

Florian Jörgensen

I like problems with a learning curve.

I’m a designer by training, problem solver by inclination and design leader by experience.

01Where I am now

Complex problems, yes.
But the right ones.

At this point I care increasingly about what my work contributes to. I want to create real win-wins for the people using a product and the company building it — and make the digital world a little more useful and humane along the way.

That doesn’t have to be cement or industrial software. What I work on matters more to me now than the industry itself.

I want to work on things I’m happy to explain to my kids.

02How I approach problemsSee it in the work →

My job isn’t to make things look better.

  1. Find the real problem

    I collect context, talk to the people involved and question assumptions until there is enough clarity to understand what deserves solving.

  2. Create direction

    I connect user needs, business reality and technological constraints and turn competing perspectives into a direction.

  3. Build leverage

    I look beyond the immediate solution toward systems, tools and structures that make future problems easier to solve.

Solve the problem. Improve the system.

03A few things I believe

  • Good design solves problems for people.

    Visual craft matters. But it is a means toward better outcomes, not the objective itself.

  • Writing is thinking.

    Putting a problem into your own words forces you to test whether you’ve actually understood it. AI makes producing words easier. It doesn’t make understanding optional.

  • Certainty is expensive.

    The question isn’t whether we know everything. It’s whether we know enough for the decision we’re about to make.

    5 users? vs. 1,000 users?

    It depends on what happens if we’re wrong.

04LeadershipLeading HProduce →

Give people clarity.
Then get out of their way.

I believe good leadership creates the conditions for people to do great work without constantly needing their leader.

For around four years I’ve led a UX team of designers and researchers while staying hands-on in the work.

  • Trust

    Give people ownership.

  • Direction

    Make the problem and priorities clear.

  • Challenge

    Good people should challenge your decisions.

  • Growth

    Help people develop their own judgement rather than creating copies of yours.

Leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about helping a team find better ones.

Working with him has taught me how strong design leadership can elevate both the product and the team. He has an incredible ability to see both the big picture and the fine details that make an experience great.

Anna LiatkouskayaDesigner on HProduce, in Florian’s team
05Design + AI

The interface is getting easier.
The problem isn’t.

FromProducing screens

Toward
  1. Research
  2. Frame precisely
  3. Define systems and constraints
  4. AI-enabled creation
  5. Evaluate

The value of design is shifting from producing every solution toward framing the right problems and building the systems that enable good solutions.

06What the path taught meRoles, dates and the full CV →

  1. Craft is the foundation.

    I started in print, trained as a media designer, then studied communication design and creative direction. Typography, layout, image, detail. That foundation is still there in everything I do.

  2. The real problems sit in how people work.

    Enterprise software at SAP changed my focus. The interesting questions were no longer about a single screen, but about how people get their work done — and how products have to be shaped to support that.

  3. Running a business teaches what design school doesn’t.

    Co-founding a UX agency meant acquisition, proposals, negotiation, stakeholder management and administration — and working directly with the people who make the decisions. After about two good years, COVID froze our clients’ budgets and we closed it.

    I’m still proud we did it. And still a little sad it ended.

  4. I like domains where nobody hands you the answer.

    Cement plants, logistics and materials at Heidelberg Materials were not an obvious career destination. They turned out to be full of problems where the solution was genuinely open.

07Outside work
  • Married, father of two.
  • Parent representative for my daughter’s elementary school class.
  • Involved in projects in our neighborhood.
  • Road cyclist.
  • Enthusiastic cook.
  • Traveller.
Ink sketch in a notebook: rain over the mountains around Lake Wanaka, dated 5.4.18.

Lake Wanaka, New Zealand, sketched in 2018. Favourite place, unfortunately on the wrong side of the planet.