Zena Zerai · London
The full story.
I'm Zena, a Senior Product Designer in London, at GWI. I've spent around eight years designing digital products across agencies and scale-ups, from financial services and government platforms to AI-powered tools.
Before product design, I studied law and worked in music PR at Universal Music. Two seemingly different worlds, but both taught me things that have made me a better designer.
Law taught me to unpick complexity, question assumptions and build a case for the right solution.
And who would have thought helping get Rod Stewart on the radio would have parallels with design? It turns out both involve understanding your audience, navigating competing agendas, building relationships and occasionally convincing people that your idea (or song) is worth listening to.
At heart, I'm a maker.
I love getting stuck into a problem, experimenting with ideas and seeing what I can create. That might mean designing products at work, tinkering with AI side projects or making music. For me, it's all about turning an idea into something tangible.
01 UX / Product Design
- Design IA, user flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity prototypes
- Create accessible, responsive, and consistent interfaces
- Apply and evolve design systems at scale
- Partner with engineers for smooth handoff and delivery
02 User Research
- Lead generative and evaluative research across stages
- Combine qual + quant to uncover user needs and behaviours
- Translate insights into clear design direction
- Build alignment through findings and storytelling
03 UX Strategy
- Align design vision with business goals and user outcomes
- Facilitate workshops to drive product and team alignment
- Prioritise features and roadmap decisions with evidence
- Define and track UX metrics to measure impact
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Senior Product Designer GWI2026–present
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Senior Experience Designer Valtech2024–2025
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Senior Experience Designer Kin+Carta/The App Business2020–24
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Volunteer UX Designer Action for Children2019
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Radio & Streaming Manager Universal Music2014–2018
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Teaching & Mentoring
Created lessons and taught UX at Ravensbourne Uni and for underpressed groups at Code Untapped. Helping K+C win BCorp status.
Link to 3-part seminars -
Speaking and Hosting
Organised and compered Tech Circus event and spoke on International Women's Day Panel for K+C.
Watch back the event -
Design Writing
Chief Editor of Valtech's Design Blog 'Design Assets'. Interviewed Luis Ouirach from Figma and featured a visit to Google's offices.
Check out the blog -
Mental Health First Aider
Trained as an employee Mental Health first aider, to support colleagues experiencing poor mental health.
As you may have guessed from my portfolio, I'm a bit of a music fan. When I'm not working I love to write songs, play the guitar and dabble with music production on Logic Pro, something I've done since I was a teenager.
I put out a few tunes; you can check them out below. My music is inspired by Radiohead, Deftones and Sharon Van Etten to name a few.
On stage
