Meet Denise, our cat whisperer.

Meet Denise — our UX Designer. Denise is a designer, brand strategist, and creative marketing geek with 10+ years of experience working in the games and tech, advertising, hospitality, and development sectors. Having lived in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East, and prone to frequent traveling, she is keen on understanding different cultures and their impact on user experience, design, and communications. Restless as a storm, Denise is also passionate about studying new languages, gaming, sports and taking baby steps to move outside her comfort zone.

Hi Denise!

• Please describe your journey to savedroid.
• Do you mean how I got here? *laughs*
• *laughs* No, it’s not literally how, like from the main station, but how did you decide to work for savedroid?
• Before savedroid, I was working in development for a foundation in Jordan. Then one day, I got a message from a recruiter asking if I would be interested in discussing this role. After several interviews and discussions, I went on a trip to Germany to visit family and that time I also had what was called the “trial day” at savedroid. The office was located in the garage back then. People seemed to be really relaxed and friendly; I liked the idea of the product and thought it had a lot of potential; and from there, things just rolled into place. And here I am now.

• What do you like about your role?
• I’ve done a lot of user experience and design thinking work before, so this isn’t new to me. But I’m more into experience design — of which UX is a part of — so I love thinking of the user’s experience across different touch-points outside the app, for example, from brand to product. What I really like about this particular role is, because we’re a startup, I’m working on UI, visual design, and marketing, which creates a mix of different tasks. That’s exciting.
• Did you work in other industries before?
• I’ve worked in a startup before, but this is my first go at fintech. Previously, I’ve worked in the development, games, hospitality, and advertising industries — in the Philippines, Indonesia, Jordan, and Germany.
• What are your greatest professional strengths?
• Adaptability, in a lot of ways. For instance, I’ve worked in various sectors and countries, and have had to adapt to different things — whether it’s the topic I’m focusing on, environment, team or others. Especially with design, everything is changing constantly. The popular design 10 years ago would be very different from now. There will always be new software, styles, trends and you have to be adaptable to it. But of course it’s not always about trends, because adaptability is also about understanding the brand really well so your design translates the idea behind it, regardless of what’s new out there. Another very important thing is being open to learning. Keep learning! Those are probably my biggest strengths that I’m really grateful for.
• What’s your greatest professional achievement?
• At a personal level, my greatest achievement would be that I successfully raised two rescue cats from Jordan. They are healthy with just an acceptable level of craziness. Half-kidding. Professionally, this is where my answer changes depending on the day, month, and how I feel. Right this moment, my biggest professional achievement — or at least I consider it an achievement — is that I’ve worked in different fields, countries, and roles and I’ve adapted successfully to them. In each project and company I worked for, I learned something that I managed to bring along with me to apply to the next one.
• Can you tell me about a challenge you’ve faced at work, and how you dealt with it?
• There’s a lot of challenges at work that need to be overcome. For example, working relationships. When it comes to people, one key policy I have is: professional is different from personal. We might be best friends personally, but it doesn’t guarantee we will be best buddies professionally. It’s important to not take things and business decisions personally, and it’s a challenge to separate these two sometimes. When it comes to work, especially in the creative industry, there’s always a little bit of pain when somebody criticizes your work. *laughs* It’s particularly when people criticize it “just because”. But, overtime, I’ve learned to accept criticism a lot better, especially those that help me improve.
• What do you think is the most interesting thing about the industry of cryptocurrency?
• That the industry is changing so quickly. When I first heard about it in 2011, I was asked if I wanted to invest 200EUR in Bitcoin. I remembered thinking that this was nothing, even a bit weird. Now, fast forward less than 10 years later, 1BTC is worth about 10000USD. But even though crypto is growing really fast, it’s still not regulated yet and there’s still quite a lot of misconception about it. I find its “mysteriousness” and the way it works interesting.
• What tip would you give to somebody who’d like to invest in crypto?
• I’d advice them to not invest blindly. Do at least your basic research, try to understand what you’re getting into, and if it’s really for you. It’s exciting, but just like any other investment, it’s your responsibility to control your own money.
• What do you like to do outside of work?
• Definitely sports — it’s very important to me. It helps keeps me balanced. At the moment, kickboxing and yoga are my go-to. I started doing yoga because in the last couple of years, I was doing martial arts that led to some knee injuries. I also like walking my cats. They have their leash on and we normally just go for a walk in the park. They’re probably dogs in the form of cats. *laughs*
• One thing without you cannot survive.
• Dessert. I get very grumpy if I don’t have at least one dessert per day. Chocolate is my favorite.
• Has there ever been a long break from desserts?
• I can have enough desserts in one sitting. This morning, I had 2 slices of cake for breakfast and I decided it was enough sugar for today. But I’m pretty sure that I will have another sweet treat tomorrow. Oh. Once, I had some skin troubles because I was having too much sugar. I actually gave a zero-sugar diet a try and, yeah, I think I lasted 4 days. Denise without desserts is not a safe area. *laughs*
• Where do you see yourself in five years?
• I follow a Japanese concept called “Ikigai”. It’s the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what you’re paid for, and what the world needs. Not all people find their ‘ikigai’, but I think mine is really design. I see myself still doing something creative five years from now. I love it. I think I’m good at it. I’m still being paid for it, and the world always needs creativity.
• Thank you Denise for the great talk!
• Thank you!

Your savedroid Team, cheers!