Manuela Zavattaro
Master's in Interaction Design
Year of Graduation: 2002
Current role: Product and UX leader
Country: Italy
Manuela is a Product Design Leader with over 20 years of experience transforming complex technology into delightful user experiences. She graduated in Master in Interaction Design at Domus Academy in Milan in 2002.
Since then, she dedicated her entire career to improving lives, collaborating with major companies on the market. She is a strategic organizational partner, bringing stakeholders together to define the big picture and transform visions into market-ready solutions. She has navigated a spectrum of product design, from pioneering brand-new experiences (‘zero to one’) to architecting comprehensive design systems that laid the foundation for multiple products, reaching millions of users.
Manuela is a Product Design Leader with over 20 years of experience transforming complex technology into delightful user experiences. She graduated in Master in Interaction Design at Domus Academy in Milan in 2002.
Since then, she dedicated her entire career to improving lives, collaborating with major companies on the market. She is a strategic organizational partner, bringing stakeholders together to define the big picture and transform visions into market-ready solutions. She has navigated a spectrum of product design, from pioneering brand-new experiences (‘zero to one’) to architecting comprehensive design systems that laid the foundation for multiple products, reaching millions of users.
During her tenure at Nokia from 2006 to 2018, she integrated physical and digital elements to create impactful user experiences for mobile phones used by billions of people. Her work contributed significantly to Nokia’s entry into the Digital Health space and played a key role in developing and launching several health coaching programs, resulting in a vast audience of users to live healthier and longer lives.
Since 2021 she has been working for Google, where she led growth initiatives that significantly enhanced small businesses’ visibility and searchability on Maps and Search by establishing a global scalable platform. She also led the complex effort of simplifying the onboarding experience of millions of businesses on several Google business products.
Currently, she is based in San Francisco, where she advises and coaches small to medium-sized companies on strategy, product definition, and go-to-market strategy. She also facilitates team setup and processes while coaching leadership on a user-centered design approach.
“Domus Academy was fundamental for my career. It taught me to look at the world around me with curiosity, really think about who I design for, and consider how the needs of our users must be met to build meaningful products.”
