Discovery, Framing & Launch

Nicolas El Azzi

Product & Design Strategy

I help teams move from idea to launch: framing ambiguous problems, building teams and products from scratch, and getting things off the ground.

Business

Galeries Lafayette
300k€

Revenue generated in 3 weeks by launching a new shipping initiative.
Schneider Electric
−50%

Rejected orders cut by overhauling the B2B data governance platform.
Salsify
75%

Product page load time reduced, closing 2 new APAC deals.

Team and delivery

Salsify
3 designers

Hired & onboarded in 6 months after a full team turnover in France.
Salsify
−30%

Designer ramp-up time thanks to a redesigned onboarding program.
Ippon Technologies
x2

Design team headcount scaled through a targeted hiring strategy.

Frame decisions in ambiguous domains

Turn an unclear problem into an actionable direction, before anyone else has decided where to start.
Build teams and functions from zero

Recruit, structure, and lay the foundations of a team or practice that didn't exist before, with clear expectations and accountability.
Align stakeholders to get things moving

Bring Design, Product, and Engineering (or clients and partners) around a shared direction, to launch, not just to maintain.

I operate hands-on during the framing and discovery phase,
then step back once the direction is set and the team owns execution.

Rebuilding the EU Design Function

Salsify

Senior Manager, Product Design
- Rebuilt the design function from zero, two months after the entire team departed.
- Built structural DesignOps foundations before scaling delivery velocity.
3 designers Hired & onboarded in 6 months

−30% designer ramp-up time

−40% duplicated research

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Transforming a Critical B2B Data Governance Platform

Schneider Electric

Design Lead
- Reframed the problem from "user journey" to "data journey".
- Forced prioritization discipline through OKRs.
- Embedded engineering into discovery.
1 monthly release (vs 3 per year)

−30% rejected orders

−50% publishing workload

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Omnichannel In-Store Experience

Galeries Lafayette

Design Lead / UX Manager
- Built design capability inside the project.
- Adapted methods to retail reality.
- Designed staff and customer touchpoints as one system.
300k€ in 3 weeks (Ship from store)

80 journeys in first days (Hands free shopping)

X2 compared to target

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Launching The Home Coach

The Home Coach

Founder — solo, AI as a working partner
- Turned a personal skill and a loose inspiration into a live, bookable service, alone.
- Designed the AI collaboration model itself before starting: roles and prompts, stage by stage.
- Covered research, strategy, brand, code, and launch content end to end.
Solo No team, no client brief

5 disciplines Research to launch, covered solo

2026 Live launch

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