Brand System / Design Leadership

XPUP — Academy of Digital Industries

New brand, creative system and design team for a Tether-backed EdTech — co-developed with the Head of Brand.

Services

Creative Direction
Brand Identity & Creative System
Multi-Market Campaigns
Acquisition & Landing Experiences
Creative Testing
Design Operations

YearNov 2024 — Present

LocationBarcelona / Remote

Two brands, four markets, one design team

Academy of Digital Industries is a Tether-backed AI and digital-skills education group working in Czechia, Kazakhstan, Georgia and the UK. I joined in November 2024 as Head of Design inside the core Marketing team, where the work arrived every day: campaigns, landing experiences, motion and market-specific communication — on some days around 20 different requests, with priorities that changed by the hour. At the same time, the business was evolving from one brand into two. I co-developed XPUP with the Head of Brand: brand strategy was theirs; I led the design side, from the first visual explorations to the identity, the creative system and its rollout across markets. XPUP launched in May 2026 in Czechia, Kazakhstan and the UK; Georgia kept the Academy of Digital Industries brand. Instead of one global formula, we kept a consistent brand core and let each market adapt language, imagery and campaign context to its audience and culture. Working with Advertising, Sales/CRM and market leads, we treated acquisition as a journey rather than isolated assets: lead magnets, ebooks, AI tests and calculators, educational content and the landing experiences that connect them. Selected initiatives generated hundreds of leads in aggregate.

Challenge

Serve four very different markets with daily campaign demand — on some days around 20 different design requests — while the business evolved from one brand into two and needed a new identity.

Approach

Lead the design side of the new XPUP brand with the Head of Brand, adapt one brand core to each market, and replace reactive production with intake, prioritisation, review and QA.

Outcome

XPUP launched in May 2026 in Czechia, Kazakhstan and the UK, while Georgia kept the Academy of Digital Industries brand. The new way of working contributed to an approximately 60% improvement in delivery turnaround without increasing team costs, and selected acquisition initiatives generated hundreds of leads in aggregate.

I built and led a multidisciplinary design team of six direct reports — motion and graphic designers from junior to senior — with clear ownership, quality standards, mentoring and structured creative review. One designer grew from junior to mid-level along the way. The hardest problem wasn't craft; it was the trade-off between time, cost and quality. Speeding everything up at constant cost was eating the space to explore and think. So we changed how work came in: intake, ticketing, prioritisation by business impact, deadline, dependency and team capacity, plus review and QA — and practical AI and new creative tools where they genuinely saved time. Part of the job was explaining, inside the company, why briefing, exploration and feedback are not delays but the work itself. With the CMO and the Head of Advertising, we also set up creative testing around hypotheses, variables, KPIs and shared learnings, so creative decisions could be judged against audience response, not taste alone. Together, these changes contributed to an approximately 60% improvement in delivery turnaround — without increasing team costs or sacrificing creative quality.

Making quality repeatable

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