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0:05
Hey everybody, it’s another week of Conversations with Tech HER. Today, I have someone really special for you. This goes back to the day when we met at Google, and she is—well, I have so many ways to describe you, Anna: an arty person, an inspiration. If you need anyone to shine on your stage and talk about UX, this is Anna. Honestly, she's really, really amazing. So, Anna, welcome and thank you for saying yes.
0:36
Anna: Aww, thank you so much, thank you for having me. You said all the nice and right words here. So I'm Anna; I used to work with Google together with Nuriya for a while. We've been doing similar things around user experience, mobile design, and yeah, so happy to continue our connection after, because this is what it is, you know—this is what the community of colleagues gives in the long term, you know, the really quality connections.
1:02
Host (Nuriya): A hundred percent. And someone said to me, “Friendship doesn’t expire because a job does.” So I think this holds very true. And then, you know, I’ve said so many words about you, but how would you describe yourself in three words? It’s just something fun to start.
1:20
Anna: It is—oh my God. Um, yeah, so three words. I would say, uh, one would be “artistic” or “creative,” because I've always been into art and design, even though my whole background is either technical or business. But I always kept this on the side, and maybe at some point was also hoping it’s going to transition into a full-time gig. It’s just not happening yet. So that’s one.
Then second one, hmm, maybe “fun.” So I do believe that even when you’re doing any work, it is important just to enjoy it and have fun. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, if you’re overthinking it or being overly serious, then it’s not the right flow for me, not the right energy. So I’m trying to, you know, really do my best work for my clients, for myself, but then make sure that I have fun on the way.
Yeah, the last one? I don’t know…maybe “consultative,” right? Because I’ve always been in that career of consulting. Even before Google, I was in Accenture, and this is what I really enjoy—just sharing my opinion and really going deep into people’s problems and understanding, “How can I help? What’s the real need here? What is good for the business, what’s good for the user?” So this is the real me—you know, that’s why I just keep doing it.
2:36
Host: For sure. And I think when I met you, it was one of those roles in which you really had to listen to the objectives of the client and really come back with suggestions to help their business with, like, no obvious direct return at that point. So it was definitely a consultative role. It was so good to be able to work with you on that.
And I must say that no one really makes this effort to have this amazing background that you have—that is actually a real background! I love it, the illustration. It proves my point that you’re an arty person. So the love for design was something that united us before but also the love for artwork. Tell us a little bit about what is behind you.
3:29
Anna: Oh, behind me—yeah, this piece is actually not mine; I’m not that good. Also, I work in different techniques, more like printing and maybe mixed media. But this one is by an artist I’ve been following on Instagram. She’s originally from Russia but lives in Portugal. Her name is also Anna, and she was just sharing her personal story on Instagram. I think she was going through some separation at the time and, at some point, was saying that she was really discovering herself and doesn’t know yet what she wants, but the first step on this journey is to acknowledge that what you have now is what you don’t want.
It just spoke to me so much. I think it was back in 2018 or 2019, and I think at some point when I stepped on the journey of rediscovering myself, I contacted her on Instagram. I was like, “Hey Anna, I really love that artwork and the personal story you’ve been sharing.” And I ordered it when I moved into this place. So yeah, it kind of helps me to manifest as well, right, the way she was doing it with the calligraphy—large strokes, quite strong. She was recording the videos and putting them on Instagram, and then when I ordered this artwork, I posted a video of me unpacking it. So it was also quite a statement.
For me, it was a new chapter in my life starting, and I was on this journey of rediscovering myself—where I still am! But yeah, I do love this artwork. People also love it when they come over and visit me. It definitely adds a bit of color to this white and gray Dublin background!
5:00
Host: I love it. And there’s so much to unpack in the rest of the conversation because obviously there are lots of things that we discover in our careers that we actually don’t want. And that gives us a direction towards what we do want. So let’s talk about how careers are not linear. Obviously, I found you somewhere in my midlife at Google; now I’ve moved on to Cloud, but things change and there are bends and turns and you end up somewhere completely different. Can you tell us a little bit about your career at Google, before Google, and where you are now?
5:36
Anna: Yeah. I think that phrase, “career is not linear,” really applies to Google specifically. And I think through Google, I rediscovered that statement. Google is an excellent organization that encourages you to grow in many different ways. Before, I was in consulting, and in consulting, you’re expected to become, like, a senior consultant, then a manager, and so on. If you’re not progressing on that ladder, something’s wrong. At Google, it's always been encouraged to explore things horizontally. You could do 20% projects, which is what I was actually doing at some point with the Google Cultural Institute, because I’m into art. I was helping them run some AdWords campaign or something.
But yeah, most of my time was spent in different product specialist teams. At some point, I started being in this mobile user experience team, which is a consultative team for top Google customers where we learned best practices from Google product teams and took those externally to educate our clients and partners on how good websites can look and how good websites and apps can be designed. It was specifically focused on mobile design because this is where companies really struggle. If you have an app, it was probably already developed with a mobile-first mindset. Websites, though, have this legacy from desktop—trying to squeeze the old, massive desktop website into a small mobile screen. It’s so much less real estate and harder to prioritize. So we were looking into that.
Since I started doing this consultancy, I never looked back. This is what I’m still doing now, although it was quite a journey—again, as you said, career is not linear. I took a break. I was traveling a bit, but it was also more of a mental health break, which is something you may not expect in your career when you plan right after university. Now I’m coming back with the same kind of services and consultancy but at a different level—as an entrepreneur. So I stepped up and set up my own agency, my own consultancy.
I was also kind of facing the choices: “Do I want to keep it on a freelance basis, or do I want to set up a company?” I realized that I do know some things that clients are looking for. I know some methodologies that work in consulting, and I want to scale that. I know how to scale it, and I want to scale it. And there are so many companies in need of an expert opinion—“Am I doing the right thing?” Literally anyone who has a website or an app can benefit from an expert opinion: “Hey guys, are we doing the right thing? What should we change?”
This is where we come in with our advice—but not just random things. We actually have very streamlined frameworks with different checklists and methodologies. We can audit your website, or we can run a design sprint or run a user lab. You had the stream with Aite recently, right? She was at Google at the foundation of the user labs, and it was brilliant. This is what we can do as well. It’s a combination of different services, depending on what works for our clients, because over years at Google, they proved very efficient and clients loved them.
8:40
Host: Perfect. You already touched upon a lot of your journey toward entrepreneurship, because that is one of the key principles and words I was going to use at the beginning, but I didn’t want to spoil it. So yeah, you’ve been on this journey to find yourself as a business owner. Is there anything you might want to share with people who are on the path toward that? Is there anything you’ve learned recently that you wish you knew? And can you tell us a bit about your team? What’s one thing that comes to mind when you think about entrepreneurship?
9:15
Anna: Maybe I’ll start from my journey. I started about a year ago, after I left Google, and it was a good time to set up the agency because we know how to consult clients on UX. We have the methodologies. But then, again, at Google, I always had clients brought to me. Now I had to step up and look for them myself, proactively put myself out there. That was definitely a challenge.
Also, in the very beginning, I did have clients—which is great; I was very lucky. That kept me going. But at the same time, I was a solo entrepreneur, and this is one of the most challenging things I’ve done. Because, as someone who is a bit of a perfectionist, that’s a rabbit hole. I was delivering excellent consultations for clients, spending way too much time on that, also searching for new clients, and I was the one making decisions on the legal entity, what website platform to use. I swear, at some point, I was sketching the logo myself! I’m very happy I was finally introduced to a great designer, and now we have a professional logo, not my design.
But yeah, at the moment, this is a trap—the perfectionist trap. You want to do everything yourself; you want to control. But you keep hearing, “You need to start delegating.” Yet when it comes to that, it’s so hard. But you cannot do it all alone. At some point, you’ll lose one of the pillars—you’ll compromise either on the quality of work or you won’t be able to find new clients. So at some point, I started hiring people. Right now, I’m very, very lucky—I have four people on my team, and we’re hiring two more. Some came from my years at Google, some are shared connections from the network, but I’m very lucky. We already had our first offsite in Belgrade, and we plan to have one more this year in Thailand.
It’s a really great energy that people are bringing, because I’ve been in this business for years—consulting on UX. When new people come in, they bring new perspectives, new ideas; it’s fantastic to see that. It challenges me. That’s what you want as the owner: hire people who are smarter than you, who bring new perspectives and challenge you as well.
11:18
Host: First of all, that was super powerful—I want to celebrate you. Six people in your team—congratulations. You did it! I really want to celebrate that. I hear you: you’ve had multiple hats, from financial, strategic, consulting, delivery, project management, design…all those different hats you have to wear as a business owner, but it’s the team that creates that success. I’m super happy about that. So tell us: what’s the name of the agency?
11:49
Anna: Yes, yeah, I haven’t mentioned it yet—oh my God. It’s called Call to Action Digital. “Call to action—it’s time to optimize your website!”
12:00
Host: Exactly. So Call to Action Digital—everyone, remember that for the UX audits.
12:05
Anna: Yes!
12:06
Host: You mentioned that some of the clients are looking for the three big things we see on the screen: an audit, design sprints, user labs. Tell us a bit more—who are your ideal clients, and what questions do they have?
12:21
Anna: Yeah. One of the reasons I set up the consultancy in the first place was that UX is still a challenge. Getting UX right is still hard for many companies, for lots of reasons. There can be legacy infrastructure reasons—if the website has been around a long time. There can be political reasons—the team is very big and can’t align. Or people simply lack the knowledge to know what good UX is.
My clients still come from different places—mostly medium and large businesses in Europe and the Middle East. Really, it can be anyone with a website or an app. My clients come with a few challenges: sometimes they’re product teams that want to learn more and get a fresh perspective on their design. When you work on the same product day to day, you lose the wide perspective. A consultant brings that wider perspective, and we always challenge people by saying, “You’re not only competing with your direct competitors; you’re competing with the best experience a user has ever had on their mobile phone.” If they completed an application form in three clicks somewhere, and it pulled all their info automatically, they’ll remember that. Maybe it was an insurance app or a taxi app, but it doesn’t matter. They’ll say, “Why is this process so long? I know it’s possible to do it in a few clicks.” So we challenge product managers: “You’re not just competing with direct competitors; you need to look out for companies providing excellent UX throughout the journey.”
The other teams I work with are marketing teams. They usually have some budget to get an audience and drive them to the website, and they want to increase the ROI from marketing campaigns. That’s where we help with the final conversion rate. We look at the entire funnel, starting from the ad, to see how relevant the ad message is, and then maybe there’s a form, a quiz, or some step, and finally the purchase or app download. We review that funnel and the entire user journey, helping marketing teams get the most out of their website. Because you could spend so much on ads, but if the website or app can’t be navigated properly, that’s a big problem.
From these two groups—product and marketing—there are key challenges that remain so relevant. I’ve been consulting companies for seven years, and I see that mobile UX is still an issue. I’ve seen the recent research by the Baymard Institute, “The State of Mobile UX in 2024.” They say about 62% of websites have only a “decent” mobile performance, and about 40% have “poor” mobile performance. That is shocking. Meanwhile, in a Google study I saw when I was at Google, 85% of product teams think their mobile performance is good or excellent.
So there’s a huge gap between what product managers think and what their products actually are. Users don’t think it’s good, so there’s still room for improvement. And there’s that gap. The product teams who want to improve come to us saying, “We want to know where we can improve—maybe we aren’t as good as we thought,” or, “Show us what to change.” They want to be better than the competition. That’s one action item I highly recommend to any business owner: come and see where you can improve on mobile. We review everything—UX, website speed, which is so fundamental to the holistic user experience, and accessibility. There’s a new European Accessibility Act in 2025, next June, and companies want to know if they’re compliant. That’s something we also do: run checks and map out what you need to do, including training your teams—designers, developers, and so forth.
The last thing people ask about (and we don’t have an official service for it yet, but we’re working on it) is AI for UX. If you’re an online retailer or insurance company, for example, you hear about AI everywhere, but how do you use AI to enhance your user experience on your site? At what points in the user journey could AI pop up, and how should it look in the UI? Like how Zara.com recently implemented an AI chatbot instead of a standard search bar; you talk to it instead of typing a search for “blue t-shirt,” and it offers options. So having real use cases, understanding what use cases exist for your industry, and then how it appears in the user journey—what’s best practice, what are do’s and don’ts—that’s something we’re working on.
For all these services, we consult only; we’re not an implementation partner. But we do have recommendations, because from witnessing it over the years, implementation is where companies struggle the most, and we want to support that however we can.
16:40
Host: Amazing. The strategic part, the design part, the implementation—it creates this cohesive chain of development you need, and it’s great to have such a good partner out there now. Call to Action Digital, everyone—remember that for the UX audit, design sprints, and user labs.
I find it very inspiring that you’ve put together a globally distributed team with a different approach to your work. You’ve really moved from where I met you to a completely different version of Anna. I’m just in awe of who you’ve become and what you’ve accomplished. Is there anything else you want to say to inspire others? Anything you want to share? The floor is yours.
17:25
Anna: Hmm, maybe an inspirational story… Let me think. Over the last year, I got a little bit into Buddhism, because after Google, I traveled for a while. For a time, I was living in Thailand, in a kind of Buddhist commune. You go there as a volunteer and work in the field—proper volunteering—get dirty in the mud and help build the eco-village. But they give you so much back in return: education, a personal journey of healing and transformation. I’m absolutely in love with that project; it’s called Mindfulness Project Thailand. It’s a nonprofit organization set up by a German couple, and I’ve been so inspired by how they give kindness to the world, how they give so much more to people than they ask for.
I immediately wanted to help them with the website, so I optimized their UX a bit, set up Google Ads for Nonprofits, and I’m actually still thinking of returning to volunteer more this winter. They give so much back. I learned so much about myself; I started meditating daily, I’m doing yoga regularly—it all fits together. It’s thanks to them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to apply those principles in my own consultancy: making it not about me, but about my clients. How can I make it a win for them? What are their actual needs? If I can’t help you, maybe you don’t need the consultation right now, and that’s fine. But how can I be of service?
If people see how genuine our interest is in improving user experience, in caring about the end user… Because at the end of the day, users don’t care about your internal politics; they just want a smooth experience. Many companies optimize for conversions, which can be a trap—very short-term and based on AB tests. It’s easy to get stuck in that. So it’s my challenge, as a consultant, to make it more about the user.
I want my consultancy—and I encourage other businesses—to make every situation a win-win, so that your clients succeed, users succeed, and that’s how the business can succeed. That’s really coming from Buddhism, where you find models and situations of making things beneficial for everyone. That’s my inspirational story. I want to share more on LinkedIn about the Mindfulness Project in Thailand—volunteering, living in the fields again. I’m not sure if it’s fully compatible with corporate life, but…
20:00
Host: Let’s plug it in. What I heard is you took inspiration from their project and how they serve, and now you’re applying it to your own agency and entrepreneurial journey: “How can I provide that win-win situation for everybody?” That kind of ecosystem for your partners and clients.
So as we’re closing, is there anything you want to say as a bottom line—something people should remember or something inspiring you recently?
20:25
Anna: Maybe it’s not something I heard, but something I learned through doing this last year of being an entrepreneur. I’m a bit of an overthinker, and a lot of people have that problem. It also comes with indecisiveness. I found that out through meditation—I realized how indecisive I am. I’m always thinking, “Should I do that instead? Is this the right thing?” That can kill all action sometimes. If you find yourself in those situations often, you need to learn—well, I’ve learned—that my best bet is just to do the action.
Action brings you actual feedback. It’s not just in your head; you put something into the world, and you see the reaction. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing, but at least you created some momentum, you got feedback, and you can adjust. This is why I love entrepreneurship, actually. You step out of the corporate world and think, “Oh my God, what am I going to do?” But then you realize the whole world is your arena. You can work with anyone—no longer constrained by your organization. If you’re interested in working with someone and trust them, you can do it.
So maybe right now I started this consultancy, but I already see it bringing me so many other ideas and connections. I meet people all over the world who bring new perspectives—it’s brilliant. So my advice is, whenever you’re hesitating, start doing. The first steps, anything—action is what brings real feedback that you can act on, more than just thinking.
22:03
Host: Amazing, thank you so much for that. And people out there, you know what this is, right? It’s a space to connect, to get to know someone, to be inspired, and to start a conversation. That’s what Conversations with Tech HER is all about. So now you know Anna, and you can say hi. If you’re looking for a great speaker, if you need someone to share a new perspective on UX challenges, or if you want your teams to be trained by her, talk to Anna or to her team. I’m very sure you’ll be helped, or like you said, if it’s not the right time, it’s not the right time, and maybe we’ll talk later.
I’ll put her details here—please start a conversation. And I’ll see you next week. Thank you so much, Anna.
22:50
Anna: Thank you, Nuriya, and thanks everyone. Thank you!
22:55
[End of conversation / music fades]
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