Vera Kravchuk

Design leader, Author, Speaker, Lead Instructor

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Role

Lead Product Designer

Vera Kravchuk
Founder

Of UX Design school

Class of 2019

About me

My approach to design leadership is built on my belief that exceptional products emerge from exceptional teams. 

Drawing from my experience as a designer, manager, and educator, I’ve cultivated a leadership philosophy that prioritises people development, cross-functional collaboration, and strategic design operations. I nurture designers of all levels through personalised mentoring that gradually builds autonomy, while establishing collaborative frameworks that elevate historically underrepresented voices in the design process. 

My teaching background has uniquely prepared me to identify potential in diverse backgrounds, challenge limiting design orthodoxies, and provide individualised guidance that helps professionals discover their authentic creative voice. 

Find out more about me

Case studies

My case studies are a bit of a mix of work I have done in the design course over the span of my career. 

Over the last few years my focus has been on building the best design teams, creating strong collaborative culture, and making data-based decisions.

Before that, I taught design to hundreds of students who went on to become incredible designers in their own right.

Beyond all that, I have also worked on websites, Saas platforms, apps – almost every type of digital product.

 

Transforming Design Team Workflow with Jira

Read case study

HeadGear

See more case studies

Additional experience

I have worked in the industry since 2013, and apart from working as a designer and building teams, I have also accomplished the following:

Design Insights & Publications

Early in my career, I contributed to the design community through published articles in industry blogs, sharing insights on collaboration and adversity. These publications have helped me connect to the broader design community.

Speaking Engagements

Throughout my career, I've shared design knowledge through various public speaking engagements. This has included design bootcamps and focused talks on specialised topics including portfolio development, responsive design principles, and UI design fundamentals.

Curriculum Development

Beyond teaching existing material, I've developed original design content that has been included in various courses in Australia. I've created comprehensive course content covering UX fundamentals, UI design principles, intuitive design, and effective workshop facilitation techniques.

My strengths

Leadership effectiveness stems from authentic strengths. After years of building design teams and reflecting on feedback, I’ve recognised these three distinguishing qualities in my approach:

Building exceptional teams

 My approach to developing teams is focused on personalised approach with everyone on the team. I, focus on nurturing confidence alongside technical skill — creating leaders, not just executors.

Cross-functional collaboration

My approach to cross-functional collaboration is founded on the belief that meaningful engagement must begin early, always be iterated, and involve everyone on the team – not just one person.

Process innovation

Through continuous, collaborative iteration of workflows, I’ve helped designers to focus their energy where it matters most—on creative problem-solving and impactful design work.

What People are Saying

Don’t take my word for it though, here’s what others are saying:

★★★★★ 5/5
"I had the pleasure of working alongside Vera during the part-time UX design course at Academy XI. I couldn't have asked for a better mentor to learn from. Vera's passion for teaching and practicing UX design is evident from the second you meet her. She's a knowledgeable, yet humble and approachable professional. She empowers the students to perform at their best. I had the privilege to see her magic work in a short period of 10 weeks and see the group of students flourish, taking their project and personal development to the next level, delivering outstanding presentations and projects at the end of the course. Vera's teaching methodology stood out to me. She adapts the content to the UX industry real needs, making the learning experience a lot more valuable and closer to what the students will face in the market once they leave the campus. She brings her experience as a practitioner and a teacher, iterating her own methodology at each intake and continuously improving the students' experience."
Cimara Carneiro
Service Designer
★★★★★ 5/5
"Absolutely fearless in all aspects of her work. Always embracing challenges. I have never met a more driven individual with the ability to rally others the way Vera does. The talents she possess can't be taught."
Shant Safarian
Design Director
★★★★★ 5/5
"Having an active practitioner in the UX industry teaching you is already valuable to any student but someone who is also immensely passionate about Design and the unexplored territories such as Design Ethics is a gift. Vera is not only passionate about design, but teaching design and helping young designers change the world for the better — being an advocate for good design and upholding the standards of design for the betterment of our industry."
Stephen Kung
Product Designer and past student
★★★★★ 5/5
"Vera is a remarkably talented, hard-working individual who would make a valuable colleague and employee for any organisation. In my past few years at Universal Magazines, Vera has grown substantially in the areas of design, user experience and front-end coding. She has experienced growth not only from the projects she has engaged with but also through her tireless commitment to seek further education in these subjects. I have worked with her on countless projects, most notably on the development of our first entirely-digital magazine, homeINSPIRE, and the redesign of our largest website, Complete Home. In the digital magazines project, Vera provided much needed advice on the subject of user experience, researching other digital magazines available and testing how they worked – and how we could improve ours. Her designs for this were also unique and appealing, perfect for the subject matter. In the redevelopment of Complete Home, Vera was a vital team member. From the research she provided in areas of design, user experience and our competitors to her passionate views on the direction of the project to the user testing she ran, the end product is a direct result of Vera’s expertise and hard-work. Her work in designing the website then coding the entire front end was a huge endeavour considering the size of the website, and the launch itself has been an ongoing success. I would thoroughly recommend Vera Kravchuk for any design or user experience based role. She is a valuable team member, a hard worker and a delight to work with."
Lauren Farquhar
Senior Product Manager
★★★★★ 5/5
"I rarely come across real mentors, teachers and professionals who stand out like Vera. Her enthusiasm and curiosity about everything around her are tremendous and it helped the team achieve phenomenal goals. She always provided insightful ways to make us to get the concept clearly, being always open to discuss ideas and suggestions. She is a great listener. I learnt not only a lot about UX design, process and design thinking from her, but also how crucial is to have human needs at heart. I was impressed by Vera’s ability to motivate us and consistently helping us to maintain the focus on the problem, we ended up in being able to deal with even the toughest challenge thanks to her, she is absolutely a great mentor and a leader. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Vera on both a professional and personal level, and being mentored by her it’s a rare opportunity to have! She is an amazing talent with a strong work ethic to learn from. I could't be thankful enough for her lessons and I wish everyone could had more teachers and team leader like Vera!"
Elisa Borinato
Past student

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