My
Story
My Professional Journey as a Senior Engineering Leader
I have progressed from engineer to strategic leader, driving impactful digital transformations and building high-performing teams at organisations like Sainsbury’s and Fidelity International. My focus has always been on aligning engineering strategies with business goals, fostering team growth, and achieving measurable results.
Leadership in Action
Success Stories
Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to lead diverse teams to overcome challenges, innovate, and achieve extraordinary results. Below are a few stories that highlight the impact of my leadership style on team performance and organizational success.
Building a New Engineering Team at Sainsbury’s
Challenge: Launching a major digital initiative to enhance customer engagement required building a high-performing engineering team from scratch.
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Approach: In the first four months, I recruited a cross-functional team and established a culture of collaboration and agility. I streamlined processes and aligned efforts with Sainsbury’s goals.
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Outcome: The team quickly delivered an enhanced digital experience, setting new standards for customer engagement and showcasing the impact of a strong, empowered engineering team.
Establishing Global Design Standards at Fidelity International
Building a cohesive team of engineers across locations to implement and standardize Global Design Standards (GDS) within Fidelity’s digital ecosystem.
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Aligned GDS with company goals, using strategic communication and governance to drive adoption. Fostered a collaborative culture focused on quality and consistency across digital platforms.
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Successfully implemented GDS across 226 websites, improving user experience and streamlining workflows. The team’s work led to a 30% reduction in deployment time and set a new benchmark for quality.
Fostering Growth and Innovation at Esure Group
Challenge: Enhancing digital acquisition and customer marketing initiatives within a competitive B2C insurance landscape.
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Approach: Developed an engineering team with a focus on agile practices, fostering a culture of iterative improvement and customer focus.
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Outcome: Achieved a 20% reduction in sprint cycle time and significantly boosted user engagement and business performance through A/B testing and interface optimization.
Engineering an Inclusive Digital Experience at RSA Insurance Group
Enhance accessibility and user experience across RSA’s platforms, ensuring inclusive and engaging web solutions for all users.
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Working at scale, we re-engineered vital platforms, including the More Than website, implementing standardized UI components and an accessible, scalable front-end architecture. The team adopted a user-centric approach, ensuring all solutions were tested rigorously for inclusivity across devices and demographics.
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The result was a globally accessible, highly engaging digital experience that increased user retention and site traffic. This transformation won internal recognition at RSA’s Hackathon, validating our success in creating innovative, user-first solutions that set a new standard for inclusivity and scalability.
Stuart Trevithick
Global Head of Digital Standards and Practice at Fidelity International
"Elena is an active listener, gives others space to contribute and is an expert in her field. I place my trust in Elena to make the right decisions on any technical aspect of engineering. Elena is a first-class engineer, people manager and leader. You would be lucky to have secured her for a role at your company."
Kruthi Bharath
Frontend Web Developer at J.P.Morgan
"Elena actively provided constructive feedback and facilitated continuous professional development. Elena was always reliable as she provided hands-on technical support on running optimisation experiments and complex web development tasks whenever needed."
Jonas Vogel
Business Operations | Change Management | Leadership
“Elena excels in remote team management, skillfully overseeing hiring, onboarding, and ongoing development to foster a collaborative work environment.
I highly recommend Elena for her outstanding contributions, leadership skills, and commitment to driving results. She is not only a valuable team member but also a pleasure to work with.”