Pekka Hartikainen — Product Design Leader

Design leadership delivered.

I lead and grow design teams that turn complex, data-heavy products into tools people genuinely enjoy using. A designer’s craft, a business degree and hands-on front-end skills let me bring design, business and engineering together as one team — with the growth of the people as the first priority.

Executive deck See my profile

Now: Senior Product Designer, Unity
Based: Helsinki, Finland
Education: MA New Media · M.Sc. Economics
Focus: Data-heavy SaaS, design systems, AI

↓ Selected work

Selected work

All work →

Unity: Reporting and payments for a global ad platform

01Unity2022 –Reporting and payments for a global ad platformMulti-million-dollar licensing costs saved by the new reporting

Robocorp: Cloud platform for software robots

02Robocorp2020 – 2022Cloud platform for software robotsFully redesigned UI powered by the Robocorp Design System

Bolder Helsinki: Bootstrapping a creative agency

03Bolder Helsinki2009 – 2011Bootstrapping a creative agencyGrew to over €1M annual turnover while staying profitable

04NostoAI-powered personalization for eCommerce2016 – 2020 05OppexSearch engine for public tenders2015 – 2016 06OmaStadiA sports venue through participatory budgeting2020

Highlights

Multi-million-dollar licensing costs saved by Unity's redesigned reporting, and payment funnel drop-off improved by double digits. The new funnel shipped with multiple payment methods for user-acquisition transfers.
Three design systems in production: Nosto's ships as a private npm package, Robocorp's powers the whole platform, and the Unity payments team shipped Unity's new system first. Built with engineers — from tokens to production components, not handed over as mockups.
Bolder Helsinki grew to €1M+ turnover, bootstrapped and profitable, with a team of 10–12 hired and led as CEO. Biggest client: ING, with the brand-new Kluuvi shopping-centre project.
AI products since 2016: lead designer for Nosto's machine-learning line — segmentation, insights, onsite personalization and A/B testing. Today the AI is in the workflow too: Cursor and Claude Code as daily pair programmers.
Developer platforms from the inside: Robocorp's cloud platform for Python automation, shipped weekly with a remote-first team. Comfortable in the codebase — HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React and Vue.
Two Master's degrees — New Media (Aalto ARTS) and Economics (Aalto BIZ). And the front-end fluency is current: React and Vue, with this site hand-built in Next.js.

Experience

Profile →

2022 –Unity · Senior Product Designer — Lead designer for reporting and payments, interim PM for reporting
2020 – 2022Robocorp · Senior Design Lead — Automation platform for developers
2016 – 2020Nosto · Lead UX Designer — AI-powered eCommerce personalization
2015 – 2016Oppex · Lead Designer — Public procurement search engine
2013 – 2015Decoris · Full-time freelancer — One-man design shop: interfaces with great usability, accessible and responsive websites, e-commerce and iOS apps, plus consulting on recruiting and design strategy
2012 – 2013Idean · Senior Designer — User-centric research and design consultancy: UI/UX and prototyping for public companies and startups
2012Ditto · Designer — San Francisco photo-sharing startup, acquired by Groupon
2009 – 2011Bolder Helsinki · CEO · Partner — Creative agency, €1M+ turnover, 10–12 people

Colleagues

One of Pekka's strengths is that he stays calm even when there is a lot of pressure. He is also able to deliver quick output when needed. Pekka is always ready to help others, even outside of his team.

— Colleague at Robocorp

Contact

Based in Helsinki — always glad to talk design

Emailpekka.t.hartikainengmail.com
Phone+358 40 765 4634
LinkedInin/pekkahartikainen

Email is the most reliable route, and the executive deck covers the essentials in two minutes. Finnish and English both work.