About

I’m Christoffer Kittel, a design leader with 20+ years in the field and more than ten in leadership. I build and lead design functions in product companies that are changing faster than their organisations. Alongside leading, I still design and build myself, mostly where it sets the direction or raises the bar for the team.

Christoffer Kittel

Experience

  1. 2023-

    Christoffer Kittel AB

    Freelance Consultant

    Product Design, Product Strategy, Fractional Leadership, Thought Partnership, Speaker. Helping startups, established tech companies, organisations in transformation, schools etc. Clients include Epidemic Sound, Stim, Bergs School of Communication, Northern Standard, Lokaalt.

  2. 2024 - 2026

    Relex

    Head of Design, Pricing & Promotions

    I led Design for the Price & Promotions unit, a product area rooted in data, logic and configuration, where usability and clarity are real differentiators. I managed a team of seven product designers, including two leads, and built a design culture that supported both quality and growth.

    Working closely with Product and Engineering, I helped shape direction and bring structure to ambiguity. I also led the team's move to an AI-first way of working: from a couple of designers trying the tools to everyone using AI across the whole design process, all the way to opening pull requests themselves, without slowing delivery.

    Read the case study: Leading design at the pace of the organisation
  3. 2021 - 2023

    Mentimeter

    VP Product Design

    I joined Mentimeter as the first formal leader of the design craft, with the mission to help grow and mature the design team as well as helping Mentimeter scale their Product organisation and ways of working.

    I established tools, processes and principles for the Design team, including role descriptions, career frameworks, process toolkits, rituals and cultural norms. I also created and recruited the growing team through organisational design and principles. By 2023 the team was 26 people, including 4 managers overseeing Product Design, User Research, Content Design, Design Operations and a Design Systems Team.

    As part of the Product leadership trio (with CPO and VP Engineering) I established and curated concepts like the Trio model, Empowered teams, Outcome based goal setting, Continuous Product Discovery, Prototype driven explorations, cross functional literacy, Strategic frameworks, Proactive alignment, user centricity etc.

    I was also part of the bigger leadership forum, helping younger leaders succeed and grow.

    Joined as Design Director, was promoted after 11 months to VP Product Design.

    Read the case study: From start-up to product organisation
  4. 2019 - 2021

    Kry

    Head of Design

    Grew and shaped the Product Design team as the first design leader in a hypergrowth phase, taking the team from 5 designers to 50+ people – introducing roles such as user research, design operations, design directors, across 4 markets and offices.

    Led the strategic design efforts and design vision. Helped build and scale the R&D department into multimarket org and 3 product areas. Collaborated with Brand Marketing on defining and launching a major brand identity overhaul. Led exploration of new multimarket features and products. Introduced modern scalable ways of working for design and product dept, including career framework and organisational principles.

    Part of R&D Leadership trio with CPO and CTO. Part of extended management team.

    Read the case study: Building design through hypergrowthRead the case study: Repositioning a brand
  5. 2012 - 2018

    Viaplay

    Head of Design

    Overall responsible for the user experience of the Viaplay product. Introduced processes, tools, roles, and organisational setups to help the Product department and the design team to mature and improve their collaboration, quality and focus.

    Oversaw strategic initiatives including innovation efforts, leading to ground breaking products and features such as the linear channel and the Olympics experiences.

    Oversaw the Brand identity overhaul profect from a design and product perspective, leading to an updated visual identity, tonality and feature priority.

    Grew the team from 3 to around 15. Part of the Product department leadership.

    Read the case study: Re-imagining television
  6. 2002 - 2012

    Past experience

    • • Senior Digital Art Director – Ottoboni (2010-2012)
    • • Creative Director – TV4 (2005-2010)
    • • Editor/Reporter – Internetworld (2004-2005)
    • • Editor/Developer – SVT (2002-2003)

Skills

Transformation

  • • Change leadership
  • • Organisational design
  • • Operating models
  • • Senior stakeholder management

Product

  • • Product strategy
  • • User journeys and success metrics
  • • Product discovery and delivery
  • • Cross-functional collaboration

AI

  • • AI-enabled ways of working
  • • AI prototyping and validation
  • • Claude Code, MCP integrations
  • • Agentic and AI-assisted workflows
Christoffer Kittel speaking at a design talk

Speaker engagements

Book me for your next event as a panelist or keynote speaker.

  • “The new era of Design Leadership”

    - Design Talk @ Common Ground Studios, Sthlm (2023)

  • “Healthy habits of a Design Team”

    - Design Talk @ From Business to Buttons design mingle hosted by Mentimeter (2022)

  • “Being the Product Designer in the internal team”

    - Guest lecture @ Berghs SOC UX course (2018)

  • “Creating Moments that matter”

    - Talk @ VUIX conference, London (2018)

  • “Building the Rio Olympics Product”

    - Talk @ VUIX Conference, London (2017)

Beliefs

I have some core principles I try to apply to my professional life, that hopefully tells something about what I value as a person.

Always Learning

The day you stop learning you should probably quit. I try to frame all initiatives as learning opportunities, and I am driven by a joy of trying new things, understanding others more and developing myself.

Balance

I am old enough to understand my strengths and weaknesses, and when it comes to time and efficiency – I believe that balance is the key to get things done while also having energy for a rich social life. But balance needs to be explicit and nurtured.

Empathy

Whether it’s understanding customer needs in a structured way to guide your product or building relationships based on curiosity of others – empathy is a skill I try to apply and refine in my everday life.

People first

My career is primarily about building relationships. Even if I like to perform well and acheive goals, at the end of the day I collect great people rather than companies or roles.

Personal

Born and raised in Skanör, I have been based in Stockholm since 1999, where I live with my wife Sophie, my two kids Klara and Viktor, and our dog Tyra.

I love to play music, ski, travel, watch great movies, hang out with friends and play video games.