Ana de la Vega
Product leader,
designer, illustrator
and beginner developer
Product leader,
designer, illustrator
and beginner developer
Creative, curious and hands-on, I have a drive for simplifying and executing complex ideas. I enjoy communicating at all levels, from developers to board executives.
My superpower is a unique combination of leadership, design, innovation and coding.
Leading a team to build new products that customers love is the most fulfilling part of my work, as it brings together my creative and leadership skills, and drive for execution.
I bring a passion for design to everything I do. Throughout my career I've created designs for user interfaces, user experiences, brands and more. My ability to visualise complex ideas is one of my most powerful tools.
My illustrations have featured in wedding invitations, a children's book, conferences, and personalised cartoons. I enjoy bringing this creativity, fun and eye for design into my work.
I'm learning web and iOS development to build my own apps, and so develop my technical knowledge and my engineering perspective.
I was excited to jump into fashion ecommerce, an industry where I had always secretly (ok, sometimes openly!) hoped I would end up, as to me it's the perfect combination of design and technology. Reporting to the CTO, I lead 4 product teams spanning our website, apps and internal business sytems.
One of the prototypes I worked on whilst in IAG became a business in its own right. I joined it full time as Head of Product and 18 months later, became its Managing Director, where I led both the product and the commercial side of the start-up. During the 2020 lockdowns I also studied software development and built my own mobile and web apps.
I joined the digital team of IAG, the parent company of airlines like British Airways and Iberia. This was an incredibly dynamic role where I got involved in many aspects of agile software development, starting as scrum master, then as designer, and finally as product manager. I collaborated with start-ups, created prototypes and products, and gave presentations and training to non-technical audiences to evangelise digital transformation.
I was lucky to be headhunted into a graduate scheme even before I graduated. This was a great option for me as I wanted to experience different departments before deciding what area to pursue. During my placement in the Digital and Innovation team, I discovered my curiosity and love for technology.
I decided to move to England as I preferred the British method of education, and for an adventure! I studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, which was a way for me to study something as broad as possible as I couldn't decide on a single subject (I'm still a generalist!).
I grew up in sunny Madrid, and went to a British Montessori school there. I was one of those students who couldn't wait for summer to be over to go back to school 🤓. I loved tennis, my mum's baking and reading novels, a habit I still continue every night.
