Leila Eisenmann
I was born and bred in Paris and have now a career of +20 years in design.
I graduated with a Master of Art Direction and Communication Strategy at ESAG Met de Penninghen in Paris in 2002 and started my career working for fashion magazines like ELLE, Glamour or Madame Figaro as both of my parents where working in the press world as Art directors. Design being in my family for generations.
From the magazines "redaction" I went to print and edition agencies for one year assisting a creative director to answer the agencies’s RFPs and that is where I learned the art of typography. I then make change and started to work as a branding designer for global branding, packaging and communication strategy agencies in Paris, specialized in luxury like Desdoigts & Associés or Dragon Rouge, here I learned that brands should clearly define their identities and communication strategy if they don’t want their customer to do so themselves.
I started to freelance and enjoyed myself a lot working mainly for the electronic music industry creating identity and communication assets for records labels (supplement Facts, Bpitch, Bass Culture) or clubs (Rex Club, Djoon) travelling from Paris to Berlin or Barcelona in the Y2K but also for Parisian agencies like DDBA, TBWA as an Art Director.
In 2013, the endless party end as I became a mother and started to lead UX Design and Research team for e-commerce website and mobile applications for Birchbox in Barcelona, Sarenza and Galeries Lafayette back in Paris.
In 2015 I took a big leap and get my forever dream job being a Creative Director for Publicis, the biggest advertising agency of France on the Champs Elysées flagship office with a private office, leather sofa and cold craft beers in the fridge waiting for late brainstorming sessions.
As a Creative Director, and agency head of digital, my job was to lead a team dedicated to UX Design, Research, UI, Marketing, Social Media and digital Advertising but also to win clients working and presenting the agency pitch. Working on Carrefour RFP I met the UK team of Publicis Sapient, the deal, a total redesign of Carrefour e-commerce website has been won.
One of my Sapient London colleague has been recruited by Oracle to be part of an exciting project; building an “Experience Design team” for Oracle Cloud applications in EMEA, they were looking for one Director in Paris and called me.
The Experience Senior Director at Oracle was probably the most peculiar and interesting job I have done as it was absolutely undefined, my only task was to find solution to a variety of problems from infusing customer centricity to RFPs on HPAs like Deustch Bahn, SNCF, BBVA or Inditex working with pre-sales leveraging design thinking workshops, redesigning the sales journey, implementing Redwood, Orcale’s new design system, creating physical experiences in order to capture the attention and sell SAAS but also PAAS and IASS in World largest tech events like Leap in Riyadh or building a shared service UX team in Romania with scalable processes.
Going back to Barcelona in 2023 I am currently leading a team of +30 UX Researchers and Designers for a data analytics company that builds B2B Saas applications. Being a M&A company the job has 3 dimensions; the team, the product strategy and the processes to break silos and foster innovation.
The strategy has been to first focus on designing the user journey to identify the overlapping functionalities of a wide portfolio fo +30 applications and turned them into one seamless end-to-end experience for our customers but also to create and improve the understanding and adoption of UX design and research processes in the company. It is also about engineering processes for scalability and growth and finally to create a whole design system and implement it in order to be able to deliver faster any new features like AI searches for instance. The team has grown 410% in a year and is globally distributed from China to USA, India with a design hub in Barcelona.
As a designer with all those years of experience I have a 360° vision of what a product, brand or service needs to come to life and make the difference. My work is about connecting business, strategy, technology and design via working inclusively.
I am a storyteller that create & design rare and real experiences. What I bring on top of it is a background of culture, talent, humour, honesty and a smart twist as I consider life is too short for mediocrity.
As I need to be true to myself, I am looping back to Music, my one and forever love. 2024 is the year that saw the birth of The Sound Society. From an original idea from my husband and the help of family & friends, we are building a sound system and a brand, made in Poble Nou with 14KW of love. Aiming at first to put the music back at the center, only Jack & I & I knows where it will take us...
Peace, Leila
EXPERIENCE
2023... UX Experience Director @Clarivate Analytics, Barcelona.
2019-2023 Senior Experience Director EMEA @Oracle, Paris.
2017-2019 Creative Director @Publicis, Paris.
2015-2017 Head of UX @Galeries Lafayette, Paris.
2013-2015 Creative Manager @Birchbox, Barcelona and @Sarenza, Paris.
2007-2012 Creative Director @Leila Eisenmann, Paris - Barcelone - Berlin.
2004-2007 Branding Designer @Desoigts & Associés, branding and packaging agency, Paris.
2003-2004 Art Director / Creative Director Assistant, print & edition agency @Angie, Paris.
2002-2003 Graphic Designer for fashion magazines (ELLE, Madame Figaro, 20 ANS, BIBA), Paris.
2002 ESAG, Met De Penninghen - Master in Art Direction & communication strategy, Paris.