Hiya,

I'm Michel Fernandez,
a Senior Product Manager
passionate about building
digital products with
purpose, measurable value
and social impact.

About

I’m passionate about creating products that truly matter — simplifying people’s work and lives by addressing real human needs. I aim to transform these needs into value-creating products that drive customer satisfaction and sustainable business growth.

Curiosity, empathy, and a relentless focus on value creation fuel my approach to product leadership.

With over 26 years of experience, I turn complex challenges into scalable, award-winning digital products at the intersection of product strategy, UX, service design, social and business innovation.

Expertise

  • Business Engineering
  • Product Management
  • User Experience & Service Design
  • Professional Scrum Certified.

Experience

Impact Hub Zurich

Product-Manager & Product-Owner

April 2022 - January 2025

As Product Manager, I led the end-to-end development and rollout of a new community app for members, partners, and teams, launched in 2024 in Zurich and later extended to Impact Hub Vienna. I defined product strategy, roadmap, KPIs, and budget, managed an agile team, and coordinated with stakeholders. Based on user research and service design, I improved the app and integrated APIs/ERP. I also boosted process efficiency by 10–35% and automated workflows by 20–45%, enabling long-term scalability and team relief.

Skribble.com

Head of UX-Design (Co-Founder & Partner)

March 2018 - December 2021

As a co-founder of Skribble, I laid the foundation for the company’s long-term success from day one – from brand and product development to shaping company culture and organizational structure. I was responsible for building a holistic UX strategy, defining initial target groups through customer development, and conducting in-depth UX research to gain a deep understanding of our users. This resulted in clear personas and strategically grounded product decisions that directly informed the UX and UI design of our SaaS solution, as well as all digital touchpoints such as the website, help center, and social media.

 

Impact Hub Zurich (Kraftwerk)

Product-Manager & Spatial-Designer

January 2017 - January 2018

As Product Manager and Product Owner, I led the end-to-end development and rollout of a community app for members, partners, and teams. Launched in 2024 in Zurich, it was later extended to Impact Hub Vienna. I defined strategy, roadmap, KPIs, and budget, and coordinated an agile, interdisciplinary team. In collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, I managed requirements and prioritization. Based on user research, service design, and API/ERP integration, I continuously improved the app.

FHNW

Lecturer Advanced Product & Experience Design

September 2015 - January 2018

As the lecturer and creator of the (Advanced Product & Experience Design) module, I designed a hands-on, entrepreneurship-focused learning format that enabled students to gain real-world experience in developing digital products and business models. Each semester, two classes with 30+ students each took part. Working in teams of 3 to 5, students identified a value proposition, developed a potential business model, built product prototypes, and tested them live with real users. At the end of the module, teams presented their results to a jury of startup CEOs and innovation managers, who selected the winning concept.

Author image Cécile Oberholzer Innovation & Smart City, Stadt Zurich

In my position as an innovation manager at AXA I have been working with Michel in different settings. He once was an expert in a boot camp hosted by Impact Hub. Michel impressed me with his vast knowledge about UX, designing and work methodology. He always guided us masterly to solutions with his profund expertise. Michel is not only expert in the theoretical field but especially he is an expert in implementing his knowledge on the spot. Michel is definitely the guy to work with if it comes to UX design, designing or new forms of work - or even something completely different. This because he is that typ of person that does everything a 100% right and with full energy.

Author image Christina Meyer Digital Ethics Specialist, Post

Michel supported me and my team in lean business development workshops and as a UX and visual designer for our project houzy.ch. I got to know him as a very open-minded and conceptual person with a very broad knowhow in agile methodologies, a very profound theoretical background and the ability to design pragmatic solutions while always focusing on lean and customer centered approaches. I appreciate how he questions existing constructs and tests new approaches in order to come up with convincing ideas. It was always very enriching to work with Michel and I hope I will have the possibility to do so again in future projects.

Author image Christoph Birkholz CEO, Impact Hub Zurich

Michel supported us on our Kraftwerk (www.kraftwerk.host) project. He led several sub-projects of the Kraftwerk development (from vision processes, to space design, to content and methodologies for innovation and UX). Michel is extremely knowledgeable in UX and agile methodologies, a very creative thinker, equally committed hands-on builder and trustful team player. Apart from his role at Kraftwerk, Michel developed Factory (agile product dev; factory.impacthub.ch) methodologies and delivered Factory workshops together with clients. I was part of some of these workshops in which I was amazed by Michel's user-centric, lean and creative approaches to create customer value.

Author image Dr. David Griesbarch Author of the leaninnovationguide.com

I've worked with Michel for several Lean Innovation projects such as the development of the minimal viable product of SuiteFox (www.suitefox.com) and I really appreciate his unique combination of design skills and method competences. He adds remarkable value to any project.

Author image Doris Agotai Director of the FHNW School of Computer Science

Michel Fernandez worked with us for several years as a lecturer in the iCompetence profile of the Computer Science course at the FHNW. He developed the 'Advanced Experience Design' module for the Design module group and taught it very successfully. In terms of content, he succeeded in creating an extremely exciting and up-to-date course with this module, which closely links the latest development methods at the interface of computer science, design and business and gave students the opportunity to expand their scope of action, recognize possibilities, critically examine them and develop innovative solutions from them. The quality of the UX and the visual design of the resulting student projects in particular was very impressive and was demonstrated several times at pitch events at the Impact Hub with prominent guests.

Author image Peter Schiratzki Product Manager, W&W

I had the privilege to work alongside Michel on several innovation and lean product development workshops ("Impact Hub Factory"). His experience and knowledge is extremely broad and deep. He is exceptional at combining and applying methodology from various sources in a very practical and solution-oriented way.

Author image Riccardo Decarolis Head of Operations & Commercial Director, South Pole

We met Michel thanks to our partnership with the Engagement Migros development fund. Whilst discussing our sponsorship approach, we were excited to see how quickly Michel understood our product and approach. He provided us with invaluable feedback regarding our website, communication and product innovation. In addition to his broad expertise in usability, we can recommend Michel for many more activities related to business development strategy. He is a quick learner and thinker, which is definitively an added value for employers and partners alike.

Author image Sarah Hauser Vice Director and Professor at the Lucerne School of Business

Michel successfully designed and taught the Advanced Experience Design module in the Computer Science program (iCompetence profile) at the FHNW. He covered topics such as lean UX design, business strategy, storytelling and elevator pitching. Michel has a wide range of practical experience and theoretical expertise and is always up to date with the latest developments in digital transformation. He designed an up-to-date range of courses and continuously developed his course content. Michel has always succeeded in motivating students and producing independent and committed work with his teaching style. With the Advanced Experience Design module, Michel has passed on a broad range of topics in a practically valuable way.

Author image Thomas Patzko Society focused entrepreneur & innovator

Michel plays a key role as an expert and facilitator in several Factory Design Sprints at our Impact Hub Zurich. The 5-day design sprints take place in very different constellations, with our corporate partners and also with start-up project teams that are supported by our partners. Michel is well versed in coaching and consulting on business strategy development, user experience design and customer experience design. He also conducts qualitative and quantitative basic research on these topics, which always proved to be very beneficial in the sprints, as he has extensive knowledge, practical experience and always contributes this constructively and proactively in line with the situation. It is also helpful that Michel is a very experienced workshop strategy developer and workshop moderator and contributes a great deal of specialist knowledge and empathy.

Author image Tobias Horka CEO, Optune.me

Michel Fernandez is on the Advisory Board of our start-up Optune (www.optune.me). He supports us in the area of LEAN Customer Development and LEAN UX, from the optimization and evaluation of the conversion rate to the structured approach to user testing. Michel is inspiring, very well-read and a great person. His creative approach and subsequent analytical evaluation make him an indispensable mentor.

Up for a coffee?

I love chatting about social and health innovation, product design, ai or music and culture.

Location

Social