Telefónica / O2

Telefonica is one of the world's largest telecoms operators, with major consumer brands including O2 (UK), Movistar (Spain and Latin America), and Vivo (Brazil). Over five years, I led UX, product, and service design teams across 5 global locations, building a portfolio of eHealth, cloud, and data privacy products. Teams ranged from 10 to 17 people.

Telefonica was investing in health and digital services as a strategic growth area adjacent to core telecoms. The challenge was demonstrating that a telecoms company could build products with genuine clinical and commercial value — not just technology prototypes. Each product area had a distinct business problem: chronic disease management had high healthcare costs and readmission rates; Parkinson's detection had no accessible early screening pathway; epidemic tracking had weeks-long detection lag times.

I personally led product and service design across the full portfolio. This included setting direction, leading user research programmes, designing clinical and consumer-facing product, managing cross-functional teams, and maintaining relationships with clinical and institutional partners (NHS, WHO, UNICEF, Harvard). Team management and budgeting were mine; technical implementation was delegated.

Each product was grounded in field research before design began — home visits for chronic disease, clinical workflow research for Parkinson's, mobility data analysis for pandemic prediction. I ran co-design workshops with clinical staff, facilitated cross-functional delivery, and managed the tension between the pace of a commercial product team and the rigour required by clinical and regulatory partners. Across 20+ MVPs, the selection of which 5 to launch was driven by validated demand and commercial viability, not technical interest. Collaboration extended beyond healthcare: we worked with the elBulli Foundation, applying the Sapiens methodology to digital service design — a collaboration that also led to BulliPedia. One of the launched products was Radio.me, enabling elderly users to send and receive WhatsApp messages via voice call, with no smartphone required.

The portfolio demonstrated that a telecoms company could deliver genuine clinical and commercial impact. The chronic disease service reduced mortality by 48% and hospital readmissions by 63%. Parkinson's voice detection reached 78% precision. Of 20+ MVPs developed, five reached launch — each selected on validated demand, not technical ambition. Radio.me went on to serve elderly users across Spain, giving them access to WhatsApp without ever touching a smartphone.