Hi, I'm Goran. Let me tell you a story.
When I was a teenager growing up in Serbia, I almost enrolled in a military school.
Looking back, I don't know why I wanted to do it, other than perhaps follow in my brother's footsteps — but there I was, two days into the grueling recruitment process, waiting to talk to the school's psychologist.
The room was dim, the pale April sun barely cutting through the windows. Behind a small desk sat a tired-looking woman surrounded by paper stacks. She lingered for what felt like forever before glancing up and declaring flatly, "Your personality test results show you're unsuited for the military."
Apparently, the results had revealed my "disregard for protocols and rules."
An hour later, I was walking down the school's gravel path to meet my mom outside the gate. By the time I reached her, I had made the decision that would shape my life.
I was going to follow my passion and become a psychologist myself. I had always wanted to understand people, their choices, motivations, and emotions.
I was never going to do it from a dreary little office, though.
It turned out the psychologist had been right about me.
The same instinct that made me unsuited for the military, the drive to question assumptions, challenge systems, and look for better ways, became the compass for my entire career.
I went on to earn my Master's Degree in psychology, specializing in cognitive assessment and research. My thesis pushed me far beyond theory — I took a U.S.-developed cognitive assessment battery and adapted it for use in Serbia, translating and localizing every test element to ensure cultural and linguistic accuracy. Over several months, I led a small team of students to administer it to more than a hundred children across multiple schools, analyzing the data to explore early detection of learning differences.
It was meticulous, complex work, and it taught me that meaningful systems aren't just studied; they're designed.
It was around this time that I moved to the U.S. I left academia behind, and decided to dive head-first into my other passion - digital design.
It was the height of the glorious Web 2.0 days. My early work was full of glossy gradients and candy-colored buttons. It was chaotic, over-the-top and creative, but what I loved most was simple: behind every skeuomorphic button was a person trying to do something. Making that easier felt like magic.
I co-founded a design and development agency. Over nine years and 150+ clients, I learned that design isn't about pixels, it's about people. Collaboration isn't optional. Patience is a design tool. And creativity, without empathy, is just decoration.
Eventually, I traded entrepreneurship for scale, joining a 40,000-person enterprise where UX was barely a concept.
I started as the sole designer on the company's mobile iOS and Android apps.
Today, I lead a team of designers and researchers shaping experiences that reach millions of customers.
Together, we've built unified design systems, advanced UX maturity across the enterprise, and helped shift the organization toward customer-led, data-driven decision making. We've shown that UX isn't just about interfaces, it's about creating alignment between people, processes, and purpose.
It wasn't easy. Change never is. But that's where the learning lives.
Now, my focus is on how AI can elevate that work even further. From AI-powered research and analytics to intelligent design tools, I'm exploring how technology can help us listen better, design faster, and serve customers more effectively. The goal isn't to replace human creativity, it's to amplify it.
Looking back, that moment in the psychologist's office was a beginning. What started as defiance has since become direction, a drive to question not for rebellion's sake, but to uncover what truly works better for people, teams, and systems.
In psychology, it pushed me to look beyond theory to real human behavior.
In design, it led me to see beyond pixels to the people behind them.
And in leadership, it drives me to help teams question the habits and systems that limit their impact.
The thread through it all is clear: curiosity leads to clarity, empathy drives action, and innovation keeps us moving forward.
Because in the end, progress doesn't come from following the rules. It comes from reimagining them.
If you're thinking about what comes next, how AI, design and customer insights can redefine the way your organization listens, creates and grows - let's start the conversation. I'm passionate about building the systems and teams that turn insight into impact, and keep organizations moving forward with purpose.