No.02
A new editorial ecosystem
Partner
Zalando
Role
Business and Product Owner
Year
2022-26
Impact
- Scaled to +1M MAU in 2 years
- Higher average basket size and visit frequency
- Cost neutral through assortment unlock and sponsorship
Building a premium content-commerce platform from the ground up inside Europe's largest fashion marketplace.
Stories on Zalando was my first major build at the company. A premium editorial proposition that connected brand storytelling with product discovery. I led the full end-to-end development: customer-facing experience, back-of-house CMS and editorial workflows, commercial model, and content supply infrastructure. The team grew from zero to a cross-functional group spanning design, engineering, product management, editorial, commercial, and sales.
The challenge was not just building a content product, but proving that content could be a business lever inside a transactional marketplace. Stories needed to generate revenue through brand partner commercialisation, drive strategic value through assortment access, and create measurable customer engagement. Not content for content's sake, but content with a commercial engine.
Product design motion reel showing feed interactions and content surfaces
Content as a business lever
Stories unlocked incremental assortment and new brand partnerships. The editorial team grew to manage content across multiple formats and markets, with a measurement framework that tracked engagement through to attributed commercial impact. The model attracted high-value customers and proved that content-driven discovery outperformed traditional catalogue browsing for specific audience segments.
From niche to platform vision
Stories proved the model but was too narrow for its specific audience target. The success led directly to the broader content and inspiration strategy I shaped with senior leadership and the Management Board: Zalando as a content-led shopping destination. Feed, boards, video, live streaming, and brand profiles all grew from the foundation Stories built.
Stories on Zalando: mobile-first editorial experience
Ask me about
- Designing editorial workflows that scale across markets and formats
- Measuring content impact in e-commerce beyond clicks and impressions
- The HighSnobiety acquisition and what content M&A integration looks like
- Why editorial quality and commercial viability are not at odds
- Working with Charlie XCX before she blew up
Next project
NBC News Digital