As a pioneer in car-sharing, Free2move faced a rapidly evolving mobility ecosystem defined by free-floating vehicles, ride-hailing, and multimodal platforms. Transportation was no longer about owning a car, but optimizing the journey from A to Z. During my tenure, I helped scale Free2move from a handful of locations to 40+ cities worldwide, improving millions of journeys through friction-reducing, innovative urban mobility services.

To face the challenges and competition, we took a few deliberate steps:

01. Focusing on user insight: As the market rapidly evolved, I led UX research focused on edge cases and user interviews. The takeaways were clear: users valued simplicity above all; from flexible reservations, free parking, fueling, and included insurance. Those insights allowed us to preserve the core product while supporting users real needs without compromises.

02. Seeking new use cases: In an increasingly crowded mobility landscape, we focused on accessibility and reliability as key differentiators. Tech-savvy users and travelers emerged as a critical segment, and the product ecosystem was well suited to serve their needs. Focusing on features that helped us learn let us stay true to our mission and build opportunities for long-term growth.

03. AI-driven design: I worked hand in hand with engineering and product leaders to strengthen alignment, creating early AI prototypes that accelerated ideation and reduced time to market. These prototypes helped teams visualize how AI could shape the user experience and supported more confident, faster decision-making.

When I joined, we had clear data on what users were doing, but not why. Over time, I helped establish and scale a global research practice that turned those insights into a foundation for product decisions and strategic alignment across the organization.

Global user feedback: I initiated and sponsored our first field research across Europe and the US to understand how we were perceived compared to competitors. The findings exposed blindspots and gaps in market penetration and service perception. In the end, it deepened our understanding of how users were reacting to new mobility options and providers and informed our “Transforming mobility towards a shared future” strategy.

Foundational UXResearch: Large-scale data is valuable, but nothing replaces hearing users’ stories firsthand. I prioritized immersive international research, first with fleet agents and later with our customers across high-priority locations. These insights grounded our roadmaps, services journeys and helped us make the case for new features and product decisions.

Data focused: Qualitative research helps uncover user needs and journey pain points, but it’s not enough for daily fleet operations. To ensure cities/services reliability and efficient vehicles relocation, we adopted a data-driven approach, leveraging metrics like retention, churn, and conversion rates as paradigms.

When I started, Car2go, then SHARE NOW, and finally Free2move, the company was already a leader in mobility. As the product approached market saturation, discovering new growth paths became essential. We leaned on innovation, strategic partnerships, and a long-term dedication to quality to move forward.

I believe innovation needs both structure and space. Annually, I reserved time for benchmarking and design sprints, enabling idea exploration beyond quarterly roadmaps, many of which led to high-impact initiatives.

Cross-functional and cross-cultural collaboration has been key to my approach. Many successful launches came through external partnerships, and I’ve always believed that strong ideas deserve a path forward, regardless of origin. I encouraged the adoption of product Trios (between Designers, Developers, and Product Managers) for better project alignment and favor divergent thinking over time.

App innovation preserved our market leadership, but growth required evolution. We extended accessibility and AI throughout the service ecosystem, emphasizing acquisition, retention, and differentiating features.

Pitch to directors: I led the pitch, highlighting how accessibility and inclusivity could drive user value, product strength, and customer growth. This shifted internal perspectives, promoting usability considerations beyond our core segments.

Strategic integrations: Prioritizing impact over sheer volume, we undertook a major initiative to bring all core services together on a single platform. Partnering with engineering, we improved the backend and user experience, strengthening the service portfolio and better using Stellantis Group’s assets.

Scaling through empowerment: Looking to extend our impact, I sponsored the creation of UX design guidelines, AI-driven design systems, and internal toolkits. This empowered teams to produce consistent, high-quality experiences faster, freeing them from duplicating work.

By fostering collaboration and openness to new ideas, we built features grounded in real user needs and continuous improvement. For instance:

01. Digital refueling: Inspired by behavioral and field research, we introduced a feature that let users refuel directly through the app, bypassing traditional in-store or station processes.

02. Updated registration funnel: I initiated the revamp of our registration funnel to improve user conversion from website visit, to inscription, general onboarding and finally in-app driver license validation.

03. Payment strategies support: Improve in-app payments by reducing friction and building trust: minimize checkout steps, enable autofill and popular payment methods, ensure fast performance with clear error handling, and provide transparent pricing and secure authentication.

04. Extended trips: Using the app, we redesigned the rental experience around modern vehicles and technology, creating a simple end-to-end service and removing much of the friction common in long-term rentals. The feature became one of the core for business revenue.

05. Accessibility first: To tackle bias in mobility, we focused on reducing barriers both in cars and in the software/hardware experience for reservations and usage. This approach became a new standard within our team, the company, and the service, ensuring everyone could use our platform seamlessly.

06. Raising standards: Initially, the app prioritized function over polish. I believed we could have both. We modernized all major surfaces and built a team culture that equally values product excellence and utility.

07. And more…