“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. But when I’ve finished, if the solution is not beautiful I know it’s wrong.” Buckminster Fuller
“You can’t be a creative thinker if you’re not stimulating your mind, just as you can’t be an Olympic athlete if you don’t train regularly.” Sir Ken Robinson
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great values. Isaac Asimov
There are a few things about my interest that remained the same throughout my development, my passion for arts, curiosity about how things work and desire to be more creative. For as long as I can remember I’ve been drawing, painting or built things. These passions drove me to pursue different forms of visual arts education, from painting clubs to high school and then college. Somewhere along the way my curiosity about organizing space and finding better solution drove me to study design and then architecture. For me this is the area where motivation, talent and passion came together. Beside design I have two other big passions that are an important part of my life. Volunteering and swimming. The first helped me develop my soft skills and the sense for community involvement and the second as any sport, coordination, discipline and endurance. During school I wanted to gain more experience so I started working for different studios or independently. Competitions were also a way for me to explore different sides of creativity in product design, urban design or interior design. Right now I spend my free time creating visualizations either through photography or digital renderings.
Work Experience
Shop Design Manager
IKEA Romania | Full Time | March 2022 – prez.
After almost 3 years I took another challenge to become a leader. This gives me a new perspective on working with people and business goals.
On the people part, my tasks are to recruit, train, mentor and coach my team in order for them to develop and grow. I lead them through different projects, help them setup and achieve their goals.
For the business part I am responsible to translate the KPI’s into actions and organize the workplan for my department. For big projects my task is to design the rough planning and coach my colleagues through fine planning and implementation.
Alongside my people and specialist assignments I have other tasks like basic management accounting, people planning and helping the business grow by giving inputs on future opportunities.
Shop Design Specialist
IKEA Romania | Full Time | July 2018 – Feb. 2021
n this role I’ve learned a lot about values, work ethic and fast design thinking. Working with customer perceptions and finding creative solutions for planning the store gave me a new perspective on how space should be designed. My work consisted of two parts: 1. shop design – create a concept and plan the area of the store that I had to address, make the technical drawings for the display system, 2. visual merchandising – managing the implementation.
I’ve managed to plan and improve some successful areas in the store which increased the overall quality perception in the store and exceeded the business goals (increasing conversion rate, increasing inspiration throughout the customer journey).
Because I have a passion for communication I got involved in facilitating workshops, trainings and I worked as a brand ambassador, sharing knowledge on social media about home furnishing and interior design for the customers.I
Freelance Architectural Designer
Freelance | Project Based | Aug. 2019 – prez.
Using skills developed while I was working on different projects, at school or at work, I’ve Most of my independent projects are related to interior architecture. I design the proposal based on the brief agreed with the client and make the specific drawings and presentations needed for the project to be implemented. Depending on the project I also make recommendations on materials or providers and discuss with the contractors about the technical details. I work on interior design projects, custom furniture design and graphic architecture presentations. The key learning from this experience is how to manage a project from the beginning to an end and how to translate the users needs into a solution. Beside independent projects I also collaborate with different interior design or architecture studios.
Intern Architect
CAMPA Arhiconstruct (december 2016 – july 2018)
My first “real” job with responsibilities. I was recruited for this job because of my quick way of working but also for showing that creativity is important no matter the experience. As an Architect Intern I worked with different tasks that made me aware about the practice in an architecture studio and also about the process of how a project becomes reality. My duties were to draft plans and technical drawings, make architectural visualizations, design proposals for different projects, make the necessary paperwork for different stages of a building project, and also dealing with different situations on a construction site.
Volunteering
Student Representative
Asociatia Studentilor din Mincu (november 2014 – june 2020)
As a way to volunteer during school I used my experience as a student representative to help organize activities and facilitate communication between students and the faculty.
Event Planner
MASTER Forum (december 2012 – october 2014)
After 2 years of working as a representative for a Local Youth Council I became a member of MASTER Forum Association, working on PAL TIN project as a Event Planner, Facilitator for workshops and Coordinator for a small Reunion paper. I had the opportunity to learn how to guide others about how to communicate and organize their activity as volunteers.
Vice, Event Planner
Local Youth Council, Bucharest District 1 (september 2010 – december 2012)
You know that moment when you are growing and you start to become more aware about society and things that influence your life. Volunteering for PAL-TIN project as a representative for the local youth council helped me to realize how i can get involved in the community, help others and make a statement about the importance of voting. I worked on many projects, and coordinated a few successful ones about education and communication. In the organization i was acting as vice, but my roles were to coordinate projects, plan events, make fund raising and dealing with public relations.
Communication Volunteer
Lumea Educatiei (november 2011 – november 2012)
This experience thought me a lot of things about environment and sustainability, because i had to research for every article that i wrote and find a way to express technical things in a catchy manner. I’ve learned a lot about creative writing and how to make a message with an impact. I managed to write a few articles with (small) impact and maybe inspire some change.
My Work Portfolio 