Strategy and Product visionRepositioning Lingoda for Global Talent
Role: Head of Product Design and UXR | Company: Lingoda
What I owned: Brand-to-product strategy, B2C repositioning, research direction, executive alignment
Team: 4 product + 2 brand designers (B2C), 2 product designers (B2B), research (2 researchers)
Surfaces: Website, student platform, mobile app, classroom
I led Lingoda's brand evolution, repositioning the B2C brand to focus on career advancement and cultural integration. I aligned the C-suite and board on a three-year vision and used brand perception research to guide the strategy and measure its impact.
Project background
When the business outgrows
the brand
Lingoda is known as a B2C language-learning platform, but today most of its revenue comes from B2B Healthcare. The brand no longer reflected the business it had become. At the same time, B2C acquisition had declined by 31% YoY, driven by inflation, economic uncertainty, and AI reshaping the market. The challenge was to evolve the brand without losing what already made it successful.
Three surfaces, three brands
Lingoda’s landing page, Healthcare page and B2C Student Platform
Before the refresh, Lingoda didn't look like one company. The B2C site, the B2B Healthcare vertical, and the student product each ran on their own palette, logo, and tone. Marketing felt aspirational, the healthcare brand felt institutional, and the product felt purely functional. A learner moving from an ad to the homepage to the classroom was effectively handed between brands. Closing that gap- one identity from the first marketing touch to the student dashboard- was a core goal of the refresh.
Shaping the vision
Aligning the vision
Before any design work, I worked with the CEO and VP of Brand to define where Lingoda should be in three years. Together, we shaped a vision that brought B2C and B2B closer together and established a clear brand architecture for the future.
Leading the discovery
Once we aligned on the direction, I led the discovery. I led brand perception and market research and facilitated workshops with Product Design to identify opportunities across the customer journey. This helped define a more career-focused product vision, with new opportunities for upsells, coaching, and higher customer lifetime value.
Defining the new brand
Working with the agency Verve, we evolved Lingoda's positioning beyond language learning to include career growth and cultural integration. The visual identity built on Lingoda's most recognisable asset, the comma, transforming it into a symbol of learners' progress from their first lesson to achieving their career goals.
Securing executive alignment
To bring the strategy to life, I presented the vision through the journey of a single learner. This narrative helped align the founder, CEO, CPO, CTO, and board around the opportunity, ultimately securing approval to prioritise the work.
Project goals
| Goal | Type | Metric |
|---|---|---|
| Rebuild the design system as a scalable foundation across mobile and web | Consistency | % of screens and components on the new tokens |
| Ship the brand refresh without displacing the product roadmap | Efficiency | Delivered in ~6 weeks; reduced time-to-design and time-to-dev |
| Keep core product metrics stable through the change | Risk | Core funnel flat, no negative movement |
| Improve the clarity and delight of the product experience | Adoption | Post-launch survey and qualitative feedback |
Grounding it in research
Rather than relying on opinions, I directed the research strategy to validate the new brand direction. I led the team in designing a before-and-after brand perception study to measure whether the refresh genuinely changed how people saw Lingoda. The baseline revealed what was already working and, more importantly, where the brand was falling short.
Key findings
The brand lacked distinctiveness. Participants rated Lingoda 4.9/7 on generic versus unique, citing the colour palette and stock imagery as the main reasons.
The value proposition was unclear. Many participants struggled to explain what Lingoda offered or who it was for.
The broader vision wasn't coming through. The themes of relocation, integration, and career growth were largely absent from people's perception of the brand.
“A dating site. Online banking. It’s not screaming language learning.”
The product vision:
a personalised learning ecosystem
Personalised Learning Ecosystem
Giving every learner a personalised experience across an integrated ecosystem of web and app, connecting live classes with AI-driven practice.
- AI-enabled intelligent classroom
- Personalised, AI-driven practice
- Connected learning with the curriculum at its core
- Continuous feedback and progress tracking
Growth Levers
Driving profitability by making the product our engine for acquisition, engagement, and retention.
- Entry-level product
- Booster
- Premium add-ons
- Social growth loops
Skills and Integration
Going beyond language to help learners achieve their career and integration goals, by combining language, career, and cultural learning.
- Profession- and goal-specific skill curriculum
- AI-curated learning paths by career
- Cultural integration content
- Goal-focused expansion packs with tools
We created a three-year vision that positioned Lingoda as a global education platform for people with goals bigger than their current vocabulary.
The new direction kept language learning at the core but expanded the story to include cultural integration, career progression, and professional skills.
This vision helped align B2C, B2B, Brand, Product, and leadership around a single direction.
Around it, we envisioned an ecosystem that supports every stage of a learner's journey.
Instead of isolated products, we envisioned one connected experience combining:
Language learning
AI-powered guidance
Career readiness
Professional skills
Personalised learning paths
Lifelong progression
From strategy to execution
The approved vision became the foundation for:
The company-wide brand refresh
A new design system
Closer alignment between Marketing and Product
Future AI initiatives
Conversations around career and integration services
Product roadmap prioritisation
But a vision is only valuable if it can be delivered.
The challenge was no longer defining the future. It was making it happen.
The business couldn't pause feature development. Acquisition remained the highest priority. Engineering capacity was limited, and we had just six weeks to roll out a company-wide brand refresh without negatively impacting the core conversion funnel.
That meant making difficult trade-offs about what to redesign, what to refresh, and what to leave behind.
Continue to Part II → Lingoda: Connecting the ecosystem