# Sami Surakka

**Currently AI Product Manager and Designer** at [Kaiku](https://kaikucrew.com/). 

Lead product designer and Product Manager for complex and high-stakes systems, from safety-critical products to AI platforms. Working from discovery through shipped product, with executives as readily as with engineering, product, and go-to-market.

## Contact

- **Location:** Tampere Metropolitan Area, Finland
- **Email:** [sami@bumblebee.fi](mailto:sami@bumblebee.fi)
- **LinkedIn:** [linkedin.com/in/samisurakka](https://linkedin.com/in/samisurakka)
- **Portfolio:** [samisurakka.com](https://samisurakka.com)
- **Consultancy:** [bumblebee.fi](https://bumblebee.fi)



## Experience

*+10 years*

### Bumblebee Design: Co-Founder, Product Design Consultant

**08/2020 — 04/2025, 08/2026 — Present**

Co-founded a product design consultancy. Client acquisition, engagement scoping, delivery, and long-term account development. Paused active consulting while at Cambri; restarted in 08/2026.

Over 100,000€ in annual recurring revenue between 2021 and 2024 through direct client relationships and repeat engagements.

Delivered UX strategy, workflow simplification, and design system foundations for complex and high-stakes products.

**Selected engagements:**  

- **Kaiku** (08/2026 — Present): AI Product Manager and Designer.
- **Zeabuz** (2025): Autonomous vessel operator UI refresh; invited after Groke.
- **RISE concept** (2024): Won vs 226 entries; later launched at [rise.wasdi.net](http://rise.wasdi.net).
- **Investment & KYC platform** (2024–2025, via Alpha Design Partners): Two design sprints; app launched early 2026.
- **Infrastructure startup** (2022–2023): Expert workflows + public project tool (Nordics & Baltics).
- **Heavy industry** (2022, via Gofore): Design mentoring and process interfaces.
- **WeatherTech demo** (2020–2021, via Alpha Design Partners): Interactive demo that secured executive go-ahead.



### Cambri: Lead Product Designer / Product Manager

**11/2024 — 08/2026**

Led product design and product management for an AI-powered market research platform used by global consumer brands. Owned two major product initiatives end to end (reporting and survey programming), spanning specs, success metrics, stakeholder alignment, roadmap contribution, and cross-functional planning with executives, engineering, customer success, managed services, and go-to-market.

**Contributions:**

- Shipped a WYSIWYG reporting product with AI-generated concept one-pagers, test summaries, and recommendations as first-class content types; helped close new sales and moved report creation from a multi-day stitch-together workflow into a single editor (53% of active client organisations used reporting in a 90-day window).
- Led the rebuild of survey programming into a single document-like editor with progressive disclosure for brand managers and research professionals, a mobile-default live preview, and readiness for an AI survey-writing assistant; prototyped and iterated the approach with the CTO; the editor shipped.
- Built a coded UI component library documented in Storybook with developers; new feature development is built against it and engineers extend it independently.
- Introduced a shared three-month roadmap and a prioritisation framework across customer value, business value, and technical feasibility to increase delivery focus and transparency.



### Tietoevry: Principal Product Designer, Freelance

**11/2022 — 06/2024**

Led the visual and structural redesign of a remote patient monitoring product family used by healthcare professionals in home-care contexts.

**Contributions:**

- Built a design system from scratch, adopted by two dev teams across the product family; enabled a later design migration in days without structural rework.
- Designed 5+ new clinical workflows: patient group monitoring, goal setting, PROMs/PREMs, remote device configuration, and a daily dashboard redesign.
- Designed how AI-harmonised patient stories were surfaced to clinicians in the Insights product.
- Modernized collaboration between design, development, and product management.



### Groke Technologies: Product Designer, Freelance

**09/2021 — 11/2022**

Designed premium user experience and visual interfaces for advanced maritime navigation and fleet systems built on AI, sensor fusion, and real-time spatial data. Replaced a 2–4 person design agency setup, making design roughly twice as fast at about half the cost.

**Contributions:**

- Designed operator-facing UI suited to demanding bridge environments.
- Implemented selected UI elements in Unity.
- Established the design language for the product family, including Groke Fleet, nominated for the Red Dot Design Award.
- Structured complex spatial and sensor data into decision-support views.



### Insta Digital: Design Lead, Senior Designer

**07/2019 — 09/2021**

Insta Digital (formerly Intopalo Digital) is a software consultancy focused on low hierarchy, psychological safety, and autonomous teams.

Acted as Design Lead for a team of six designers while delivering client-facing UX and product design across industrial and enterprise domains.

**Contributions:**

- Led and mentored a team of six designers, supporting quality, growth, and consistency across engagements.
- Embedded design thinking into early sales phases, shaping solution direction before implementation.
- Facilitated design sprints and agile product initiatives for complex client projects.
- Strengthened cross-functional collaboration between design, engineering, and product teams.



### Valmet: Design Consultant

**08/2019 — 08/2021**

Worked on a large-scale industrial logistics and process management platform used in complex manufacturing environments.

**Contributions:**

- Led transition to Figma and initiated foundational design system structures.
- Simplified dense industrial workflows and processes.
- Improved collaboration between engineering and design in a large enterprise context.
- Supported scalable UI architecture across multiple application areas.



### Insta Response: UX Designer, UX Lead, Mentor

**03/2015 — 06/2019**

Insta Response is the nationwide emergency response product family used by Finnish 112 centers, handling approximately 3 million calls per year in time-critical environments.

Led UX for operator-facing systems where clarity, speed, and error tolerance were essential. Contributed to improving situational awareness and workflow efficiency in a safety-critical context.

**Contributions:**

- Supported improvements helping answer calls within 30 seconds (from 92–94% to 97–99%) with high end-user satisfaction (above 4.3/5).
- Grew the UX function from a single designer to a team of three, establishing structured design practices.
- Introduced modern design tooling and streamlined design-development workflows.
- Led and coordinated UX research with emergency operators to validate workflows under real-world pressure.
- Trained and mentored developers to act as “design ambassadors,” strengthening UX thinking within engineering.
- Contributed to raising design maturity in a traditionally engineering-driven organization.



### Other relevant

**2009 — Present**

- **Koodit ja koneet**: Partner (07/2012 – Present)
- **Demola**: UX designer (2014)
- **Tampere Universities**: Research assistant (2009 — 2013)



## Education



### Tampere University: Doctor of Science (Technology)

**2019 — Present**

Research topic: Return on Investment of User Experience.

### Tampere University of Technology: Master of Science (Technology)

**2016 — 2017**

- Major: Software engineering
- Minor: Data technologies



### Tampere University of Technology: Bachelor of Science (Technology)

**2008 — 2016**

- Major: Human-centered design
- Minor: Software engineering



## Certificates


| Certificate                             | Issued  | Issuer   | Credential ID            |
| --------------------------------------- | ------- | -------- | ------------------------ |
| PM Masterclass for Designers            | 03/2026 | Maven    | -                        |
| Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner | 09/2024 | IBM      | -                        |
| Webflow 101                             | 04/2024 | Webflow  | -                        |
| Lean Service Creation                   | 09/2019 | Futurice | OPENBADGEPASSPORT-164179 |
| Human-Centered Design                   | 07/2018 | IDEO.org | 3385-1627039             |




## Skill highlights

- Complex & Mission-Critical UX
- Enterprise & B2B Product Design
- Product Management
- AI & Data-Driven Systems
- Design Strategy & Facilitation
- Cross-Functional Leadership (executives through engineering & GTM)
- Design Systems & Coded Component Libraries
- Product Discovery
- Business Alignment

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One-page CV: [cv-sami-surakka-one-page.md](./cv-sami-surakka-one-page.md) · PDF: [cv-sami-surakka.pdf](./cv-sami-surakka.pdf)

© Sami Surakka 2026