Available for hire — Dubai, UAE

Designing strategies,
services, and systems
that make things move.

Strategic Designer & Innovation Consultant.
8 years building. 1 year at Europe’s edge.
Now in Dubai.

Darshan Rughani — Strategic Designer, Dubai

Selected Work

8 projects. Each one a different problem.

About

I started with a sketchbook.
I built a studio. Then I asked
why it all worked.

I’m a self-taught designer who learned everything the hard way. I started in construction project management, moved into interior design, and in 2016 built Innovheads Design Studio in Ahmedabad from a one-person practice into a team of eight. We grew 60% year-on-year for four years, served clients across India and internationally, and built systems that actually held together under pressure.

Then COVID hit. Instead of waiting, I rewired the entire studio — from on-site physical projects to remote digital design and consulting. That pivot taught me more about business model design than any classroom. We didn’t just survive. We expanded our reach.

“Behind every design lies a story, a system, and a strategy waiting to be shaped.”

After eight years, I realized I wasn’t just designing spaces and brands — I was designing systems, decisions, and the conditions for things to work. So I pursued that instinct seriously. I moved to Milan and studied Strategic Design at Politecnico di Milano — one of Europe’s leading design schools — specializing in Product-Service-System Design and writing my thesis on AI-driven innovation in systems and workflows.

From there, I joined Colruyt Group’s New Commercial Development division in Belgium — a 30,000-person retail organization. I designed AI-assisted innovation workflows, shaped AI product roadmaps with external vendors, and contributed to omnichannel strategy across multiple retail locations. I compressed vendor timelines by three months. I helped a team of 50+ stakeholders move faster on emerging signals.

Now I’m in Dubai. Immediately available. Looking for a role where strategy, design, and execution are not three separate departments.

8+Years building and scaling
60%YoY revenue growth at Innovheads
50+Stakeholders aligned at Colruyt

The Journey

Every step was deliberate.

January 2015

Foundation

Where I learned to build things that stand up

Joined a construction project coordination role in Ahmedabad. Learned execution discipline, site management, and how physical constraints shape every design decision.

May 2016

First Steps

Interior design, freelance, and figuring it out

Started freelancing in commercial and residential interior design. First clients, first failures, first lessons in managing people who trust you with their money and their space.

May 2017

Founded

Innovheads Design Studio — built from zero

Started the studio formally in Ahmedabad. Grew from solo practice to a distributed team of 8 designers. Served 10–25 active clients simultaneously. Achieved ~60% YoY revenue growth for four consecutive years.

June 2018

Studying

Operations & business thinking at NIRMA

Completed a Diploma in Operations Management at NIRMA School of Management. Brought formal process thinking back into the studio — KPI tracking, workflow standardization, project visibility systems.

March 2020

Pivot

COVID hit. We adapted before anyone told us to.

Led a full business model redesign. Transitioned Innovheads from on-site interior projects to remote digital design and consulting. Expanded geographic reach, reduced delivery overhead, kept the team employed.

October 2024

Masters

Politecnico di Milano — Strategic Design, Italy

Pursued a Master of Science in Strategic Design. Specialized in Product-Service-System Design and Design Thinking. Thesis: "Innovation in Systems and Workflows with AI." Milan gave me the language for what I had been doing intuitively for eight years.

June 2025

Colruyt Group

New Commercial Development — Belgium

Joined Colruyt Group's innovation division. Designed AI-assisted workflows for 50+ stakeholders. Shaped an AI product roadmap with an external vendor, compressing their timeline by 3+ months. Built omnichannel strategy maps across 10–20 customer touchpoints. Piloted across 3–5 retail locations.

2026

Dubai

Here. Available. Ready.

Based in Dubai, UAE. Immediately available. Looking for the right team to build with.

Dubai, UAE — Available now

Capabilities

What I bring to the table.

Strategy & Innovation

Design ThinkingService DesignAI-Driven InnovationOmnichannel StrategyProduct StrategyGo-to-Market PlanningBusiness Case DevelopmentChange ManagementSystems Thinking

Research & Analysis

Market ResearchTrend IntelligenceStakeholder ManagementData AnalysisKPI / OKR FrameworksUser ResearchConcept Framing

Prototyping & Delivery

Rapid PrototypingLow-Code / No-Code DevelopmentAgile IterationCross-Functional CollaborationProject LeadershipWorkshop FacilitationProduct-Service-System Design

Tools & Platforms

FigmaMiroAdobe Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign)n8n (workflow automation)LovableReplitEmergentCapCutPrompt Engineering (GPT, Claude, Gemini)
EnglishFluent
HindiFluent
GujaratiNative

I don’t do everything. I don’t do visual branding as a standalone service, motion graphics, or software engineering. What I do is figure out what the right problem is, design the system to solve it, and help teams execute it.

Let’s talk.

I’m in Dubai and available now. If you’re working on something that needs clear thinking, structured process, and real execution — I’d like to hear about it.

darshanrughani@gmail.com+971 54 715 5086

Dubai, UAE

Immediately Available

© 2026 Darshan Rughani. Built with intention.