After last week’s announcement, we are continuing the momentum by welcoming another new member to our team - Tiina Rekand.
Tiina joins our core team as a Digital Experience Expert, bringing more than 15 years of hands-on experience designing and improving digital public services. Over the years, she has helped create and develop numerous digital services and websites, including the Estonian state portal eesti.ee and the websites of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU.
In her most recent role as a product manager at the Estonian Information System Authority, Tiina helped take Estonia’s national design system to the next level and made the national mobile app even more useful for its users. Her superpower lies in understanding how people interact with digital services - and how to make those interactions simple, intuitive, and effective.
💡 Based on Tiina’s experience, the best digital service is one that follows familiar patterns and doesn’t require too much thinking. The user can immediately solve their problem or question and have a good experience while doing so. Achieving that level of simplicity does not happen by accident. It requires careful service design, constant testing with real users, and the discipline to remove complexity.
The real challenge is not building more functionality, but making sure people can reach the outcome they need quickly - experience that Tiina now brings to the Digital Nation core team and to the governments we support across our global community.
Tiina’s path into the digital world has been shaped by a diverse professional background. Earlier in her career, she worked as a journalist in Estonia, a project manager in Sweden, an event organiser in Brazil, and a teacher of Estonian language and culture in Ukraine. These experiences sharpened her ability to understand different people and cultures, communicate clearly, and design services that truly work for all users.
Outside the world of digital services, Tiina is most often found outdoors. She is currently training to become a hiking guide, organises gravel and road cycling rides for women, and regularly participates in demanding cycling events herself. She has taken part in the amateur Tour de France event L’Étape du Tour several times in France and once conquered her dream climb, Stelvio Pass in Italy. Still, her bucket list includes many more cycling routes and mountains waiting to be explored.
Welcome to the team, Tiina! 🚴♀️