Michaela Hildebrandt — The Vision Fairy of Product Design
Bringing Product or Service Visions to Life
Michaela Hildebrandt helps start-ups and established businesses transform bold ideas into digital products that truly resonate with users — and drive measurable business results. Known as the “Vision Fairy” for her ability to turn complex visions into clear, actionable concepts, she guides teams from strategy to prototype through inspiring, collaborative workshops and lean, user-centered design.
Blending research, co-creation, and user experience design, Michaela crafts intuitive, scalable digital solutions that connect user needs with business goals — helping companies reach product–market fit faster and with lasting confidence.
Michaela Hildebrandt
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Michaela Hildebrandt —
Designing Clarity in Complexity
In an era when digital transformation challenges even the most established companies, few professionals combine creativity, strategic thinking, and technical understanding as seamlessly as Michaela Hildebrandt. Known for her ability to translate complexity into clarity, she moves confidently between worlds — from AI-driven mobility apps to medical technology, from UX strategy to brand design.
Bridging Vision and Feasibility
At Helbling Technik, one of Switzerland’s leading engineering consultancies, Hildebrandt worked at the intersection of innovation and feasibility. As part of the Ideation Team, she led projects that helped clients in healthcare and industry reimagine their products — from early research and user testing to fully interactive prototypes.
Her portfolio spans robotic systems for professional gardening, VR devices for neurological diagnosis, and business process applications for public infrastructure. Each project required not only empathy for the user but also an understanding of how to align design with engineering and business priorities.
“Michaela has that rare combination of creative curiosity and system thinking,” says one colleague. “She doesn’t just design interfaces — she designs clarity.”
Pioneering Digital Experiences at Axon Vibe
Before joining Helbling, Hildebrandt was part of the innovation team at Axon Vibe, one of Switzerland’s most forward-thinking SaaS start-ups. There, she co-designed SmartWay, a multimodal travel app launched in partnership with the Swiss Railways (SBB), and contributed to its U.S. counterpart, with the MTA in New York.
Both applications used behavioral and contextual data to anticipate users’ mobility needs — an early form of AI-driven personalization. As Customer Experience Strategist and team lead of the international Moments Marketing team, she developed workshop processes that helped global partners identify new use cases and validate them rapidly.
“Working on AI-based communication for mobility was fascinating,” she recalls. “We used data not to manipulate, but to make travel smoother, smarter, and more human.”
Design Systems and Digital Transformation
Hildebrandt’s ability to move fluidly between vision and structure also defined her work for Art Basel /MCH Group, where she coordinated two UX teams from different agencies to create a new e-commerce platform for fine art. She established the design system, service blueprint, and UX research framework that enabled the platform to integrate seamlessly with Art Basel’s existing ecosystem.
This mix of creative leadership and process design has become one of her hallmarks. At Helbling, she later formalized these skills into a UX consulting framework, integrating start-up agility with corporate-level engineering discipline — a synthesis that reflects her cross-sector experience.
The Lifelong Learner
Behind Hildebrandt’s professional breadth lies an insatiable curiosity. She began with a Master’s in Communication Design at the University of Wuppertal and later added a Certificate in Management from the University of St. Gallen (HSG). Over the years, she has continuously expanded her expertise through certifications in Service Design, Human-Centered Design, UX Management, Agile Leadership, and AI-driven Product Strategy.
“I see myself as a lifelong learner,” she says. “Every new technology, every new industry gives me a different lens to understand people and systems.”
Depth Across Disciplines
Today, Hildebrandt’s work spans the full spectrum of digital innovation — from UX design for AI and product strategy to design systems, branding, and digitization consulting. Whether she’s leading co-creation workshops with start-ups or guiding established enterprises through digital change, her approach remains the same: combine research, empathy, and strategy to turn uncertainty into opportunity.
Her strength lies not in following trends but in connecting dots — between technology and behavior, design and business, vision and reality.
“Michaela can sit in a room with engineers, marketers, and executives — and make them all see the same picture,” one client notes. “That’s rare. And that’s what drives innovation.”Her strength lies not in following trends but in connecting dots — between technology and behavior, design and business, vision and reality.