Zenaida believes that digital products are only as good as the human voices that shape them. As an experience designer, she sits at the fascinating tension between the black and white of binary code and the rich nuance of human experience. Her job is to bring digital interactions to life, layering human texture onto technical foundations.

Zenaida started out in visual communication design before finding her way into advocacy, not-for-profit, social, and government sectors, where she discovered that design could be in service of good. Most recently, she worked at For Purpose, developing design-led approaches to bring grassroots community voices into the creative process — not just representing them, but advocating for the space for them to speak for themselves. A career highlight was a two-week immersion with the First Alaskans Institute in 2021, helping them shape how they wanted to represent themselves online.

Born in the Waikato and growing up there and Motueka, Zenaida settled in Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington in 2022. When she's not facilitating human-centred conversations, you'll find her walking, tending her garden, or perfecting her latest soup.