Pauline Bertry
Co-founder, Product Growth and CX Design at Polar Bear
Background
Pauline got into tech at age 10, building a Harry Potter fan page in Dreamweaver. She studied computer science and applied math at Kyiv Polytechnic, then moved to France where she finished her Bachelor's degree in Le Mans and wrote production code at a local agency while earning her Master's.
She moved to Paris, working first as a UX designer at Napoleon Agency, then at Saegus across retail, insurance, and energy. She joined McKinsey and spent almost 8 years building product and CX capabilities across Europe and Central Asia. She led design teams, launched fintech and banking products that reached millions, and redesigned journeys for banks where even small changes doubled conversion.
In 2024, she spent 6+ months as interim Innovation Director at PASHA Innovation in Baku, building an innovation team from scratch and delivering two pilot products.
At Polar Bear
Today, based in Prague, she runs Polar Bear. Her edge is being able to hold the people side and the craft side at the same time, because in design and product teams, they are not separate problems.
10+ years leading product and design teams. Built from scratch and led Design Hubs at McKinsey Moscow and Budapest. Created career frameworks and growth systems tested with 100+ person cross-functional product teams.