The story
From spray cans to product systems.
Nenad Ivanovic is VP of Product at Nursa with 16 years building digital platforms. His path from graffiti, design, film, and community work to AI-native products shaped a systems-led approach to growth and product leadership.
Six chapters, one instinct.
The public record behind this story is documented in the complete speaking and teaching archive and the publications and media archive.
01
From 2004 — Zaječar & Belgrade
Graffiti & visual culture
It started in the streets of Zaječar, Serbia — spray cans, aliases (Shotri and Mons), and a subculture that ran on graffiti, snowboarding, music, and events. Nenad wasn't just painting; he was organizing scenes: artistic and executive director of KZS Tresh Seshn, an early MTV TV commercial, and the visual identity for the East Fort music festival.
Public visual culture taught him the fundamentals he still uses — how to make something legible at a glance, how to build a crowd, and how to ship work that lives out in the world, not behind glass.
02
2010 — 2011 — International festivals
Film & storytelling
That creative circle became a film. Nenad was part of the creative team and acting ensemble of Tilva Roš, which won Best Feature Film at the Sarajevo Film Festival, premiered at Locarno, and travelled to 20+ international festivals — Rotterdam, Warsaw, Thessaloniki, Miami, Buenos Aires, San Francisco — earning a European Film Academy Prix FIPRESCI nomination for European Discovery.
Filmmaking sharpened a product skill in disguise: how to hold an audience's attention, structure a narrative, and coordinate a lot of people toward one finished thing on a deadline.
03
2013 — Present — Belgrade & beyond
Design craft & recognition
He trained at the College of Fine and Applied Arts in Belgrade, earning a state-funded place and scholarship on merit, and turned creative instinct into a discipline. Across web, mobile, identity systems, complex app workflows, hackathons, and creative projects, his work contributed to 30+ awards and recognitions — spanning visual quality, usability, technical achievement, and public impact.
At AlsterCloud he led a full UI/UX team building web, mobile, wearable, and Apple TV products, plus the company's visual identity. He joined Toptal's top-3% global network and began treating design as a business capability: understandability, alignment, trust, and action — the natural bridge into product.
04
2015 — 2022 — Sweden
Digital identity & trust
As design lead for Verisec / Freja eID, Nenad helped translate security, regulation, and authentication into experiences people could actually trust — work connected to Sweden's first mobile-based electronic identity for a government use case, at assurance levels requiring regulatory and certification review.
Collaborating with backend, security, legal, and external authorities under GDPR and eIDAS shaped his core framework: security UX isn't only about making systems safe — it's about making people feel safe. Sometimes friction is a feature, when people understand why it's there.
05
2013 — Present — Belgrade & the region
Community & education
Alongside the client work, he built the scene he wished he'd had. He helped organize 10+ Belgrade Behance portfolio reviews — one drew 1,000+ participants, among the largest of its kind globally — and led the group that brought Adobe 99U Local to Belgrade, one of only 28 cities worldwide. In 2013 he founded Lege Artists, a nonprofit connecting creatives across Serbia, Croatia, North Macedonia, Hungary, and Slovenia.
His public work connected the same disciplines. He presented ‘Designers and Developers, Together for Better UX’ at UX Belgrade in 2016 and joined Adobe's ‘Creatives vs. Tools’ panel for 80+ designers and creative professionals. From 2016 to 2019, he worked as a lecturer in SAE Institute Belgrade's UX/UI program; a supplied statement from SAE communication manager Nina Kokeza also describes his role evaluating student work.
That authority extended to judging and mentorship. According to BEST Design Week organizer Milena Murganić, Nenad evaluated participant work and mentored emerging designers at the event. Teaching, critique, and community-building became part of how he leads — not separate from the product work.
06
2018 — Present — Nursa
Product leadership & AI
Every thread came together at Nursa, a healthcare staffing marketplace where Nenad was one of the first hires — first as founding designer, now as VP of Product. He led the migration of ~40,000 pages to Webflow in 19 days, scaled the platform toward ~100,000 pages, and drove roughly 10x organic growth in year one (one key section grew ~35x) on a site that got 70%+ faster.
Today he leads Nursa's shift to AI-native product development — the throughline of his work now. He built Nursa Study, a net-new product line, from prototype to paying enterprise customers in a single weekend, sparking a company-wide change: 200+ employees building with AI, the seven-year core platform rebuilt ~12x faster, and roughly ten SaaS tools retired. His public platform grew alongside the work: he joined Webflow Conf Chicago's opening keynote in 2023 and returned in 2024 to present Nursa's enterprise technology stack with CEO Curtis Anderson and Webflow's Peter Hsieh.
2023 + 2024
Webflow Conf opening-keynote participant, then enterprise-stack speaker
2016
Presented ‘Designers and Developers, Together for Better UX’ at UX Belgrade
2016–2019
Lecturer in SAE Institute Belgrade's UX/UI program
BEST
Design Week judge and mentor, according to organizer Milena Murganić
80+
Designers and creative professionals at Adobe's ‘Creatives vs. Tools’ panel
30+
Awards and recognitions across disciplines
What collaborators say.
Leaders and teammates across product, design, growth, and education describe the same pattern: clear thinking, ambitious execution, and collaborative leadership without ego.
“Nenad's foresight and user-first leadership helped transform us into a consumer product used by one million people.”
Kristofer von Beetzen
Chief Product Officer · Freja
“Creative, fast, receptive to feedback, and genuinely fun to work with—without ego.”
Todd Jensen
Chief Marketing Officer · Snoball Inc. / Best Company
“Instrumental in rebuilding Nursa's website—an incredible leader and a joy to work with.”
Nathalia Padua
Administrative Fellow · Kaiser Permanente · former Nursa colleague