About

Nikita Kissel leaning against a ribbed stone wall

I'm based in Brooklyn.
I started as an engineer: a rational mind, systems thinking, and a career built around my strongest skills and the roles that paid best for them.

Personal growth changed what matters to me.
Emotional intelligence, communication and relationships turned out to come first, and they became my strongest asset.

I can understand the needs underneath every side of a situation and find the creative overlap where the priority needs are met.
Compromise is never enough for me: there's almost always a solution that meets everyone's main needs, without anyone giving up what matters.

Now I bring both together, emotional depth and a structured, rational approach, to product design and product management.
I build for people's real lives and feelings, not their time in an app.

That reframed my career.
Success, for me, is doing what I love with people I like, and in a team, the relationships are worth the most.

Passions and values

Emotional intelligence

In my opinion, it's the most important matter in the world, and severely overlooked.
It's the key to every other problem: if we don't know who we are or who we live with, how can we communicate well and solve anything at all?

There are two directions where I want to have impact.

Education: popularize and normalize curiosity about our own feelings, learning what it means to be us before acting, or not acting, on them.
Social and emotional learning, therapy and coaching, not just accessible but an attractive first line of defense for any challenge.

Product design: not everyone can get this education, but empathy, self-care and clear communication can still be learned by using products designed a certain way, again and again.
I believe there's growing demand for businesses that are empathetic: that genuinely want to know who we are, respect our boundaries, and help us figure out and fulfill our needs.

Products

Products became the pinnacle of my interests: complex, never-stagnating systems that always have to stay in touch with reality, ever-changing human needs and market dynamics.
They're something people interact with every day, something that makes life fulfilling and imprints better practices through repetition.

AI is a great example: many of us learn to talk with empathy and care just by interacting with it.
Now everyone has examples of what empathetic, efficient communication looks like, gets rewarded for mirroring it, and feels more friction when they don't.

Relationships and learning

I believe there's little more worth doing than building relationships and learning.
Show up authentically, stay curious about other people's needs with intention, open-mindedness and flexibility, and the depth you can reach will be worth the effort and commitment.

I'm forever curious, always on the edge between bored by what I already know and challenged by what I can't yet grasp.
Uncertainty doesn't stop me: facing a challenge I've never taken on, I focus on the priority needs and look for the right next step.

I embrace change, a forever transition, and my only constant is dynamic too: relationships that can adjust to new challenges while staying deep, strong and supportive.

Authenticity

Every decision starts with knowing yourself.
Authenticity defines everything I do.

Only when we show up as we are, vulnerable and real, can our needs be met, and can we be seen by people who share our values.
I crave vulnerability in the workplace: what we can't do today doesn't make us bad, it's a reason to bring it to the surface, with support, and learn.

Background

Feel like we're kindred spirits?

Vibing?