KRISZTINA USTINOV
THE STORY
My father worked in a mine.
My mother raised us at home.
We lived in a small village in Hungary where most people had never heard the word politology.
I knew I wanted the best university in Hungary. I went for it.
The universe
knew better than I did
I applied to study Law at Eötvös Loránd University and didn’t get in the first time. The second time, I was redirected to Political Science instead.
It was the best thing that could have happened.
Politics taught me how people think, how power moves, and how communication shapes what entire systems believe.
That became the foundation of everything I’ve done since.
BEFORE FACEBOOK
Drawing a map for something that didn’t exist yet
While still at university, I became obsessed with a gap.
E-democracy was a popular idea, but what existed was fragmented, superficial, and built on outdated thinking.
So I designed something different.
A digital civic platform where a citizen’s voice could reach the right representative automatically. Where communities could organise, debate, and act. That idea reached the right people.
“Can you build it for us?”
So I did.
Kapcsolat Pont Hu became one of the first real-time digital civic platforms, connecting citizens and political leaders before social media existed in Europe.
Starting Over
Not a step down. A step through.
In 2010, the governing party lost the election, and the environment I had been part of disappeared overnight. I left Hungary.
Not just the job, but the entire context I had built in.
For someone wired the way I am, I needed a clean break. Staying close to it, half in and half out, was never going to work.
I came to the UK and started again from zero. Pubs, night shifts, physical work. I needed the reset to be complete. Some people saw it as a step down.
I knew it was a step through.
Building Again
A career that kept
refusing to stay in one lane
The instinct never left.
OnTime Cars gave me a blank canvas. I rebuilt the brand from the ground up. Brand awareness grew from 12% to 84%. Turnover tripled. A second office opened.
At the same time, I formalised what I already knew.
I completed my Professional Diploma with the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and ended up contributing to their own rebrand.
From there, the work expanded.
I transformed Surrey County Council’s school meals service into Twelve15, a brand that connected emotionally as well as operationally.
At Lime Global, I built an entire brand family from scratch.
No agency. No team. Just direction and delivery.
The result: a Cover Excellence Award and six finalist categories in 2025.
What Drives Me
Always working best
when the job was
bigger than me
Not bigger in scale.
Bigger in purpose.
I work best when what I’m building matters.
That instinct comes from where I grew up.
Where work was not a value, it was simply life.
It taught me to recognise what is real.
And to give everything to it.
Kapcsolat Pont Hu
Connecting citizens and government in real time, before social media.
Shaping the identity of a professional body representing an entire industry.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing
Rebuilding a public service into a brand people could trust and feel proud of.
Twelve15
Lime Health
Building a health brand focused on closing the workforce health gap.
Beyond the Brief
The life that runs
alongside the work
I don’t only work within briefs.
I write music, explore ideas, and build projects that come from curiosity rather than requirement.
This is where I test thinking, stay sharp, and keep evolving how I work.
I am also a photographer, a videographer, and someone who builds things when an idea won’t leave.
And I am a mother of two.
Ready to see the full picture?