Bring design leadership to your event
Let's talk about your eventYour audience deserves more than inspiration
Most design talks leave the room motivated but not equipped. The ideas sound right, the slides look good, and by Monday nothing has changed.
Your audience, whether they are designers, business leaders, or students, came to learn something they can actually use. That is the bar worth setting.
A practitioner, not a theorist
I am Esko Lehtme – design executive, career coach, and design leadership speaker. Two decades integrating design into product development organisations and building the business cases that make it stick.
The content is field-tested. Every talk is adjusted to the audience. The examples stay specific, the principles stay transferable.
A former member of Toastmasters Tallinn, I have facilitated internal trainings for hundreds of colleagues and students throughout all three Baltic states.
After the Baltic e-Commerce Forum, people came up to continue the conversation. After Tallinna Ettevõtluspäev, the DMs arrived the next day. The talks that work do not end when I step off the stage.
What I speak about
Design in product development
How design moves from a delivery function to a strategic one – embedded earlier, influencing decisions before features are scoped. What this looks like in practice, and what it takes to get there.
The business value of design
Business leaders often arrive assuming they already know their customers. This talk addresses that directly. It covers the specific aspects of user experience that translate to measurable business outcomes – text, flow, accessibility, the points where people stop or continue – and shows how each can be expressed in numbers that organisations can act on.
Building teams for where you are
Starting with VRIO analysis and business modelling, this talk maps what the design team is actually doing against what the organisation needs. UX maturity evaluation reveals where the organisation is and what is most critical. Skill matrix analysis closes the picture. The output is a gap map: what needs to be filled by process and what needs to be filled by people.
A simple process
1. Reach out. Tell me about your event and audience. We find out if the content is the right fit.
2. We design the talk together. Based on your audience and goals, we agree on the focus, the depth, and the format.
3. I show up prepared. Minimalist slides built specifically for your event. Content that fits the room.
After the talk
Audiences leave with practical methods they can apply immediately, and usually with questions they had not thought to ask before. People seek out one-on-one conversations after the talk. The content continues working after the event ends.
Every presentation is summarised – so your audience has something to return to.
Who I speak to
Designers leave with practical tools for communicating the business value of their work, and a renewed sense that it is worth communicating. For business leaders and managers, the takeaway is updated language for talking about design and concrete ways to build customer-centric organisations. Students and people changing careers get a realistic picture of what design practice actually is, and usually a reason to continue the conversation.
Based in Tallinn, Estonia, I am available for conferences, company events, and university lectures throughout the Baltics. For design meetups and community events, I make time – giving back is part of why I do this.
