The formative years of my design career were spent studying and working in San Francisco. I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to work with legendary design leaders like Maria Giudice and Katrina Alcorn. The inspiration and lessons I absorbed from working with these leaders transformed my career and my approach to design. I wanted to share that experience with as many people as possible here in Finland.
My dream came true when my current employer, Elisa Oyj, was willing to support a 2-day design event that brought my favorite design leaders to Helsinki, to share their insights with an audience of roughly 400 in-house designers, product managers, and business leaders. I was given a team of seven people, including myself, and led the planning and organization of the event that exceeded all our expectations—and those of our guests.
Below are snapshots from the event that took 6 months to plan and gave me a thorough crash course in event budget planning and management, network building, sponsor and partner negotiations, ticket sales, and team and project leadership through a hectic and stressful project. One of the biggest compliments we received was about the event's wonderful, immediate, and relaxed atmosphere, which I credit to the saying, 'any event looks like the team that organizes it.' Our team (Maria Leivonen, Mikko Häkkinen, Roope Leikoski, Mirja Suikkanen, Jussi Mantere, and Sakari Volanen) was wonderfully warm and incredibly professional, and I feel grateful to have organized this event with them."
Photos by Sakari Volanen
We didn’t quite break the internet, but we dominated Finnish LinkedIn for a week with people raving about how much they loved the event.
