Why me?
I grew up in Soviet Estonia. In that world, nothing was handed out ready. If you wanted something, you figured out how to build it, from the clothes you wore to the food you ate.
That creates a certain mindset: creative, economical, and used to working with limited resources. It's never about how much you have, but how you use it.
I took the operator mindset into a design degree in Helsinki and spent years in international R&D across the EU, India, and China.
But everywhere I went, I felt design was pushed into a decorative layer.
That pulled me into the parts of the business where ideas meet reality, fixing what blocks revenue, and deciding what is worth focusing on.
Across companies and countries, I keep seeing the same patterns:
The good thing is, all of that can be changed. It's rarely easy and not always pleasant. But it is good fun.