Pilar Esteban

Design & Product Leader

Passionate design leader with 20+ years of experience shaping impactful products and experiences across diverse industries and global markets. I thrive on empowering teams, fostering collaboration, and using design as a catalyst for business growth and positive change.

At Everest Engineering, I have the privilege of leading product and design initiatives for a wide range of clients, from ambitious startups to established enterprises. My focus has been on building a thriving design and product culture, mentoring talent, and driving innovation to deliver exceptional products and tangible business results.

Previously, at BCG Digital Ventures, I partnered with some of the APAC region’s largest corporations to incubate and launch disruptive new businesses. This experience honed my ability to navigate complex challenges, identify opportunities, and lead teams to achieve significant market impact.

My career has taken me across Europe, APAC, and Australia, working both in-house and as a consultant in diverse sectors such as commerce, B2B, healthcare, payments, real estate and education. This breadth of experience has given me a unique perspective on the power of design to solve problems and create value.

I’m also deeply passionate about sharing my knowledge and empowering others through workshops and learning experiences. I believe that design is a tool for everyone, and I’m committed to making design and innovation accessible to all.

What I Do
  • Design Leadership
  • Product Strategy
  • Business Development
  • Strategic Design
  • Innovation
  • Facilitation

Everest Engineering

Director of Design and Product

From April 2018

Everest is a global innovation and software development consultancy of more than 250 employees. As Design and Product Director, I lead strategic initiatives for our product and design teams, collaborating with a diverse clientele ranging from startups to established enterprises. I set the vision and spearhead research, innovation, and incubation of digital products to propel business growth and deliver exceptional user experiences.

As a senior leader in the organisation, I actively cultivate new business opportunities, define service offerings, set strategic direction for projects, and forge strong client relationships. I foster a product and design-centric culture within the organization and champion the professional development and well-being of a team exceeding 20 talented designers and product specialists.
Here are some of my proudest achievements:

  • Product & Design practices: Established a new standard for product and design within the organization, building a global team of over 20 exceptional individuals across Australia, India and Indonesia.
  • Design and Innovation Service Offering: Defined and launched Everest’s innovation and design service offering, generating a thriving design and product client portfolio.
  • Transform the way of working: Promoted and implemented cross-functional collaboration standards across more than 250 distributed team members, including engineers, data specialists, and AI experts.
  • Drive client success: Led innovation, research, and product strategy for clients such as Bupa, AWS, Seek, and Boost Asia.
  • Successful Start-Ups: Built and launched over 6 profitable startups.
  • Team growth: Established and implemented a new growth framework for the design and product teams, encompassing feedback loops, a coaching system, and best practices.
  • Workshops and education: Led innovation workshops and ways of working programs. Designed education programs for startups and established enterprises.

BCG Digital Ventures

Lead Experience Designer

From April 2018

Helped some of the biggest corporations across Australia and the APAC region create the next generation of disruptive businesses. Led design teams through comprehensive research and innovation processes, conceptualizing innovative ventures, securing funding, defining product strategies, and iterating through development to successfully launch them into the market.

  • High-Impact Innovation Projects: Delivered several impactful innovation projects, taking them from initial research to viable business models for APAC companies like Woolworths, Westfield, and Energy Australia.
  • Incubated & Launched 4 Successful Startups: Led the product design during the incubation and go-to-market strategy for 4 successful startup businesses across diverse industries and countries: Health (Hong Kong), Education (Indonesia), Sustainability (Australia), and Power Industry (Australia).
  • Design Leadership: Provided coaching and development for designers and design team leadership, including rolling out the design skill matrix.

Domain

Senior Product Designer

May 2016 to April 2018

Played a leading role in the product design for commercial real estate products, resulting in optimizations and the launch of new revenue streams. This included:

  • Customer-centric transformation: After the acquisition of the business, led the research, conceptualization and customer-centric transformation,  ultimately driving business unit profitability. 
  • Creating stickiness with the mobile app: Championed the launch of the mobile app as a complement to the user journey, significantly improving repeat usage for retail and office searches in SME. 
  • Category expansion: Led the launch of the “Business for Sale & Franchises” category, transforming it into the most profitable within commercial real estate. 
  • Domain Rural category launch: Defined and led the launch of the “Rural” category for Domain.

Rokt

Design Lead

July 2015 to May 2016

Established and led the design team for one of Australia’s fastest-growing digital companies, crafting design strategies for both consumer and B2B products. Key accomplishments included:

  • Building a user-centric design culture: From the ground up, built the first design team, setting industry standards for user-centric design practices and fostering effective collaboration with cross-functional teams. 
  • Launching the B2B platform: Conceptualized and spearheaded the launch of the first version of the B2B platform, empowering self-service customers.

Secuoyas

Senior UX Designer

February 2009 to May 2015

Lead the design and research teams in a innovative digital agency in Spain. Designed innovative products for various clients across Europe and the US from enterprises to startups, including Ebay, Decathlon, and Inditex.

Quieru

Lead Designer and Co-funder

February 2008 to May 2009

Co-founded a successful startup in the B2B health and fitness space.

Idealista

Interaction Designer

September 2005 and November 2008

Designed user experiences for internal systems and intranet at Spain’s largest real estate website.

Ya.com

Websites and services technical

Sept 2002 to August 2005

In the early times of the Internet, I did research, definition and wireframing for different digital projects including forums, weather channels, chats, and contact sites.