Sydney · Working globally · Now: Creative AI across the regions, 33 nodes and a lab of 10
I lead design as a business, and the AI practice that scales it.
I'm Esteban, a Creative Director in the business of creativity and design. I run the Global Creative AI practice at BCG Design Studios: 33 nodes across the regions, a lab of 10 creative technologists, and a seven-product suite that 24 builders coded in squads. I write the first working version myself, then lead the people who turn it into something the firm actually uses.
Creative Director & Creative-AI Lead, BCG Design Studios33 nodes, a lab of 10, reach into 400+P&L owner18 years, brief to production
This is my AI agent, grounded on my actual work: what I've built, how I lead, and what I'm after next. Ask it anything, by text or voice. I built it, which is the point.
Esteban · live
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Hi, I'm Esteban's AI.
Ask about his work, the agentic AI he builds, or what's next, by text or voice.
Answers come from his real history, and he'll say so if he doesn't know.
A creative leader who builds, and who grows builders.
I build the thing, then I lead the team that scales it.
I run the Global Creative AI practice at BCG Design Studios. I founded it, I lead it, and I authored the "Creative Advantage" proposal that positions the studio as the firm's Creative AI centre of excellence. Today that means 33 nodes across the regions and a global lab of 10 creative technologists, taking tools from proof-of-concept to working internal product. My formal title is Global Creative Director. I own the ANZ Creative Studio P&L and sit on the global Design Studios leadership team, and I am the only creative director here carrying a region, a global craft remit and a global transformation programme at the same time.
I write and ship agentic software, hands-on. Multi-agent systems, MCP servers, autonomous scheduled agents, a native app, custom tooling, prototype through to production. But the building is how I lead, not what I am. I write the first working version so the direction is arguable instead of theoretical, then hand it to people who take it further. The seven-product suite is the clearest case: I shaped it, 24 builders coded it in squads at my orchestration, and it shipped with handover docs so it runs without me.
Then I teach it, so it sticks. I designed the Power Up Weeks and ran them through the regional leads so every region got hands-on in its own timezone, and I write and deliver the deep dives: graph engineering, context engineering, prompt engineering, agent loops, building agents in Claude and in GPT, and how to build your own AI employee.
I lead through mentorship. BCG's "Grow by Growing Others" award recognised it. I build benches, coach senior managers into leaders, and create the conditions where people do the best work of their careers. I previously led 16 managers and their associates, developed that group, took several to promotion and handed them on. Around eight promotions have come out of that. I have also had to manage people out, and that is part of the job too.
Before BCG: almost 7 years at Endeavour Group, where I arrived as a senior designer and left as Creative Lead for Endeavour Drinks, running Dan Murphy's, the group's biggest account and Australia's largest drinks retailer. I built and governed the design system, led the site restyle that roughly doubled the audience, launched the app, created sub-brands, and helped grow a small in-house team into a full agency.
I won't hand work off without a working prototype. Then I hand the craft to people who can take it further than I can.
02 / Operating principle
Design isn't art. It's a discipline that moves revenue.
— My career thesis, 18 years in the making
03 / Built & shipped
What I built, and who runs it now.
My own craft and my own tools, never client deliverables. I write the first working version, then build the team that takes it further than I could.
The programme I run
A global Creative AI practice, and the people who run it
I founded it and I lead it: 33 Creative AI nodes across the regions and a global lab of 10 creative technologists, whose job is to take a tool from proof-of-concept to a working internal product. Under that sits a seven-product self-serve suite that 24 builders coded in squads at my orchestration, shipped with handover docs and briefed to named owners in other regions so it runs without me. I also wrote the playbook, so a node can operate with me out of the room.
Upskilling, globally
Power Up Weeks, run region by region
I designed and orchestrated them, then ran them through the regional leads rather than myself, so the whole practice got hands-on with AI in its own timezone instead of watching one central webinar. Alongside them I write and teach the deep dives: graph engineering (map a real workflow into stages and nodes, lay the orchestration over it, prove the path runs, then automate it as a loop), context engineering, prompt engineering, agent loops, building agents in Claude and in GPT, and a session on how to build your own AI employee.
Delivered · global
A global Creative AI hackathon, conceived and built end to end
Run out of London for the firm's creative community worldwide. I built the whole participant experience: the agenda, timed auto-unlock mission cards, RSVP automation, and a skill-sharing library with an automated review pipeline behind it. Contributors drop in a skill, an automated reviewer assesses it against a published bar, and on approval it publishes to the library.
Skills marketplace
A shared library of 49 skills, with an AI reviewer on the door
The thing that turned my own tooling into something a whole practice contributes to. Drop, automated review, approve, publish. 49 skills in it, and a live tracker carrying 79 cards of work across 15 owners so everyone can see what is being built and by whom.
Live · you're using it
This site and the agent you just spoke to
Hand-built. The agent is grounded on a knowledge base I maintain by hand, answers by voice or text, streams token by token, and runs on a serverless function with my own guardrails. You are not reading a claim that I build agentic AI. You are talking to one.
Native app · daily use
Parla, a dictation app I built from scratch
Native macOS, with an MCP server alongside it, and I use it every day. The transcription engine is the easy part. The dictionary is the product: it learns the names, the jargon and the accented edge cases that generic speech models reliably get wrong.
Publications & editorial
A report engine that typesets from the source document
I rebuilt a 40-page report straight from its original Word file with no InDesign in the loop: real brand fonts embedded, page geometry matched to within a hundredth of a point, exhibits rebuilt as vector from their source geometry. The build fails on typographic defects rather than flagging them, so no word is ever stranded on a last line and no headline breaks mid-phrase. Rebuilding it also surfaced two errors in the published original.
Video, cut in code
An AI video pipeline, from stills to a finished MP4
Headless-browser frames, generated voiceover, motion, a music bed and the final cut, end to end and repeatable. I edit video from the terminal rather than in an editing suite. It produced the 90-second film for the practice launch, and there is a motion engine for branded GIFs and MP4s beside it, plus a read-along tool that plays a script with word-by-word highlighting so it can be judged before anything is shot.
Multi-agent org
A self-organising "Creative AI Studio"
I stood up a small AI organisation: a CEO agent that hired an HR agent, which recruits specialist agents, engineers and a deep-research agent, into a team I direct. I set the goals and the agents collaborate to deliver. It helped power the hackathon.
Multi-agent system
An "LLM Council"
Several independent models each draft a plan, get anonymised and shuffled, and a judge model merges them into one, which makes the answer resistant to any single model's bias. I used it to pressure-test this very site's repositioning.
Executive-assistant agent
"Monday", my daily EA agent
One terminal command: it searches my email and calendar, triages everything into P1/P2/P3, surfaces flags and who's away, and summarises threads. It drafts replies and suggests the right kind of response, then keeps a human in the loop by opening Outlook so I decide and send. I use it daily.
Personal infrastructure
A portable, version-controlled AI operating system
A full Claude Code setup backed by a private repo so it survives any machine: dozens of custom skills and slash-commands, MCP integrations, autonomous scheduled agents including a weekly one that audits and self-maintains the whole setup unattended, and clone-survivable git safety hooks with automated secret-scanning. Plus a terminal email sender with several visual templates, which runs my event invites and RSVP tracking.
Systems others build on
Two deck engines, a design-system layer and a UX skill set
Any source document, a PowerPoint, a PDF, a Word file or a pile of notes, becomes a finished on-brand presentation. Beside it: a token and stylesheet layer in light and dark that is now the standard for the studio's pages, and a nine-skill UX/UI system handed to the design team covering review, patterns, microcopy, dashboards and agent-specific UX.
Client work · by sector only
Coded proof-of-concepts inside the pitch, and we won the work
Design Studios runs as case team services, so I am client-facing through the case team: alongside the MDs, Partners and Principals who own the relationship, and alongside the client's own scientists and engineers. I help shape the strategy and sharpen how it is told, then build the working proof that makes it real, inside the proposal rather than after it. Multiple proposals have been won that way, across agri-food, energy, convenience retail, beverages and banking, with one opening a pipeline that is still running. The win is never one person's. It is what happens when deep BCG strategy gets combined with design and creative craft in the business, and it shows up as delivery and revenue rather than adjectives.
Resources sector
A scientist team's agentic tool, turned into something usable
A client's own scientific team had built a genuinely working agentic tool with no interface worth using. I did the UI and front-end uplift, then handed it on to a team of around 10 specialists with a proper brief, which they had never been given before, and produced a video demo so the work could travel to people who were never in the room. That is the pattern I am best at: take something technically real but unusable, make it land, and leave a team able to run it.
Prototype to production
Agentic tools taken all the way into production
In mining, a field-maintenance scoping tool from concept through to production handoff, embedded with the engineering team. For an aviation ground-services operator in Asia, a proposal with a full web experience, a working tool POC connected to real data and a video walkthrough, client-approved. For an automotive brand, a pitch microsite you can question out loud instead of reading. Client identities stay confidential, so the craft has to be the point.
Unblocking
Getting it built, and keeping it safe
Most creative leaders stall at enterprise IT. I found and closed a Critical security exposure on our own hosting, a publicly readable git directory, and the fix is now standard practice for the team. I drove a subdomain and single-sign-on path through IT for 30+ gated users, and I work directly with global cyber security on what the firm can actually stand up, so the next person doesn't spend three months finding out.
Public app
World Clock / Time Projector
A meeting-planner across time zones. Public and linkable, and a small finished thing rather than a demo.
BCGBoston Consulting GroupNov 2024 — PresentSydney · Global
Global Creative Director & Creative AI Lead
Running the Creative AI practice, and building the systems behind it, hands-on.
Founded and run BCG Design Studios' Global Creative AI practice, and authored the "Creative Advantage" proposal positioning the studio as the firm's Creative AI centre of excellence.
Lead 33 Creative AI nodes across the regions and a global lab of 10 creative technologists, taking tools from proof-of-concept to working internal product. I designed the structure, defined the roles and wrote the playbook so a node runs without me.
Orchestrated 24 builders across squads to ship a seven-product self-serve suite, shipped with handover docs and briefed to owners in other regions.
Designed and ran the Power Up Weeks region by region through the regional leads, plus the deep-dive curriculum: graph engineering, context engineering, prompt engineering, agent loops and building agents in Claude and GPT.
Conceived and ran a global Creative AI hackathon end to end out of London: the participant platform, timed mission unlocks, RSVP automation and an automated skill-review pipeline.
Build and ship agentic AI personally: multi-agent systems, MCP servers, autonomous scheduled agents, a native macOS app, and a report engine that typesets long-form publications from their source document.
Lead across six disciplines, being experience, visualisation, print, video and motion, editorial and presentation, connecting 400+ designers worldwide.
Pitched, launched and executive-produce Business and Beyond, BCG ANZ's flagship video podcast.
9–13% YoY revenue growth~2× regional scale33 nodes · 10 technologistsP&L owner · ANZ Studio"Grow by Growing Others" award
BCGBoston Consulting GroupNov 2021 — Oct 2024
Senior Creative Manager
Head of Creative ANZ · Co-Lead Strategy ANZ
Built ANZ Creative into one of BCG's strongest regional practices, contributing to 9–13% YoY growth, and began embedding AI into the creative workflow: the foundation for the practice I run today.
EGEndeavour Group2015 — 2021
Creative Lead, Endeavour Drinks
Almost 7 years · arrived a senior designer · Dan Murphy's, the biggest account
Led Australia's largest drinks retailer as the group's biggest account. Built and governed the design system, led the site restyle that roughly doubled the audience, launched the app, created sub-brands, and helped grow a small in-house team into a full agency.
Agencies · BA + SydneyEarlier
Senior UX/UI & Creative Generalist
Art direction · UX/UI · front-end · client lead
A full-stack creative generalist across agencies in two countries, plus wayfinding for airports and retail. (And three seasons as a PSIA-certified ski instructor in Colorado, because discipline shows up everywhere.)
This is the highlights reel. The full chronology lives in the PDF.
Download full CV
05 / Capabilities
Where I make the difference.
i.
Agentic AI, hands-on
I personally build and ship multi-agent systems, MCP servers, autonomous agents, a native app and custom tooling, from prototype through to production.
ii.
Building the practice, not just the tool
33 nodes across the regions, a lab of 10 technologists, playbooks so a node runs without me, and tools packaged with handover docs and briefed to owners elsewhere.
iii.
Orchestrating builders
24 builders across squads shipped a seven-product suite at my direction. I shape the thing, split the work, and run the cadence.
iv.
Teaching it so it sticks
Power Up Weeks run region by region through the regional leads, plus the deep dives I write and deliver: graph engineering, context engineering, prompt engineering, agent loops.
v.
Design leadership at scale
High-trust teams across regions and disciplines. I coach leaders and grow benches, which is what "Grow by Growing Others" was for.
vi.
Product, brand & service
Apps, websites, design systems, brand identity, customer journeys, editorial and motion, across the full craft.
vii.
Strategic partnership
I work shoulder-to-shoulder with MDs, Partners and the C-suite, meaning CMO, CFO, CEO and board.
viii.
P&L & commercial design
I own a regional studio P&L and treat creative as an asset on the balance sheet.
06 / Recognition
Recognised in two arenas.
Grow by Growing Others
BCG award for developing people and growing leaders.
Ironman World Championship
Qualified for Hawaii. Multiple 70.3 age-group wins.
Mini-MBA, Business of Creativity
Future London Academy, 2025. Plus Branding Now II.
Two languages, two passports
Spanish (native), English (full professional). AU + AR.