A Portrait of Growth: Maija & Risto Lähdesmäki

Growth is not a curve.

It’s a pact between two people: I carry you, you carry me, and together we carry others. From that pact came Idean—not just a company, but a way to be human to human at work.

At the start there was an idea and four entrepreneurs. Little money, much resolve. It was enough. Growth began the moment we chose trust over fear. To be yourself at work is not a risk; it is an advantage. Quality is love for other people: design is a promise to be seen and heard.

Risto set the course, took the risk, and set the tempo. He said aloud what many were thinking: we don’t need façades; we need one another. Maija brought scale back to the human: light, space, the beauty of daily life, a sense of safety and calm where creativity dares to appear. What they practiced at home flowed into the company’s culture: the authenticity of presence, candor without chill, and standards that don’t break people but help them grow. Permission to be yourself.

Growth is change. Maija and Risto took a conscious risk and moved with their four small children to the United States, to Silicon Valley. They believed change is a wellspring of youth: when your surroundings shift, the mind sharpens and the heart learns anew. A true leap into the unknown was their way to grow—as people, as a couple, and as a company—by every measure.

Growth also meant failure. The wrong direction, the wrong partner, the wrong timing. But each crack taught them to listen. That “no” is a form of fairness. That the hard conversation is best had early. That leadership is trust—and making room for others to rise. And so the company grew in revenue, but above all in people: juniors became masters, clients became partners, competitors became mirrors.

Between the two of them grew a trust that held even on the day it was time to let Idean go.

Growth belongs to no one. It is a loan we repay through how we treat one another—especially when time is short and pressure is high. When fear tries to fill the room, we choose trust. When ego wants the microphone, we give the floor to everyone.

Though Maija and Risto are the faces of this work, the portrait holds many: everyone who dared to be themselves and did their work so well that it made room for others to grow.

This work is therefore also a thank-you. Growth is a beauty you often notice only afterward—like a light that has been in the room all along.

What Idean?

Idean was a Finnish design and user-experience (UX/UI) company founded in 1999. It grew rapidly in Silicon Valley from 2011 onward; its clients included Apple, IBM, Amazon, Nike, Ericsson, and Sandvik. Studios were opened in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Austin, Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, and London. In 2017, Idean was acquired by Capgemini for a then-record price, and later grew into a team of nearly a thousand designers in more than twenty countries. The company was led by its founder and CEO, Risto Lähdesmäki.