Esme Palaganas is a creative strategist and creative futures researcher. 

With a more than a decade experience in design, manufacturing, and marketing, she consults for fashion and lifestyle startups, FMCG ventures, growth-stage brands and national government agencies on ecosystem strategy and design thinking. Her advisory practice translates cross-sector expertise into execution-focused strategy across business, brand, finance and operations. 

Esme works at the policy level to shape creative industry ecosystems that drive innovation and long-term growth. As Policy chairperson, she led policy discussion for national industry development for the congress and organizations such as Department of Science and Technology and American Chamber of Commerce. She established an IP Help Desk for the fashion and design sector in partnership with the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines and Benilde and played a key advocacy industry role in the passage of the country’s Creative Industries Development Act. In the private sector, she co-founded PHx Fashion Group—a company supporting Filipino contemporary brands through incubation programs, retail activations, and industry events.

Finding importance in knowledge exchange and thought leadership, she engages across academia, media, and global networks to deepen discourse on creativity, technology, and systems change. She’s a guest contributor at Vogue Philippines and Philippine Star and has delivered lectures and talks at University College London and Ateneo de Manila University. She has designed curriculums and held academic posts at design schools and business universities such as De La Salle University–Manila, De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde, and SoFA Design Institute. She is a fellow of global organizations such as Salzburg Global (Art and AI Governance) and the UNCTAD eTrade for Women network.  

Esme is set to pursue a PHD on Creativity Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence at City University of London (Bayes Business School), She is a Chevening Scholar and Bayes Studentship recipient.

Consulting: esme@esme.world
Business advisory: team@ablankcd.com