Designing an L&D strategy inside one company is hard enough. But what happens when you've done it across several, each at different stages of growth, from scale-ups to tech giants like Apple and Microsoft?

That’s the journey Artem has been on for the last two decades. We sat down to unpack the lessons he’s gathered along the way and the patterns that repeat, no matter the size of the business.

From teaching to tech giants

Artem started his career in academia before jumping into the corporate L&D world in 2005. Since then, he’s led teams across regions like Southeast Asia, EMEA, and globally. His career includes stints at Apple, Microsoft, Revolut, and now, inDrive, where he leads the Global Learning Team in a 3000-employee company spread across 48 countries.

Curiosity has been his compass. “I’m a little geeky when it comes to learning new things,” he says. That mindset, paired with his love for diversity and complexity, helped him adapt from structured environments to fast-paced, high-growth ones.

How L&D strategy changes as companies grow

The needs of a business, and what it expects from its L&D team evolve dramatically depending on its size, maturity, and pace of change. Artem has worked across that full spectrum, from massive multinationals to high-growth scale-ups, and he’s seen firsthand how your role as an L&D professional and the strategy that guides your work must flex to fit the environment.

In large, established companies: balancing scale and personalization

At companies like Apple and Microsoft, Artem worked in regional roles within large global L&D teams. These organizations already had mature processes, strong infrastructure, and centralized strategy. The key challenge wasn’t building a strategy from scratch, it was making it work in practice.

“You’re often caught in the middle,” Artem explained. “The global team wants scalability and standardization. Regional leaders want customization and flexibility. Your job is to make sure programs are adapted just enough to work locally, without breaking the global design.”

In these environments, the L&D strategy is often well-defined at the top. The focus for regional teams becomes translating and localizing it, without compromising consistency.

In scale-ups: more about strategic thinking than formal strategy

In scale-ups like Revolut and inDrive, the context shifts completely. Speed and adaptability take center stage. The business is evolving so quickly that long-term planning often takes a backseat.

“You need to be useful today,” Artem said. “It’s not about building a perfect strategy deck. It’s about strategic thinking, plugging yourself into the business and staying close to what matters most.”

That might mean running fast experiments, building just-in-time learning solutions, or switching from big-picture thinking to tactical execution within the same week. There’s room for strategic thinking but not necessarily for traditional L&D strategy frameworks.

“You have to stay flexible,” Artem added. “Otherwise, you risk slowing things down instead of supporting the pace of growth.”

As companies mature: where strategy starts to stick

Eventually, the business stabilizes. Growth slows just enough for systems, processes, and longer-term thinking to take hold. This is where Artem sees true L&D strategy becoming valuable and necessary.

“When the company starts thinking about what kind of leaders it will need in one or two years, or when compliance becomes a business-critical need, that’s when strategy becomes more than a nice-to-have,” he said.

In some companies, this maturity brings structural changes too, like separating compliance training from development-focused learning, to avoid the perception that all learning is mandatory or dull.

“You need to be more deliberate,” Artem said. “It’s no longer just about reacting. It’s about anticipating, aligning with business goals, and having a clear direction for the year ahead.”

Principles that travel across companies

Despite all the differences, Artem sees a few core principles that apply no matter where you are:

1. Start with the business

Everything begins with understanding what the business is trying to achieve. Artem reviews strategy documents, roadmaps, and, when possible, joins leadership conversations. But he also emphasizes talking to people. “Even if the strategy is on paper, it helps to validate what you’re seeing with stakeholders.”

If you’re not invited to the table early on, that’s a signal too: “Sometimes it’s about timing, but sometimes it’s about trust. You earn your seat by showing value.”

2. Experimentation as a strategic habit

For Artem, experimentation isn’t a one-off tactic, it’s a mindset. Especially in high-growth companies where long-term strategy might feel premature, he sees experimentation as the most reliable entry point.

“I always say: start small. Run a few low-risk pilots. See what works. Then scale.”

In fact, Artem often builds his strategy from these early experiments. Rather than making assumptions about what will land, he collects real insights through controlled trials. “It’s almost a chicken-and-egg situation,” he said. “But for me, experimentation comes first. Strategy follows.”

He also emphasized having clear success criteria, not just business impact, but also engagement and learner experience. “You don’t need too many, but you do need to know what success looks like.”

A concrete example? Leadership development. Artem once split managers into different segments, senior and middle managers, and tested different approaches with each. “By the end of the year, we could clearly see what worked best and where to invest further.”

And while experimentation can feel risky, Artem actively works to create psychological safety on his team.

“Even if something doesn’t work, that’s a success. You learned something. That’s what experiments are for.”

3. Build comfort with failure

What is one thing that holds L&D teams back from experimentation? Fear. “No one wants to fail in public,” Artem admits. “But that’s what experiments are for, to learn what doesn’t work. If everything works, you’re probably not taking enough risks.”

He also links experimentation with psychological safety. At inDrive, they’re actively running a program to help teams get more comfortable with failure and see it as a path to learning.

4. Stay close to stakeholders

For Artem, one of the most important parts of building and executing an L&D strategy is stakeholder involvement, but he’s realistic about the variety of people you’ll encounter.

“Some leaders are big believers in development,” he said. “They’re proactive, engaged, and want to co-create with you. Others think people should just figure things out on their own. You have to be ready for both.”

That’s why his first step is simple: ask how they want to be involved. “Some want a one-hour meeting to walk through everything. Others just want an email summary. Just ask. Meet them where they are.”

He also shared a few lessons learned the hard way, like the time his team tried setting up monthly calls with business leaders to update them on L&D progress. “Only two or three people would show up,” he admitted. “So we switched to email-style updates and offered one-on-one follow-ups if they wanted to go deeper. That worked much better.”

Artem is also intentional about creating visibility. Not everyone will chase down updates, so he looks for existing platforms, like all-hands meetings or leadership forums, where he can share quick wins or updates, even if it’s just for five minutes.

And how about when some stakeholders remain disengaged? Don’t try to win everyone over at once.

“Start with your champions,” he advised. “Work with the people who already believe in development. Run a pilot with them. Test ideas. Show results. That creates stories you can share, and over time, that builds momentum.”

He’s seen firsthand how those small wins can create ripple effects. “When leaders see their peers having success with development, it opens the door to deeper conversations later.”

5. Strategy means nothing without execution

Perhaps Artem’s most powerful point: strategy is only 30% of the work. Execution is 70%. “On paper, it all looks great. But then things change. Priorities shift. You hit roadblocks. Execution is where discipline matters most.”

He treats execution like project management, timelines, owners, tracking tools, and check-ins. “It’s not glamorous, but it’s what brings the strategy to life.”

Artem’s framework: Turning strategy into action

When the time is right to create a strategy, Artem follows a clear, three-step process:

1. Discovery

Artem’s process always starts with understanding what the business is trying to achieve, but not by asking people right away. First, he reviews everything that’s already available: annual strategy docs, roadmaps, internal plans. “You can learn a lot just from desk research,” he said.

Then, he moves to stakeholder conversations not to ask what the strategy is but to validate what he’s seen. “It’s really a playback moment,” he explained. “You say, ‘This is what I understood from your strategy doc, is that correct?’ That builds alignment and trust.”

If you're lucky (or rather, trusted), you might be brought into strategic discussions early on. “It’s not really luck,” Artem said. “It means you’ve shown that you bring value.”

When those meetings happen, he keeps things simple and direct. “You want to speak in business terms, not L&D jargon,” he advised. “Words like ‘skills’ are understood. Leave the rest out.”

He often sticks to just two questions:

• What are your priorities this year?
• What skills do you think your team needs to achieve those?

The goal of discovery isn’t just to collect data, it’s to find the places where L&D can make the biggest impact. “That’s the hardest part,” he said. “Designing solutions is relatively straightforward. But identifying the right things to work on? That’s what makes or breaks a strategy.”

2. Strategy on a page

Once Artem has clarity on the business direction, he distills everything into a single-page visual map. “I’m a visual thinker,” he said. “So putting it all in one place helps me, and others, see the big picture clearly.”

This page isn’t a static document, it’s a working tool. It usually includes:

• The company’s strategic business objectives
• Key L&D themes that support them (e.g. strong leaders, engaged employees, global capability)
• Success metrics for each theme
• Specific programs or initiatives mapped to those themes
• Enablers like learning technology, stakeholder support, or talent frameworks

“It’s not just about listing activities,” he explained. “It’s about showing the connection between what the business wants and what L&D will actually do.”

Depending on the maturity of his team, Artem either builds this strategy on his own or co-creates it. But even with junior teams, he makes sure they’re part of the process. “You don’t have to involve everyone in every decision. But walk them through the thinking. Help them connect their work to the bigger picture.”

That’s also why he brings the strategy back into regular team conversations, quarterly, at a minimum. “When you review it together, it helps people build that strategic muscle. Over time, they start thinking this way too.”

3. Roadmap & Execution

Once the strategy is clear, Artem translates it into a detailed roadmap. This is where strategic intent starts becoming real.

The roadmap includes:

• Timelines for each program or initiative
• Owners and team responsibilities
• Milestones and success metrics
• Cadence for progress reviews, typically quarterly

From there, he breaks the work down further into individual project plans, built using whatever project management tool the team is already using. “This is what keeps us focused,” he said. “The strategy is the creative part. Execution is the disciplined part. But without that structure, the strategy means nothing.”

He’s quick to point out that execution is often harder than strategy. “It looks clean on paper, March we do this, April we do that, but reality rarely follows the plan,” he said. Priorities shift. Obstacles come up. And the excitement that fueled strategy creation can fade once the real work begins.

To stay on track, Artem recommends building regular habits:

• Quarterly check-ins with the team to revisit the strategy and assess progress
• Frequent use of project plans to guide daily work
• Reflections on execution, not just planning, during team meetings

He also sees this phase as critical for team development. “Execution is how your team builds confidence and capability. Strategy might be built by one person or a few, but execution involves everyone.”

Finally, he stressed the importance of staying flexible. “Discipline doesn’t mean rigidity. It means not losing momentum when things get hard.”

Final thoughts

If there’s one thing Artem wants more L&D professionals to remember, it’s this:

“You can work efficiently on the wrong things. That’s why discovery is the most critical part of strategy.”

Whether you’re navigating a scale-up or supporting a global enterprise, Artem’s message is clear: don’t rush to build strategy. Stay curious, start small, listen deeply, and let the real needs of the business lead the way.