Opens 19 Mar 2027
Apply to attendA design leadership summit
19 & 20 March 2027 Teatro Meridiano, Lisbon Sample date & venue
Opening keynote in
Doors open 19 March 2027, 09:00 WET
Why this room
You lead the work everyone else talks about. Once a year, sit among the few who know what that costs.
Latitude is not a conference. There is no expo floor, no sponsor stage, no talk you could have watched from your sofa. Forty design leaders, two working days, one room with the doors closed. You bring the problem you cannot say out loud at work; you leave with the counsel of people who have carried the same weight. What is said in the room stays in the room.
The voices
Each session is led, not lectured. Sample lineup
Keynote, Friday 09:00
The org chart is a design artifact
Mara rebuilt design at a fintech that tripled while she held the pen: three reorganizations, one design system, and a team that stayed. Her keynote argues that reporting lines ship to production whether or not anyone draws them on purpose.
Sample speaker
Session, Saturday 12:15
Saying no to the work that pays best
Daniel's studio is eleven people and has stayed eleven people on purpose. He keeps a ledger of every project the studio refused and what each refusal bought; at Latitude he reads from it.
Sample speaker
Session, Friday 10:30
Quality bars that survive the roadmap
Ingrid holds the craft bar for hardware that cannot be patched after it ships. Her session is pure mechanics: review rituals, kill criteria, and the one sentence that ends a quality argument.
Sample speaker
Session, Saturday 16:30
Leading design where design is not welcome
Tomas practices design inside institutions that never asked for it. Sixteen years in the public sector taught him influence without a mandate, and he can teach the grammar of it in an hour.
Sample speaker
Session, Saturday 11:00
Taste as a hiring strategy
Celine hires for judgment in a field where every portfolio looks the same. Half the room has already borrowed her interview kit secondhand; she brings the current version and its failure cases.
Sample speaker
Keynote, Saturday 09:30
The exit interview: what I would redo
Jonas ran design for a retail group through its best decade and then its hardest one. Out of the C-suite, he owes nobody varnish. The exit interview is exactly what it sounds like.
Sample speaker
Session, Friday 17:00
Evidence in rooms that run on opinion
Amara's research changes decisions instead of decorating them. She works in mobility, where a wrong opinion weighs two tonnes, and her session is about making evidence land against conviction.
Sample speaker
To be decided in the room
The eighth chair
This chair stays open on purpose. On day one the room nominates; before the doors close, the vote decides whose invitation goes out. [Set your final speaker, or keep the ritual.]
Sample speaker
Speaker slots are shown as samples on this demonstration. Replace with your confirmed lineup before launch.
Two days
Mornings are led from the front. Afternoons belong to the room. Sample programme
Friday 19 March
Five movements, no parallel tracks
Saturday 20 March
Ends in time for evening flights
The room itself
A 1932 deco theater, closed to the public for two days. Sample venue
Twenty minutes from Lisbon airport by taxi. We send a car for keynote speakers; everyone else shares the same front door. [Set your transfer notes]
A reserved block at two hotels within a five-minute walk, released to approved applicants with booking codes. [Set your hotel block]
Lunches are served in the theater foyer. Dinner on day one is included; the second evening is yours, with our shortlist of tables worth arguing over.
March in Lisbon is mild and quiet. Bring a coat for the evening and shoes for hills.
The velvet rope
The room is limited to [set your capacity] seats. Small enough that every voice is heard, large enough that no one can hide.
Every application is read by the curators. We reply within one week, whichever way the decision goes.
The price is shared on approval. It covers both days, all meals, and the day-one dinner. It is not the point of the summit, so it does not lead the page.
Prefer email? Write to apply@latitude-summit.example with the same four answers. Sample address
The page script is not running here, so applying hands your four answers straight to your own mail app, addressed to the curators. If no mail window opens, write to apply@latitude-summit.example or call +351 21 000 0000. Sample contacts
While you type, this page keeps your answers in this browser alone so that a closed tab does not cost you the application, and sending clears that copy.
Asked before applying
These five arrive in the post most often. If yours is not among them, write it into your application and a curator will answer it by name.
People who carry design decisions they cannot delegate: heads of design, VPs, studio founders, principals, and the occasional lone designer holding a whole company's bar. Seniority matters less than weight carried. If you read this page and felt seen, apply.
No. Nothing is recorded, streamed, or transcribed, and we ask that you quote ideas, never people. The candor in the room depends on it. You will leave with your own notes and the room's counsel on your problem, which is worth more than any replay.
Because seats here are offered, not sold. The price travels with your approval, before you commit to anything, and it covers both days, all lunches, and the day-one dinner; travel and hotel are yours. [Set your price and inclusions.] If the number will decide it for you, say so in your application and we will be straight with you early.
Full refund until six weeks before opening; after that you may pass your seat to a colleague we approve, or roll it to the next summit. [Set your refund terms.] Life happens to leaders too; we would rather rebook you than argue with you.
The curators read every application and reply within one week. Approved applicants receive the price, the hotel codes, and a short call to hear the problem you are bringing, so the circles are composed before anyone lands in Lisbon.
The doors open in
19 March 2027, 09:00 WET
The programme is set. The room is still being chosen.