Chris Griffiths
Most organisations treat creativity as a personality trait held by a few people, rather than a process a team can run. The result is innovation that depends on whoever is in the room on a given day, ideas that never convert into commercial decisions, and leadership teams that confuse brainstorming with problem solving. What is missing is a repeatable method for turning ambiguous business problems into defensible answers.
Chris Griffiths is a serial entrepreneur and author who helps leadership teams turn creative thinking into a repeatable business process, using the frameworks behind his books and the Ayoa software platform his company built.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Chris Griffiths
- He brings a named, tested method. GRASP and the Solution Finder process, published across The Creative Thinking Handbook and GRASP The Solution, give teams a four-step route from problem to decision that can be run again without him in the room.
- He has built the tooling, not just the theory. OpenGenius turned the mind mapping method into Ayoa, a commercial platform used across Pfizer, the NHS, the European Commission and the State Bank of India, which gives his frameworks an operating record outside the keynote.
- He treats neurodiversity as a creative asset. Through the Inspire Genius Foundation and Ayoa’s neuroinclusive design, he connects creative thinking to the way neurodivergent minds actually work, giving leaders a practical angle on inclusion that is tied to output rather than compliance.
- He has run the playbook at scale. With Tony Buzan he built a global network of more than 1,000 licensed instructors operating inside Sony, the Ministry of Defence and the NHS, which is unusual evidence that his method transfers beyond the author.
- His work has been stress-tested in serious rooms. He facilitated a Nobel Laureate brainstorm at the Petra Nobel Conference convened by HM King Abdullah II of Jordan, and has coached senior teams at the European Commission.
Biography highlights
- Founder and CEO of OpenGenius, the company behind the Ayoa mind mapping and productivity platform.
- Author of The Creative Thinking Handbook (Kogan Page), GRASP The Solution, and Mind Maps for Business (with Tony Buzan), with titles translated across more than 15 countries.
- Co-creator, with Tony Buzan, of the ThinkBuzan Licensed Instructor Course, a global network of more than 1,000 accredited mind mapping instructors.
- Founder of start-ups that have ranked in the Deloitte European Fast 50 and The Sunday Times Fast Track 100.
- Facilitator of a brainstorming session with Nobel Laureates at the Petra Nobel Conference, hosted by HM King Abdullah II of Jordan.
- Contributor and cited expert in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fast Company, BBC, The Telegraph and GQ.
Biography
Creativity inside most organisations is still treated as a talent rather than a process. Chris Griffiths has spent nearly three decades arguing the opposite, and building the books, frameworks and software to prove it.
His published work sets out a specific method. The Creative Thinking Handbook, published by Kogan Page and now available in more than ten languages, lays out the Solution Finder model. GRASP The Solution distils a four-step process that teams can run on any live business problem. Mind Maps for Business, co-authored with Tony Buzan, remains a standard text on applied visual thinking.
The frameworks have a commercial track record attached. As founder and CEO of OpenGenius, he turned the method into Ayoa, a mind mapping and productivity platform used inside Pfizer, the NHS, the European Commission and the State Bank of India. With Tony Buzan he built the ThinkBuzan Licensed Instructor Course into a network of over 1,000 accredited instructors operating inside Sony, the Ministry of Defence and the NHS, a rare piece of evidence that the method works without the author in the room.
His businesses have ranked in the Deloitte European Fast 50 and The Sunday Times Fast Track 100. He has facilitated a Nobel Laureate brainstorm convened by HM King Abdullah II of Jordan at the Petra Nobel Conference, and through the Inspire Genius Foundation he funds young neurodivergent entrepreneurs, the group Ayoa’s neuroinclusive design was built around.
Key speaking topics
- Applied creative thinking in business
- Systematic innovation and problem solving
- Mind mapping for leadership and strategy
- AI as a creative partner for human teams
- Productivity and focus for knowledge workers
- Neuroinclusive approaches to innovation
- Entrepreneurship and venture building
Ideal for
- CEOs, founders and senior leadership teams who want a shared method for problem solving across the executive group.
- Chief Innovation Officers, Heads of Strategy and transformation leads tasked with making innovation repeatable rather than episodic.
- L&D and People leaders building creative-thinking capability and neuroinclusive practice across the workforce.
- R&D, product and commercial teams preparing for a specific planning cycle, offsite or innovation sprint.
Audience outcomes
- A named four-step process (GRASP) that leaders can apply to a live business problem the day after the session.
- A working grasp of the Solution Finder model from The Creative Thinking Handbook and how to run it with a team.
- A practical introduction to mind mapping as a decision tool, not a sticky-note exercise.
- A view of where AI fits alongside human creativity, drawn from the design choices inside Ayoa.
- A clearer read on how neurodivergent thinkers contribute to creative output and how to design sessions that use that.
Talks
A working session on where executive time actually leaks and how to redirect it toward the decisions that matter.
Key takeaways:
- A diagnostic for separating activity from output at the leadership level.
- Techniques for protecting deep-work time without slowing the team.
- A set of prioritisation rules tied to strategic, not operational, weight..
A framework-led talk on turning one-off breakthroughs into a process the organisation can run at will.
Key takeaways:
- The GRASP four-step method for moving from problem to decision.
- Where most innovation programmes break down and how to design around it.
- A structure for capturing, testing and commercialising ideas across teams.
A session on where generative AI strengthens the creative process and where it quietly undermines it.
Key takeaways:
- A map of creative tasks AI genuinely accelerates versus tasks it flattens.
- How to brief AI tools so they widen, rather than narrow, the option set.
- Design choices from Ayoa on pairing AI with human judgement.
An applied introduction to mind mapping as a leadership and decision tool.
Key takeaways:
- The cognitive basis for why mind mapping outperforms linear notes.
- How to use mind maps in strategy, planning and problem solving.
- Integration into daily executive workflow through Ayoa and similar tools.
A talk on the cognitive and organisational habits that cap creative output.
Key takeaways:
- The specific biases and defaults that define most teams’ “box”.
- Methods for breaking pattern without losing rigour.
- How leaders signal that non-obvious thinking is safe.
A session on structured mental downtime as a source of insight rather than a distraction.
Key takeaways:
- The neuroscience behind incubation and insight.
- How to schedule thinking time into the executive week.
- Practices for converting unstructured reflection into decisions.