Creativity

Why organisations work with Jeff DeGraff He brings a tested intellectual frame, the Competing Values Framework, that gives executives a shared language for the trade-offs they already feel but cannot resolve. His Innovatrium has built innovation programmes inside more than half the Fortune 500, including Google, Apple, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, NASA and Microsoft, so the methods are stress-tested in real operating conditions. The work crosses sectors that rarely share a stage: commercial, military (US Air Force, NATO, Singapore Armed Forces), academic and mission-driven, which sharpens his diagnosis of what is structural and what is industry-specific. He treats innovation as a system of competing roles (Artist, Engineer, Athlete, Sage), so leaders leave with a way to staff and sequence change, not a motivational pep talk. The Ross School base and the Certified Professional Innovator programme give buyers a credible academic anchor when they need to sell the engagement internally. Biography highlights Clinical Professor of Management and Organizations, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, since 1990. Co-creator of the Competing Values Framework, with Robert Quinn, Kim Cameron and John Rohrbaugh. Founder of the Innovatrium Institute for Innovation, working with Fortune 500 firms, NASA and allied military commands. Author of The Art of Change (Berrett-Koehler, 2025), The Creative Mindset, The Innovation Code, Leading Innovation and Competing Values Leadership. Host of the PBS programme Innovation You and contributor to Michigan Public’s The Next Idea. Former Vice President of Communications and New Ventures at Domino’s Pizza during the period the company scaled from a regional chain to a global brand. Biography Innovation inside large organisations rarely fails for lack of ideas. It fails because the same organisation rewards efficiency, control and reliability while asking a small group to break those very rules. That tension is the subject Jeff DeGraff has spent his career mapping, first as a co-creator of the Competing Values Framework alongside Robert Quinn, Kim Cameron and John Rohrbaugh, and then as the architect of a more applied body of work on innovation as a system. The academic anchor is the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, where he has been Clinical Professor of Management and Organizations since 1990. The applied side is the Innovatrium, the institute he founded to put the theory into contact with operating reality. Through Innovatrium and direct consulting, his methods have been used inside more than half the Fortune 500, including Google, Apple, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Microsoft and NASA, and inside the US Air Force, NATO and the Singapore Armed Forces. His three most recent books, The Innovation Code (2017), The Creative Mindset (2020) and The Art of Change (Berrett-Koehler, 2025), form a single argument. Innovation is not a personality trait, it is a discipline of holding competing values long enough to produce something new. The Innovation Code translates that into roles and team design. The Creative Mindset breaks creative work into six trainable skills. The Art of Change reframes paradox itself as the engine of transformation. The career arc explains the bias toward application. He earned his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985 and went directly into industry as Vice President of Communications and New Ventures at Domino’s Pizza, where the nickname “Dean of Innovation” stuck. The work since has kept the same shape: a serious framework, tested against organisations that cannot afford abstractions. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and operating models Competing Values Framework in practice Creative leadership and team design Organisational change and transformation Culture and capability for sustained innovation Cross-sector innovation: commercial, public, military Paradox and decision-making under competing priorities Ideal for CEOs and executive teams under pressure to deliver core performance and a credible innovation agenda at the same time Chief Innovation Officers, CSOs and heads of strategy designing or rebuilding innovation operating models CHROs and learning leaders building creative capability across senior cohorts Public-sector, defence and mission-driven leadership groups that need a private-sector grade innovation method Audience outcomes A shared language for the competing demands inside the business and a way to talk about them without picking sides A working model for staffing innovation teams across distinct creative roles rather than relying on a few “creative” individuals A practical sequence for turning paradoxes (efficiency versus experimentation, control versus autonomy) into design decisions Confidence that innovation can be built as a repeatable system, not a personality-driven exception Examples drawn from companies, NASA and military commands that translate cleanly back to the audience’s own context

Why organisations work with Brenda Romero Forty-plus years inside a creative industry as designer, studio CEO and educator, with credits on roughly 49 shipped titles including the Wizardry series, Jagged Alliance, Ghost Recon and Empire of Sin. A working perspective on running an independent creative business: she co-founded Romero Games in Galway in 2015 and has built it through publisher deals, original IP and the realities of indie studio economics. An unusual record on the question of how design carries meaning. Her Train (2009) and the broader The Mechanic is the Message series are studied in academic literature as examples of game mechanics used to communicate difficult historical material. Formal industry recognition that buyers can reference without explanation: BAFTA Special Award (2017), GDC Ambassador Award (2015), Fulbright Scholar (2014). An educator’s clarity. As Director of the MSc in Game Design and Development at the University of Limerick (2016 to 2019) she taught the craft to a graduate cohort, and co-authored Challenges for Game Designers with Ian Schreiber, a standard text in the field. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO, Romero Games Ltd, Galway, Ireland (2015 to present). BAFTA Special Award, 2017, for creative contribution to the games industry. Game Developers Choice Ambassador Award, 2015. Fulbright Scholar, 2014. Director, MSc in Game Design and Development, University of Limerick, 2016 to 2019. Designer of Train (2009) and the The Mechanic is the Message series; works held by the Strong National Museum of Play; TED speaker on games for understanding. Biography Most discussions of innovation get stuck at the level of culture. Romero’s career is a sustained argument that it is really a question of craft. She began at Sir-tech Software in 1981 on the Wizardry role-playing series, and has since shipped credits on roughly 49 titles across PC, console and mobile, including Jagged Alliance, Ghost Recon, Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes and Empire of Sin. In 2015 she co-founded Romero Games in Galway with John Romero, where she is CEO. The studio sits outside the conventional tech hubs, an operating choice rather than an aesthetic one, and a useful case study for any leader thinking about how to build a creative organisation away from the talent magnet cities. The work spans publisher partnerships, original IP and the day-to-day of running a creative business through cycles. Alongside the commercial work, Romero has used game design to address serious historical material. Train (2009) and the wider The Mechanic is the Message series treat the mechanics of a game, the rules players agree to follow, as the message itself. Train won the IndieCade Vanguard Award and is studied in academic literature on serious games and design ethics. The credentials line up around a consistent argument. BAFTA Special Award in 2017. GDC Ambassador Award in 2015. Fulbright Scholar in 2014. Director of the MSc in Game Design and Development at the University of Limerick from 2016 to 2019. Co-author with Ian Schreiber of Challenges for Game Designers, a standard text used in graduate programmes worldwide. Key speaking topics Creative leadership in technology and entertainment The discipline of design and managed innovation Building and running an independent creative studio Games as a medium for communicating complex ideas Women in technology and the games industry The economics of creative work and intellectual property Ideal for Leaders of creative, R and D, brand and product organisations. Boards and executive teams in entertainment, media and consumer technology. Innovation and transformation leads looking for a working studio perspective on creative output. Talent and learning leaders building creative capability inside a corporate environment. Audience outcomes A working operator’s view of how creative output is produced under commercial pressure. A clearer picture of what good design discipline looks like when the subject is hard or contested. Reference points from inside the games industry that translate into corporate creative function. A frank account of building a creative business outside the obvious geographies, with the trade-offs named.

Why organisations work with Tania de Jong A working body of evidence that creativity is buildable inside an organisation, drawn from six businesses and four charities she has founded, including Creative Universe, Creativity Australia and The Song Room. Co-founder of Mind Medicine Australia, the organisation behind Australia’s 2023 rescheduling of psilocybin and MDMA for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD, the first national framework of its kind in the world. A keynote format that pairs argument with live performance, used at Thinkers50 European Business Forum in Denmark and the International Forum on Consciousness in the United States, and tested across more than 40 countries. Eight editions of the Creative Innovation Asia Pacific Global Forum, awarded Corporate Event of the Year at the global Eventex Awards, giving her direct exposure to how international leaders are framing innovation, AI, wellbeing and the future of work. A position on social inclusion through the With One Voice programme that is grounded in operating practice, not theory, having reached thousands of participants across community choirs in Australia. Biography highlights Member of the Order of Australia (AM), 2008, for service to the arts and to music and arts enrichment programmes in schools and communities. Co-founder of Mind Medicine Australia, the organisation behind the world-first 2023 rescheduling of psilocybin and MDMA in Australia for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD. Founder of Creativity Australia, Creative Universe, Creative Innovation Global, The Song Room, MTA Entertainment & Events, Dimension5 and Pot-Pourri. TEDxMelbourne speaker, “How singing together changes the brain”. Keynote speaker, Thinkers50 European Business Forum, Denmark, 2018, and the International Forum on Consciousness, United States, 2019. Ernst and Young Australian Social Entrepreneur of the Year; Churchill Fellow; AGSE Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame, Swinburne University; Bachelor of Law (Honours), University of Melbourne. Biography Australia became the first country in the world to reschedule psilocybin and MDMA for the treatment of depression and PTSD in 2023. Mind Medicine Australia, co-founded by Tania de Jong and Peter Hunt, did the regulatory and clinical groundwork that made it possible. That outcome is the clearest statement of how de Jong tends to work: a long-running campaign to change a system that most assume cannot be moved. The same pattern runs through the rest of her record. Six businesses and four charities, including Creative Universe, Creativity Australia, The Song Room and Creative Innovation Global, each built around a specific argument about creativity, inclusion or social repair. The Song Room alone has reached over a million Australian students through music programmes in schools that would not otherwise access them. Her speaking work is unusual in form. She is a classically trained soprano who has performed in over 40 countries, and her keynotes weave argument with live singing. Thinkers50 invited her to keynote its European Business Forum in 2018. Her TEDxMelbourne talk on the neuroscience of group singing has been viewed widely and is often cited in workplace wellbeing literature. The substantive claim underneath all of it is that creativity and collective purpose are operating disciplines. The Creative Innovation Asia Pacific Global Forum, which she has run eight times and which won Corporate Event of the Year at the Eventex Awards, is the working venue for that argument across AI, leadership, wellbeing and the future of work. Key speaking topics Creativity as a strategic discipline Innovation culture and the future of work Entrepreneurship and social enterprise Mental health, wellbeing and the neuroscience of connection Diversity, inclusion and collective purpose Leadership in disruption and reinvention Storytelling and performance in business communication Ideal for CHROs and culture leads designing engagement, wellbeing and inclusion programmes that need to land beyond the slide deck. Innovation leads, transformation directors and strategy teams looking to move creativity from training programme to operating practice. CEOs and boards in sectors facing structural reinvention, where the soft conditions of change are as material as the hard ones. Conference organisers seeking a keynote that combines argument with live performance and high audience engagement. Audience outcomes A specific case for treating creativity as a leadership capability, not a workshop output. A working view of how social inclusion and collective practice change individual and team performance, drawn from the With One Voice programme and supporting neuroscience. An updated read on the global innovation agenda, informed by eight editions of the Creative Innovation Asia Pacific Forum. Exposure to one of the few global voices arguing for psychedelic-assisted therapy as a serious instrument of mental health policy, with evidence from the Australian rescheduling. A keynote experience that uses live performance to shift the energy of a room, useful for conferences that need a tonal lift alongside content.

Why organisations work with Susan Greenfield She framed the question. Her “Mind Change” thesis treats prolonged exposure to digital technology as a force on human cognition comparable in scale to climate change, and has shaped a decade of mainstream debate on screens, attention and identity. The science behind the argument is hers. Two hundred peer-reviewed papers, mostly from her Oxford lab, sit beneath her claims about attention, empathy and identity in the digital age. As founder and CEO of Neuro-Bio, the Oxford biotech she launched in 2013 to pursue a novel theory of Alzheimer’s based on the T14 peptide, she speaks from inside an active research programme. She has spent decades translating brain science for senior non-specialist audiences. That includes twelve years leading the Royal Institution of Great Britain as its first woman director, and ten years as a Forum Fellow at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Neuro-Bio Ltd, the Oxford biotech developing a novel approach to Alzheimer’s based on the T14 peptide Senior Research Fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford, and former Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology, University of Oxford Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain from 1998 to 2010, the first woman to hold the post; first woman to give the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (1994) Author of Mind Change, The Private Life of the Brain, ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century, and A Day in the Life of the Brain, published by Penguin and Random House Crossbench Life Peer in the House of Lords since 2001 as Baroness Greenfield, of Ot Moor Honours include CBE, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Australian Society for Medical Research Medal, Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and 32 honorary degrees Biography In a 2009 House of Lords debate, a question was raised that the technology industry has never fully answered. If the human brain adapts to its environment, and the environment is now digital, what is happening to the brain at scale? The argument that grew from that question, developed across the next decade, has shaped how serious organisations think about screens and cognition. Greenfield’s standing to ask the question came from a long career in brain science. Two hundred peer-reviewed papers from Oxford, where she became Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology, sit behind it. So does her tenure as the first woman director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the post she held from 1998 to 2010, and the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures she delivered there in 1994. In 2001, she was created a Life Peer as Baroness Greenfield, of Ot Moor. Mind Change, published in 2014, set out the case. The technologies surrounding a young brain shape its development. This is uncontroversial neuroscience. What is contested is the scale of the effect when those technologies are engineered to capture attention and to be returned to. Greenfield’s argument is that the consequences show up in places leaders care about: in how people sustain focus, and in how they form empathy and construct identity. She still runs the science. In 2013, she founded Neuro-Bio, the Oxford biotech she leads as CEO, developing a novel approach to Alzheimer’s based on her research into a peptide called T14. Her lab has linked T14 to neurodegeneration upstream of the amyloid pathway, and is working on a saliva-based diagnostic test the company hopes will detect Alzheimer’s decades before symptoms appear. Key speaking topics The neuroscience of digital technology and the human mind Consciousness, identity and the physical basis of the mind Attention, empathy and the cognitive shift between digital generations The neuroscience of creativity Alzheimer’s, dementia and the future of brain health Women in science, engineering and technology Ideal for Boards and executive committees in financial services, technology, media and consumer-facing sectors CHROs and learning leaders are working on attention and digital fatigue in the workforce Strategy and innovation teams whose customers are the first generation to grow up entirely in a digital environment Education and policy audiences engaging with the science of cognition and the workforce of the future Audience outcomes A defensible vocabulary for what digital technology is doing to attention, empathy and identity A working distinction between what brain science actually shows and what is loosely attributed to “neuroscience” in popular commentary A view of where Alzheimer’s and dementia research is heading from a scientist actively pursuing a novel theory A perspective on the cognitive differences between digital natives and the workforce that came before them, grounded in published evidence

Why organisations work with Sandi Toksvig She did not simply comment on gender equity: in 2015 she resigned one of the most prominent chairs in British broadcasting to co-found a political party around it. That choice gives her a credibility in the room that no consultant or commentator can acquire. Forty years in live, contested broadcast formats, chairing political satire, hosting mass-audience television, moderating fast-moving intellectual debate, represent a specific and rare capability: keeping a complex, high-stakes conversation moving with precision and warmth. Her TED Talk on structural gender representation and her play Bully Boy (Nuffield Theatre; West End, 2012), which examines moral ambiguity and institutional culture, demonstrate that her engagement with social complexity goes well beyond commentary. As President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and a Cambridge-educated author of 20-plus books across fiction, non-fiction, and drama, she brings genuine intellectual depth to conversations about communication, culture, and representation, not just platform authority. She has held the room at every level, from broadcast audiences of millions to TED stages, making serious arguments about inclusion, accountability, and change both rigorous and accessible to a leadership audience. Biography highlights First-class degree in archaeology and anthropology, Girton College, Cambridge; received two academic prizes; performed in the first all-woman Cambridge Footlights show, alongside Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and Emma Thompson Co-founder, Women’s Equality Party (2015), with journalist Catherine Mayer; left BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz – a role she held for ten years – specifically to do so; covered by the New York Times; TED Talk on gender representation and political mobilisation Host, BBC Two’s QI (from 2016, succeeding Stephen Fry); co-presenter, Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off (2017-2020); chair, BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz (2006-2015) Playwright: Bully Boy premiered at Nuffield Theatre, Southampton (2011); transferred to launch the debut West End season of St James Theatre, London (2012) – the first new West End theatre in 30 years OBE for services to broadcasting (2014 New Year Honours); Chancellor, University of Portsmouth; Honorary Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge President, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (from 2019); author of more than twenty books for adults and children Biography The gap between organisations that declare commitment to gender equity and those that actually change their leadership pipelines is well documented. Sandi Toksvig entered this conversation at measurable personal cost – resigning as chair of BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz in 2015 to co-found the Women’s Equality Party with journalist Catherine Mayer. A TED Talk on gender representation and political mobilisation followed. The decision established Toksvig’s standing not as a commentator on inclusion but as someone who had tested her convictions against institutional consequence. Her broadcast career provides a different order of evidence. Four decades in live, contested formats – hosting BBC Two’s QI, co-presenting Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off, chairing political satire on Radio 4 – demonstrate a specific capability: keeping complex, high-stakes conversation moving with precision, wit, and authority. She holds a first-class degree from Girton College, Cambridge, where she also performed in the first all-woman Cambridge Footlights show. Her range extends beyond broadcasting. As a playwright, her Bully Boy – a work on moral ambiguity, institutional authority, and the human cost of political decision-making – premiered at the Nuffield Theatre and transferred to launch St James Theatre’s debut West End season. She has served as President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, and has published more than twenty books across fiction, non-fiction, and children’s literature. For organisations working to close the distance between stated values and visible change on inclusion and representation, Toksvig brings something precise: four decades of live broadcast authority, the civic credibility of having acted on her convictions, and the capacity to hold a difficult room without losing it. Key speaking topics Gender equity and leadership representation Storytelling and political communication Cultural intelligence and cross-cultural perspective Civic activism and democratic accountability Satire, comedy, and public discourse Inclusive organisational culture Writing, publishing, and creative practice Ideal for CHROs and People & Culture leaders hosting executive summits or leadership conferences on inclusion, representation, and cultural change Boards and senior leadership teams working to move DEI commitments from policy to practice Awards ceremonies, after-dinner engagements, and conference programmes requiring an anchor voice combining intellectual authority with wit Professional associations in media, publishing, law, or higher education seeking a credible voice on representation, communication, and civic responsibility Audience outcomes A clear frame for why gender equity stalls despite broad agreement – and what it takes to make the argument land in a room Understanding of how communication style and conviction, not data alone, drive cultural change in organisations Perspective on the relationship between satire, public discourse, and institutional accountability A model of what sustained, costly commitment to inclusion looks like – beyond declarations and frameworks Confidence in approaching contested conversations about representation with authority and without defensiveness

Why organisations work with Nadja Swarovski Three decades of brand-building inside one of the world’s most recognisable luxury names. She initiated the Swarovski Collective (1999), Swarovski Crystal Palace (2002) and Atelier Swarovski (2007), and oversaw collaborations with more than 200 designers including Alexander McQueen, Zaha Hadid, Karl Lagerfeld and Viktor & Rolf. Sustainability built into commercial strategy at executive board level, not bolted on as communications. She established Swarovski’s sustainability function in 2012, ran it through 2020, and aligned the company with the UN Global Compact and the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles. Family-business governance from the inside. She sat on the executive board of a fifth-generation family company through a major repositioning, and can speak credibly to how creative direction, sustainability and commercial discipline coexist at scale. An ecosystem of working relationships across fashion, design, philanthropy and conservation. Built through chairmanship of the Swarovski Foundation, presidency of Fashion Council Germany, and roles at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, FIT Foundation, and The Nature Conservancy’s European Council. Currently CEO of Really Wild Clothing and Managing Partner at Pegasus Private Capital. She is using the same brand-building principles in her own businesses now, with her own capital and her own operational time at stake. Biography highlights First female member of the Executive Board of Swarovski, with responsibility for global brand strategy, communications and sustainability across a business with annual turnover of approximately €3.5 billion. Created and led Swarovski Crystal Palace and Atelier Swarovski, the platforms behind collaborations with Zaha Hadid, Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfeld, Viktor & Rolf, Yves Béhar, Tom Dixon and more than 200 other designers. Founded the Swarovski Foundation in 2013, a UK-registered charity supporting culture and creativity, human empowerment and environmental conservation, including the Swarovski Foundation Centre for Learning at the Design Museum in London. Established Swarovski’s Sustainability Department in 2012 and ran sustainability strategy through 2020, aligning the company with the UN Global Compact and the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles. Currently CEO and majority owner of Really Wild Clothing and Managing Partner of Pegasus Private Capital, a UK investment firm focused on heritage and craft-led brands. Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2016), honorary doctorate from the University of the Arts London (2019), Business of Fashion BoF 500 (2020), Positive Luxury Business Leader of the Year (2020). Biography Most heritage luxury brands lose cultural ground when they cannot reconcile preservation with relevance. Swarovski, the Austrian crystal company founded by Daniel Swarovski in 1895, became one of the few heritage houses that did both, through twenty-six years of work led by Nadja Swarovski as the first woman on its executive board. The contribution was structural. She built Swarovski Collective, Swarovski Crystal Palace and Atelier Swarovski as platforms for designers who otherwise had no commercial reason to engage with a crystal supplier. The collaborator list runs to more than two hundred and includes Alexander McQueen, Zaha Hadid, Viktor & Rolf, Karl Lagerfeld and Christopher Kane. Swarovski moved from component supplier to cultural participant, and the brand equity that followed underwrote the broader business. In 2012 she established Swarovski’s sustainability function and ran it through 2020, aligning the company with the UN Global Compact and the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles, and embedding ethical sourcing and traceability into a global manufacturing operation. The Swarovski Foundation, which she founded in 2013, made the philanthropic side of that work formal as a UK-registered charity organised around three pillars: culture and creativity, human empowerment, and conserving natural resources. Since leaving the family company at the end of 2021, she has moved from operator inside one company to operator-investor across several. As Managing Partner at Pegasus Private Capital she invests in heritage businesses where craft and traceability function as commercial advantages rather than aesthetic gestures. As CEO of Really Wild Clothing, the British countryside brand she and her husband acquired in 2024, she is rebuilding the supply chain around UK mills including Lovat, Kynoch, Harris Tweed, Lochcarron, Linton and Liberty. The investment thesis is the same one that worked at Swarovski: cultural relevance compounds when the supply chain is real. Key speaking topics Brand strategy in heritage and luxury businesses Sustainability as commercial strategy Creative collaboration as a brand asset Family-business governance and next-generation leadership Philanthropy and corporate foundation design Women’s leadership in legacy companies Ideal for CEOs and executive boards of heritage, luxury and consumer brands Chief Brand Officers, CMOs and creative directors managing cultural relevance Chief Sustainability Officers integrating ESG commitments into commercial strategy Family business owners and next-generation leaders preparing for repositioning or succession Audience outcomes A specific account of how creative collaboration generated brand equity at Swarovski, traced through the named platforms that built it. Examples of sustainability translated into operating decisions across product, supply chain, governance and reporting, with the UN frameworks the company aligned to. Insider knowledge of family-business governance at executive board level during a major brand repositioning. Honest assessment of which sustainability and brand trade-offs are commercially real, drawn from current investment decisions at Pegasus Private Capital.