I spent roughly 15 years in marketing and advertising, both in Sydney and in London, working across a huge range of blue chip clients, specialising in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods).  Whilst decidedly creative, I was never a ‘Creative’ in the agency sense – but rather climbed the executive ladder before switching over to my true heartland of strategy planning (which, as any strat planner will tell you, is where the ideas are born).  Leaving the industry I spent the following seven years doing the family thing and building an art practice.  More ideas, and lots of different mediums – painting, printing (primarily etching), drawing, sculpture, mosaic, wearable art, collage etc – before returning to the business world as a consultant.

The breakthrough for me was realising that not only were the processes that I used when making art the same as I used when concocting elegant strategies or solving business connundrums, but that absolutely all of the skills learned and applied in art-making can be extrapolated to brilliant effect in other contexts; whether personal, social or business.  Business strategy is, after all, just another medium for creating and implementing ideas. The ability to see what is really there instead of what you assume is there is incredibly valuable in any context, whether drawing a portrait or writing a sales forecast.

Of course, being creative is one thing, but it’s not always either useful or directed.  For me, creativity has to be useful.  It has to add value.  It has to deliver real outcomes.  And the bit of creativity that does this is Ingenuity, which has become the core of all the material I have developed.

I now live on Sydney’s northern beaches.  When not working or playing in the studio, I’m writing, designing, perfecting my reading-by-osmosis experiment (I figure if you have unread books stacked up nearby for long enough, you should be able to absorb the content without having to open the covers), and hanging out with my two teenaged kids and equally juvenile dog.