Biography

Book Creativity Strategist Natalie Nixon through The Keynote Curators. 

Natalie Nixon, PhD is “the creativity whisperer to the C-Suite”. She is a creativity strategist who advises leaders on achieving transformative business results by applying wonder and rigor. She is a highly sought-after global keynote speaker, valued for her accessible expertise on creativity, the future of work, and innovation.

Natalie Nixon was selected for Thinkers 50 Radar Class of 2024; Real Leaders’ “Top 50 Keynote Speakers in the World for 2022” list; and has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company and INC. She is the author of the award-winning The Creativity Leap—an honoree in the creativity category of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards. Her firm, Figure 8 Thinking, was named among the top 20 women-led innovation firms in 2021 by Core 77. Clients have included Microsoft, Salesforce, Comcast, Citrix, Morrison & Foerster, Living Cities, VaynerMedia and Bloomberg.

A hybrid thinker, Natalie Nixon consistently applies her background in cultural anthropology, fashion, design thinking, and dance. She is an early-stage investor at two social impact ventures, valued for her ability to work at the intersection of commercial value and stakeholder equity. Natalie Nixon is a trustee of the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Design Museum; and a former trustee of Vassar College and Leadership+Design. She has lived in Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Israel, and Sri Lanka and is proficient in Portuguese and Spanish. She is certified as a Foresight Practitioner by the Institute for the Future. She received her BA (honors) from Vassar College, and her PhD from the University of Westminster in London.

When she’s not dancing up a storm in hip-hop class, Natalie Nixon is fine-tuning her salsa, foxtrot, and tango on the ballroom floor. She lives in her hometown of Philadelphia with her husband, John Nixon, and is the proud stepmother of Sydney.

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Burnout to Breakthrough: Why Traditional Productivity Is Failing Your Organization

In a world where your team is drowning in notifications, back-to-back meetings, and endless to-do lists, the relentless pursuit of “doing more” is backfiring spectacularly. Burnout rates are skyrocketing, innovation is stalling, and your most talented people are quietly updating their résumés. Traditional productivity models – built for factories, not knowledge work – are actively sabotaging your organization’s ability to thrive amid constant disruption.

This keynote challenges the outdated “hustle culture” paradigm that’s exhausting your workforce and introduces the revolutionary cultivation model from “Move. Think. Rest.” At this critical inflection point where AI is reshaping every industry, the competitive advantage isn’t working harder—it’s working human. Discover how the MTR framework serves as an operating system that integrates intentional movement, deep thought, and purposeful rest to drive sustainable performance.

Learn why organizations that shift focus from output to impact are seeing remarkable ROI through increased innovation, reduced turnover, and enhanced decision-making. Walk away with actionable strategies to move beyond “productivity theater” and create a workplace where people don’t just survive change—they lead it. Future-proof your organization by cultivating what AI can’t replicate: your team’s uniquely human capacity for imagination, creativity, and connection.

The New I in AI- Unleashing Human Creativity as Your Competitive Advantage in the Imagination Era

While your competitors rush to implement AI solutions, a sobering reality is emerging: organizations are investing millions in technology while neglecting the distinctly human capabilities that truly drive innovation. Your teams are caught in a paralyzing contradiction—frantically adopting AI tools while simultaneously fearing these same technologies will make their skills obsolete. Leadership struggles to articulate a clear vision for how humans and machines will collaborate, leaving your workforce anxious about their future and uncertain about where to focus their development.

This paradigm-shifting keynote, grounded in the Move. Think. Rest. philosophy reveals why the organizations thriving in the AI revolution aren’t those with the most advanced algorithms—they’re the ones systematically cultivating human capacities that machines cannot replicate: imagination, inquiry, and intuition. Through the MTR framework, discover how these uniquely human “3 I’s” become your sustainable competitive advantage in an increasingly automated world.

Learn why traditional work environments actively suppress these critical capabilities and how simple MTR interventions can transform your organization’s creative capacity. Through evidence-based case studies, see how intentional movement shifts perspective, deep thought cultivates imaginative possibilities, and strategic rest activates the intuitive connections that AI simply cannot make.

Renowned creativity strategist Natalie Nixon demonstrates why creativity isn’t an innate talent limited to a select few but a trainable capability that thrives when properly nurtured. Gain practical strategies for all roles in your organization—from executives to frontline workers—that make these “3 I’s” accessible regardless of job description or workstyle.

Walk away with a concrete implementation plan for redesigning work to leverage AI as an amplifier of human creativity rather than a replacement for it. In the Imagination Era, your sustainable advantage isn’t just implementing AI—it’s unleashing the infinite creative potential of your people through a science-backed approach that amplifies what makes us uniquely human while harnessing the power of technology as a partner, not a replacement.

The Trust Deficit: Why Your Change Initiatives Keep Failing (And How to Fix It)

In the age of AI dominance, creativity is not optional—it’s essential. Natalie Nixon, a creativity expert, reveals how imagination drives business success. Learn from pioneering leaders, adopt dynamic methods, and unleash creativity to secure your organization’s strategic edge. Embrace innovation, wield imagination, and thrive in disruption.

Adapt and Disrupt: Building Creativity's Business ROI

Your organization is trapped in a dangerous cycle: quarterly pressures drive short-term thinking, innovation initiatives keep failing to gain traction, and attempts at “design thinking” have produced more Post-it notes than actual results. Meanwhile, industry disruptors with seemingly limitless creative capacity are capturing market share and top talent. The harsh reality? Without a systematic approach to building creative capacity, your business faces obsolescence in an economy that increasingly rewards imagination over execution.

In this paradigm-shifting keynote, creativity expert Natalie Nixon dismantles the myth that creativity is a “nice-to-have” soft skill and reveals the hard business case for imagination as your primary competitive advantage. Through rigorous research and compelling case studies, discover why organizations that systematically cultivate creativity outperform peers by 20% in revenue growth and 15% in market valuation.

Learn how pioneering leaders across industries have transformed creativity from an abstract concept into a measurable business capability with concrete ROI. Gain access to Nixon’s proprietary frameworks that allow you to assess your organization’s current creative capacity, identify critical gaps, and implement targeted interventions that yield measurable results. From reimagining meeting structures to redesigning physical and digital workspaces, discover practical approaches that have helped organizations triple their innovation pipeline and dramatically improve solution quality.

Leave with a roadmap for building creativity as an organizational muscle—complete with metrics to track progress, methods to overcome resistance, and strategies to embed creative practices into everyday operations. In a business landscape where adaptation is table stakes and disruption is the goal, your ability to systematically harness imagination isn’t just a competitive advantage—it’s your organization’s survival plan.

Curiosity Is the Currency of the Future

Your teams are drowning in answers but starving for breakthrough questions. In meetings across your organization, people rush to solutions before understanding problems, executives mistake certainty for leadership, and the pressure to appear knowledgeable suppresses the curiosity that drives genuine innovation. As a result, your business faces the same challenges repeatedly, strategic blind spots are growing, and opportunities for transformation go unrecognized.

This keynote confronts an uncomfortable truth: in an era where factual information is instantly accessible through AI, the real differentiator isn’t what you know—it’s what you ask. Natalie Nixon reveals why organizations with robust “question cultures” are outperforming those fixated on quick answers, experiencing 37% higher innovation success rates and 28% better adaptability during market shifts.

Beyond the increasingly basic ways we query AI tools like ChatGPT, discover why developing sophisticated questioning practices is essential for executing compelling strategy and fostering breakthrough thinking. Through interactive examples, learn to distinguish between different question typologies—from divergent questions that open possibilities to convergent questions that drive decisions, and from factual inquiries to the transformational questions that reframe entire industries.

Walk away with practical frameworks to revolutionize how your organization approaches challenges—including techniques for overcoming “expertise bias” that blocks curiosity, and strategies to normalize a culture where not knowing is valued as a starting point for discovery. In a business environment where yesterday’s solutions create tomorrow’s problems, your organization’s questioning capacity isn’t just a skill—it’s the currency that will fund your future success.

Testimonials

As expected, Dr. Nixon’s presentation was one of the best at the university this year. A very thought provoking and inspiring kick-off to the Jefferson Creativity Core Curriculum.
– Matt Baker, Provost, Thomas Jefferson University
I was awe struck with your talk during our Mednax MDM opening session. Your expertise is vitally necessary. Thank you! (LinkedIn)
– Zawadi Bryant, President, Acute Care Pediatrics Mednax
Thank you for an incredible presentation today! You are deeply inspiring and your driven, can-do, no-limits, reach-beyond-the-stars attitude is impactful in more ways than you know. ...Thank you for sharing your knowledge and talent with us all. Thank you for your partnership; We know how valuable your time is and are so grateful to have had an opportunity to listen to you speak and teach your magic.
– Joy Garibay, Executive Assistant, BioGene
Natalie presented at our annual healthcare analytics conference of 1,000 people. She was energetic and gave great pragmatic ideas. On top of that, Natalie is thoughtful and kind.
– Tarah Neujahr Bryan, CMO & Chief Communications Officer, Health Catalyst
Natalie's positive energy, expertise, and practiced facilitation helped us zero in on priority areas and build trust by having honest conversations about tough challenges we need to tackle.
– Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO, Coursera
Natalie’s presentation on creativity was engaging, inspiring, and practical! Her framework and practical suggestions for creativity were incredibly valuable.
– Andrea Leszek, EVP & COO of Technology, Salesforce
Natalie is amazing! Her energy is absolutely infectious! She helped our team think differently about how to unlock creative energy in our team and organization. Her 3is framework resonates in a practical way, giving leaders straightforward suggestions on how to build their creativity competence and foster a culture of inquiry.
– Barry Ridgway, VP of American Enterprise Services, Microsoft
We are always looking for a rockstar keynote speaker to inspire and inform…Dr. Natalie Nixon had us all on the edge of our seats for her entire presentation! …My attendees absolutely loved her work across a multidisciplinary set of insights and anecdotes…punctuated with references to both her research and to hyper-relevant themes.
– Nigel Prentice, Global Head of Accessibility, IBM
Natalie delivered an incredibly uplifting and thought provoking keynote to our design team. We were blown away by how clearly she explained the value of design!
– Adam Weir, Director of Design, New Balance
Natalie spoke at our Growth Marketing Summit for CMO leaders in our portfolio of companies. She delivered both inspiration and practical advice about using creativity to deliver on business objectives during a critical time. We were referencing her ideas and recommendations throughout the duration of our Summit!
– Lisa Ames, CMO Norwest, Venture Partners

Booksby Natalie Nixon

Move. Think. Rest.

The Creativity Leap

Strategic Design Thinking

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Blog Posts

 

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