Natalie Nixon
About
About Natalie Nixon - Strategy, Foresight, and Innovation Expert, Award-winning Author:
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 & rigor. She is a highly sought after global keynote speaker, valued for her accessible expertise on creativity, the future of work and innovation.
Natalie was selected for Thinkers50 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 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 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 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.
Topics
What Natalie Nixon Talks About:
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.
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 Trust Deficit: Why Your Change Initiatives Keep Failing (And How to Fix It)
Your organization is investing millions in transformation initiatives, yet 70% will fail. The culprit? A workplace culture characterized by mistrust, micromanagement, and a pervasive fear that technology will make human contributions irrelevant. Every new change effort is met with resistance, skepticism, and change fatigue that’s eroding morale and hampering execution.
This keynote, grounded in the “Move. Think. Rest.” philosophy, reveals why traditional change management approaches fall short and presents a human-centered alternative. Learn how unprecedented rates of burnout are sabotaging your most strategic initiatives and why leaders must urgently redesign work to foster resilience before launching the next change program.
Discover why integrating Move. Think. Rest. (MTR) isn’t a wellness nice-to-have, but a business imperative driving measurable ROI. The evidence is clear: MTR activity predicts organizational success because it activates your most valuable intangible assets—human creativity, collaboration, and adaptability. Leaders will learn practical approaches to model MTR practices that build change capacity and create psychological safety amid uncertainty.
Leave with a blueprint for shifting from exhausting your people to energizing them, from resistant cultures to resilient ones, and from faltering change efforts to sustainable transformation. In a business environment where change is the only constant, your competitive edge lies in cultivating a workforce that’s energized, engaged, and equipped to navigate complexity with confidence.
Recent Publications
Natalie spoke to a select group of our most valued business partners and employees at our annual meeting, and she hit an absolute home run. Centered on change and what is required in a fast paced, high growth environment to adapt and thrive, Natalie was on point and impactful. As a speaker, Natalie is warm, engaging, thoughtful and funny all while having absolute command of the audience based on her background and experience in both academia and the corporate world.