Linda Naiman Biography

Linda Naiman is the founder of Creativity at Work and helps organizations develop creativity, innovation, and leadership capabilities, through coaching, training and consulting. Linda advises senior leaders and their teams on building creative capacities, managing the creative process and fostering a culture of innovation.

As an educator and coach, Linda brings a multi-disciplinary approach to learning and development based on her background as an artist and designer: She leverages arts-based practices to spark creative inspiration, and design thinking to manage the creative process for innovation. Organizations that have sought out Linda for her expertise include Cisco Systems, Dell International, Intel, BASF, American Express, RBC, and the US Navy.

Linda’s first career was as a design consultant in marketing communications. A severe creative block led her to study creativity as a process for generating ideas—something she was never taught during six years of study at art and design schools. However, she was taught to be a multi-disciplinary thinker, and began to explore questions such as, “What is the connection between art and leadership?” and “What we can learn from art that we can apply to business?”

She started pioneering arts-based learning for business in 1995 and a few years later Arthur B VanGundy invited her to co-author an arts-based activity book for corporate trainers and facilitators. Orchestrating Collaboration at Work: Using Music, Improv, Storytelling, and Other Arts to Improve Teamwork was published by Wiley in 2003 and was the first of its kind to examine the role of arts in business.

Linda’s work has been documented or cited in several books including Artful Creation: Learning Tales of Arts-in-Business (Darsø 2004), Artbased Approaches: A Practical Handbook to Creativity at Work (Chemi 2006), and Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results (Silverman 2006). She has been featured in The Vancouver Sun, The Globe and Mail, and Canadian Business Magazine. In 2011, IBM recognized Linda as a creative leader in business.

Linda holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts and is a graduate of Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design. She currently serves on the board of directors of The Vancouver Biennale, as well as on the editorial board of Organizational Aesthetics.  Her mission is to liberate creativity at work, and make life, and work, a work of art.

Recent Interviews

Publications

Linda Naiman has been cited in the following books:

  • Pictorial Art for Interreligious Dialogue. A handbook for teaching and learning interreligious dialogue through pictorial art. By Dr Christopher Longhurst · (Vivid Publishing, Oct, 2021)
  • Embracing Entrepreneurship Across Disciplines: Ideas and Insights from Engineering, Science, Medicine and Arts by Satish Nambisan Edward (Elgar Publishing, 2015)
  • Musical Imaginations: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Creativity, Performance and Perception, by David Hargreaves, Dorothy Miell, and Raymond MacDonald (OUP Oxford, 2012)
  • Retreats That Work: Everything You Need to Know About Planning and Leading Great Offsites by Merianne Liteman, Sheila Campbell, and Jeffrey Liteman (John Wiley & Sons, 2012)
  • Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance, by Jay Cross (John Wiley & Sons, Jan. 25, 2011)
  • Leading and Managing Creators, Inventors, and Innovators: The Art, Science, and Craft of Fostering Creativity, Triggering Invention, and Catalyzing Innovation by Elias G. Carayannis, Jean-Jacques (Chanaron Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007)
  • Artbased Approaches: A Practical Handbook to Creativity at Work, by Tatiana Chemi, (Fokus Forlag, 2006)
  • Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results by Lori L. Silverman, (John Wiley & Sons, 2006)
  • Artful Creation: Learning-Tales of Arts-in-Business by Lotte Darsø (Samfundslitteratur 2004).
  • Smart Women. B. Thrasher and M. Smid, (Macmillan Canada, 1998.)

Testimonials

Representative Clients

CAW clients

 

 

  
BusinessEducation SectorPublic Sector & Non-Profits
  • AstraZeneca
  • American Express
  • American Greeting Cards
  • BASF Asia
  • Benjamin Moore Paint
  • BP International
  • CB Richard Ellis
  • Choice Hotels
  • Cisco Systems
  • Citizens Bank of Canada
  • Compass Learning
  • Dawn Food Products
  • Degussa HPP USA
  • Dell International
  • DynMcDermott Petroleum
  • Fairmont Hotels
  • General Electric
  • HSBC
  • Intel
  • Navigant Consulting
  • PriceWaterhouseCoopers
  • Raymond James
  • Royal Bank of Canada
  • SITA
  • The Ultimate Software Group
  • School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University
  • Commonwealth Secondary School, Singapore
  • Parsons School of Design
  • Royal Roads University
  • Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University
  • Singapore Management University
  • School of Design at Syracuse University
  • University of British Columbia
  • University of Northern British Columbia
  • Alberta Federal Council
  • Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
  • Canadian Heritage
  • Health Employers Assoc of BC
  • Institute for the Development of Intercultural Relations through the Arts (IDRIART)
  • Innovation Services, Public Works, Government of Canada
  • Toigo Foundation
  • US Navy
  • Vancouver Airport Authority
  • Vancouver Opera
  • World Creativity Forum