Marguerite Coetzee is an artist, anthropologist and futurist based in Cape Town South Africa. 

After getting her postgraduate diploma in Future Studies at the University of Stellenbosch Business School, she became an emerging fellow at the Association of Professional Futurists and started her own company Omniology in 2019, dedicated to “Breaking the barriers of research and strategy by merging anthropology, futures, marketing and design.” As she puts it [quote], “Anthropology provides me with multiple perspectives to understand where we come from, Futures Studies enables me to anticipate and shape where we are going.”

Marguerite has worked as a consultant to a wide range of South African businesses and international brands, among them Royal Canin, Vodacom/Vodafone and Santander Bank. We spoke to her back in March.

Shaping the Future: Using Metaphors to Transform Perspectives with Marguerite Coetzee

Maria Reig Florensa of Class 19 is a recent graduate of our EMBA. She is a humanist, communicator and heart-based creative leadership executive coach. As a humanist, Marie studies at the crossroads of leadership, creativity and human values. As a communicator and executive coach, she designs, coaches and facilitates tailor-made, playful and artistry-based learning and development tools and experiences that support individuals, teams and organizations in unfolding their best selves in alignment with their values and ‘soul’ purpose.

For her EMBA thesis, she thoroughly researched heart-based leadership. This is just a sliver into her research findings. Take a listen, wholeheartedly.

Leading From the Heart with Marie Reig Florensa

For this episode of Bite-sized Berliners, we caught up with Clarissa Biolchini. Clarissa is an alum from Class 20 of our Executive MBA and is a true creative leader.

From a young age, Clarissa had a real passion for the arts. Influenced by her grandmother’s painting career and her grandfather’s passion for toy-making, she decided to pursue a creative field upon leaving Brazil at 21. Clarissa accredits her diverse creative career to the inspiration she has received in the many countries she has lived in – from various cultures she has experienced and all of the artistic people she has met. 

Bite-sized Berliners is our short-and-sweet podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Multi-tasking within Design with Clarissa Biolchini

“In 2015, in the major design hub of New York City, 67% of the population was non-White, yet non-Whites made up only 29% of those employed in creative occupations.”

This is just one of the disturbing and eye-opening statistics that Shani Sandy, a Berliner of Class 14, cited in her 2016 thesis entitled, “Is Designing with the Same Colors, Yielding the Same Old Design? – Investigating The Perspectives Of Black Graphic Designers In A Search for New Canons”.

In recent months, discussions about structural racism have been spreading through organizations, communities and the media like wildfire. On the surface, the conversation appears to have quieted – but so many burning questions remain, so many statistics continue to stun, so much still needs to fundamentally change.

It was the perfect time to hear from Shani about what the experience of Black design practitioners, such as herself, has been in the past, is currently and might become, given the optimal working conditions for their creativity and a less Euro-centric design curriculum that expands the definition of where design’s history starts, who its icons are and even how it should look.

Racial Reckoning in the Design World: Identifying New Canons and Icons with Shani Sandy

Jihane Fadel, Berliner from Class 22 of the Berlin School’s Executive MBA in Creative Leadership, is an independent creative director and a constant fighter for human rights who practices resilience on a daily basis. Listen in on her story and that of her city, Beirut: an eye-opening anecdote about how unprepared we are to face the rapid changes in our own cities. 

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

A Short Horror Story of What's Right with the World with Jihane Fadel

Nikki Davis Crump, Berliner from Class 6 of the Berlin School’s Executive MBA in Creative Leadership is the VP Account Director at Burrell Communications, a full-service marketing communications company known for its transcultural, multidimensional work. Listen in as Nikki explains how Burrell Communication’s ‘Black is Human’ campaign evolved from calling attention to the violence affecting young black boys to how the black community is disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

You can view the 'Black is Human' evolved campaign on YouTube.

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Black is Human: Evolving a Campaign Based on Hard Truths with Nikki Davis Crump

Here’s a fascinating story about a German living in Switzerland leading a company in Tbilisi, Georgia. Folker Wrage is an alum from Class 10 of our Executive MBA. Today, he’s president of Leavingstone International, a branch of the digital creative agency he was originally hired to run as CEO during their challenging times of rapid growth.

When the pandemic hit, priorities – and challenges – changed. Listen in to learn about the pivots Folker made and the insights he gained while leading from a distance.

Folker’s story is part two of our Leading from a Distance series

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Leading from a Distance with Folker Wrage, Part 2

Meike Ziegler is an artist, multimedia designer and creator of extraordinary experiences. As the mastermind and creative alchemist behind The Creatual Lab, founded in 2009, her aim is to invite people out of their patterns of expectations, create unique spaces and offer impactful moments that invite reflection.

Working out of her studios in Amsterdam and Berlin, Meike has devised over 120 creatual events and products for commercial enterprises, non-profit and cultural organizations and private clients. The purposes of these creatuals have ranged from honoring births and deaths, to celebrating openings and saluting closings and from stimulating engagement to easing transformation processes.Using everyday ingredients such as soap, chalk, vegetables, clay and even butterflies and participants’ heartbeats, Meike’s work invites people to find new meaning in the world around them.

Breaking Patterns, Moving Minds: Creative Rituals for Connection, Transformation & Wonder

Arie Fabian is an alum of Class 21 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership. His journey in fashion began back in 1996 at Hugo Boss. A year later, he joined his father, Jeffery Fabian, in running his company Fabiani, developing it from a successful fashion retailer into a leading luxury menswear label, while in tandem opening multiple new shops across South Africa.

This year, Arie co-founded a bold, new symbiotic business model that redefines the traditional retail ecosystem from both the customer and brand side. This podcast tells the story of We are EGG – an “authentic”, retail platform focused on collaboration, co-creation and co-evolution.

Bite-sized Berliners is our short-and-sweet podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Re-imagining Retail with Arie Fabian

Paul Glader of Class 12 recently founded a new business, Vett News, designed to help news outlets become more transparent with their audience and readers become more media savvy – at a time when public trust in news media is at a historic low. They’ve developed a CX tool, which is now up and running on more than a dozen partner platforms.

Be sure to also check out the Forbes article Paul wrote explaining how to identify reliable news outlets: http://bit.ly/3p1AbPG

Improving News and Media Literacy with Paul Glader

The Berlin School of Creative Leadership at Steinbeis University Berlin is a leading institute for quality executive education and research on creative leadership. At the heart of the school's offering is its part-time Executive MBA in Creative Leadership, taught both online and in-person in a flexible and modular format with residencies in Berlin, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai and Tokyo. Since opening its doors in 2006, the school has built a global community of senior professionals from across the full spectrum of business and industry – wherever creativity and innovation set the standard.

Berlin School of Creative Leadership

Popular tracks