Creative Innovators Mentors

Bea is a Business Designer and Senior Design Lead at IDEO Shanghai, where she uses human-centred design and design thinking to drive innovation and create positive impact. An artist at heart, Bea also creates video art, performance art and installations. Her work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, including the Triennale di Milano Design Museum, Tate Modern, Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the Musee d’Art Moderne in St. Etienne.

Jasmine is the curatorial consultant of Have Fun Creative Co., Ltd. and former chief curator of Original Festival and Good Home Taiwan. She specialises in space operation and curation. Jasmine has been dedicating herself to promote the artistic innovation and cultivation of promising creators in Taiwan for years.

la is a mover of creative process outsourcing in the Philippines. She manages StraightArrow, which caters to clients from the US, the UK and Australia, and GetCre8ive, which distributes global brands to the Philippines. She is an advocate of promoting Filipino creativity and opportunities in outsourcing creative processes to the Philippines. la is a Certified Value Builder and the first – and currently the only – Professional Implementer of the Entrepreneurial Operating System in Southeast Asia.

A researcher, facilitator and consultant, Catherine has worked in design and innovation for over 20 years. In 2004, she founded Journey Associates, a dynamic design-led innovation consultancy that promotes organisational change. She has held several advisory board positions in the creative sector and served as Chair of the British Council’s European Creative Hubs Forum in Lisbon. She was also a board advisor to The Lighthouse, Scotland’s Centre for Design and Architecture.

Reese is the President and Founding Partner of Rags2Riches, Inc., a fashion and design house empowering and training community artisans. For the past ten years, their team was able to build a sustainable end-to-end inclusive business. She is also the founder and curator of Things That Matter, a market and media platform that creates positive impact and inspires an intentional lifestyle. Reese is an entrepreneur, wife, new mom, artist, storyteller and proponent of design for social change.

John is a global strategist and adviser on creative economies. He is the author of best-selling books ‘The Creative Economy: How People Make Money From Ideas’ and ‘Creative Ecologies’.  His book on the future of work, ‘Invisible’, will be published in 2020. He is a former chairman of BOP Consulting, Tornado Productions, CREATEC and the London Film School. He devised the London Intellectual Property Advisory Service (‘Own It’).

Tia is the youngest to receive the Royal Institute British Architects honorary fellowship. She is the co-founder of Kansara Hackney Ltd, the first ISO-certified sustainable lifestyle consultancy, and CEO of Replenish Earth Ltd. Tia has lectured at New Delhi School of Planning, Musashi Institute of Technology, KEA University, McGill University and the University of British Columbia. She is part of the Top 100 most influential leaders in Tech by the Financial Times and Inclusive Boards.

Jia Ping is the Programme Director at Think City. She is an Honorary Council Member of Badan Warisan Malaysia. She was part of the group that created a programme to revitalise George Town. In 2000, she pioneered the Arts for Health movement in Kuala Lumpur. In 2006, she conceptualised and developed an educational maze for PS the Children, which won a Silver Kancil and was nominated for a Yellow Pencil at the prestigious Design and Art Direction (D&AD) Award 2007 in the UK.

Colum is the Head of Design at the Ministry of Justice. He is a mover in the area of design management. He advised the Design Commission Public Services Inquiry Steering Group. He was involved with the European House of Design Management. He helped Design Council and Nesta develop and deliver a variety of programmes in healthcare, manufacturing and the service industries. He provided executive training through Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art, where he is an Honorary Fellow.

Diego is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher who investigates how technology can help us reimagine relationships with the environment, with other people, and with ourselves.  He was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD fellow in the CogNovo training program for Cognitive Innovation at Plymouth University. Diego teaches at the University of the Philippines Open University. He co-founded Curiosity, a design strategy firm that helps businesses, NGOs and government design meaningful services.