Ben believes everyone is creative and that we all have a story to tell. He thinks individuals and organisations flourish best and become more innovative when they have a better understanding of how to do both. His work is about giving people the confidence and capacity to do this better.

Ben’s background is in professional theatre as a writer, dramaturg, facilitator and producer. He also co-founded and co-directed the Ministry of Stories, a community-based writing centre for young people in east London. He was jointly responsible for developing its creative education programmes and the teams of volunteer mentors that supported the young people on them. He then mentored new leaders inspired by the Ministry model in how to start up and establish their own new organisations across the UK. His work focuses now on how increased creativity and better storytelling can lead to individuals and organisations having greater impact.

Ben’s core expertise is in writing, storytelling, the performing arts and in collaborative creative work, particularly with children and young people, but he also believes there is a lot that adults can learn from young people’s creativity. Ben’s ‘superpower’ is the development of individual and organisational stories as a way of creating change. He is a qualified professional coach and action learning set facilitator and a Fellow of the Clore Cultural Leadership Programme.

Adults are afraid to make mistakes, but there is no creativity without mistakes. We need safe spaces where getting it wrong first time is applauded as part of the process. From there, it’s about mentoring the innovator through the necessary reiteration and refinement to fully explore and complete an idea.

As an Expert Contributor on Artgym’s Advanced Diploma, he has already seen the course create more confident and collaborative people and is excited to see it do more!