Dr. Natalie Nixon is "the creativity whisperer to the C-Suite". As a creativity strategist and the CEO of Figure 8 Thinking she helps companies catalyze creativity’s ROI for more inspired business results. She helps people reimagine what’s possible, essential and transformative by applying wonder and rigor. Dr. Nixon is a highly sought after global keynote speaker, valued for her accessible expertise on innovation, productivity and sustainable success.
Dr. Nixon 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 also the recipient of NAWBO’s (National Association of Women Business Owners’) 2024 “Architecture of Innovation” award. Dr. Nixon 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 forthcoming book Move. Think. Rest: Redefining Productivity and Our Relationship with Time will be released on September 2, 2025. 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, Dr. Nixon consistently applies her background in cultural anthropology, fashion, design thinking and dance. She worked in the fashion industry for a division of The Limited Brands in global sourcing, living in Sri Lanka & Portugal. Dr. Nixon was also a professor for 16 years and the founding director of a strategic design executive MBA program at Thomas Jefferson University. 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.
Dr. Nixon 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, Dr. Nixon 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.