Speaking

“Professionals with a serious background in the arts represent a staggeringly unappreciated and untapped pool of talent. They bring unusual, rare gifts to the workplace.”

— Benjamin Wolff

Creating art has always been one of the most powerful ways for human beings to make sense of themselves and their world. Art holds up a mirror to our desires, our actions, and our ideals. It carves out a space where we can imagine different realities; it reveals our obligations to society and one another.

In this third decade of the 21st century, business is discovering that art is more than entertainment or decoration. With the rise of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the rapidly evolving nature of work itself, the qualities that artists possess—creativity, curiosity, humanity, and craft-specific skills—are now valued and in demand.

In a program that explores this promising new relationship, I profile artists on the cutting edge of business and technology and the companies who welcome them. Join me in a conversation about the creative and humanist thinking that comes with a background in the arts, trends in corporate artist-in-residence programs, and some unusual ways that artists are quietly remaking the business landscape in the 21st century.