• Cultural Enterprise & the Arts
  • Creative Enterprise & Design
  • Cultural Enterprise & the Arts
  • Creative Enterprise & Design
CATALYST | Creative Enterprise Leadership logo
  • JOIN US
    • About Our Network
    • Pratt ACM | DM Programs
    • Community News
    • Stay Connected
  • CATALYST REVIEW
  • CASES
    • Making the Case
    • Case Studies
  • CONVERSATIONS
    • Conversations of Consequence
  • CATALYST JOURNEYS
  • COLLABORATIONS
    • Capstone Projects
  • JOIN US
    • About Our Network
    • Pratt ACM | DM Programs
    • Community News
    • Stay Connected
  • CATALYST REVIEW
  • CASES
    • Making the Case
    • Case Studies
  • CONVERSATIONS
    • Conversations of Consequence
  • CATALYST JOURNEYS
  • COLLABORATIONS
    • Capstone Projects

Richard Tyson, Helping Organizations Thrive on Disruptive Change

Tweet

Some careers in strategic design are made and others evolve.
Richard Tyson exemplifies the latter case—always forward, never straight.

By Qortni Williams
Issue 9 Fall 2011

In his current life, he is the founder and strategic impetus behind the Helsinki Group—a small, collaborative strategy practice in New York City designed to help leaders in the public and private sector thrive on disruptive change. Helsinki Group helps organizations realize innovation programs that accelerate organizational learning—building capacity, improving resilience, and creating new value. He has spent the last year humbled by working on innovation and transformation programs for US public education system, the United Nations, and on a US government project to think through the application of communication platforms to accelerate the capacity of an emerging Middle Eastern government.

Before Helsinki Group, Richard helped design growth programs as a strategy lead for innovation firms Doblin, Monitor Group, and Stone Yamashita. He worked with—and learned everything he knows from—cross-disciplinary teams shaping design-led innovation with Fortune 50, NGO, and Government clients. His work in these firms left a lasting impression: as innovation becomes more important and more broadly needed, it gets harder to maintain. Divergent and open practices like design planning become much more vital.

Richard spent his formative career working as a strategist, designer, and producer for internet leaders like Red Sky and John Borthwicks’ Web Partners. And developed his taste for the conceptual, yet practical art of strategic planning from many years of combined work/study between philosophy, social theory, set building, filmmaking, and documentary. One never starts where one ends up.

Richard recently taught in the Design Futures course for Pratt, helping students imagine the social and economic future of the Garment District.

TagsBuilding Capacitycommunication platformscreating valueDesign Innovationdisruptive changeemerging governmentHelsinki GroupresilienceRichard TysonStrategic DesignStrategytransformationUnited NationsUS public education system

Tweet
Previous Story

Another Call for Change: Lessons from Thailand’s Worst Floods

Next Story

Pratt Design Management Alumnus Sean T. Brennan, Guiding Future Design Leaders

About the author

CATALYST

CATALYST | Leading Creative Enterprise is a platform for communication, applied research and exchange of the international graduate programs in creative enterprise leadership in Arts and Cultural Management (ACM) and Design Management (DM) at Pratt Institute, School of Art. In each issue, Catalyst focuses on creative enterprise. Each year we select a theme. Then, we search out the leaders, visionaries and entrepreneurs who embody that theme in practice. They are each leading as if life matters—creating economic value as they enrich our cultures, our lives, and our shared world.

Related Posts

  • CATALYZING the Conversation: Designing Policy for People

    By Dr. Mary McBride
    CATALYZING the Conversation: Designing...
  • A Creativity Imperative for the Future of Capitalism

    By CATALYST
    Proposing policy shifts to strengthen the...
  • The Influence of Adidas on Culture and Climate Policy

    By CATALYST
    The Influence of adidas on Culture and...
logo
  • Cultural Enterprise & the Arts
  • Creative Enterprise & Design
Copyright 2021 | Catalyst | Creative Enterprise Leadership