The most creative people we know

Yes, we're naming names this time.

Creativity doesn’t come down to just one thing. And it doesn’t always belong to the loudest or most colorful people in the room. In Berit and Tor’s latest conversation, we reflect on the creative people around us, and what actually makes them creative in practice.

Reframing what creativity really looks like

Berit:
Our conversations have prompted me to reflect on the most creative people I know, and what it is that makes them creative. I think my definition of human creativity has changed as I have grown and developed in my own career. I remember early on, I was always a bit jealous of the people who could just spew out the crazy ideas. I thought that was the essence of creativity. But today I see that people are creative in different ways, and it’s not just just having the wildest ideas or the most animations on slides. I’ve also experienced that combining people’s various creative qualities in the right way can be super valuable for a team.

I thought it would be a fun exercise to put together our creative dream team. Who would be on yours? Let’s each nominate 3 people for our roster!

Tor:

Immediately, this sounded like such an easy and quick task. I know tons of creative people, right? Then my mind started hitting the thoughts that you point out here, Berit.

What makes up a “creative person”? For one, I started thinking about one of the key personality traits: The ability to not just contribute with ideas, but to head whole-heartedly into execution where the trick is to find the little details that can make the whole thing fly.

I did come up with some people, so more on that in a second.

Wanna kick it off?

Berit’s creative dream team

Berit:
I have three people that immediately come to mind if I was to assemble a creative super-powered team.

1. Patricia Auseth, the CMO at Pexip, who sees creativity as a leadership responsibility. She leans into process and strategy, and then gives freedom to her team to design the best solutions built on that solid foundation. We’ve spoken a lot about how creativity can thrive or die at the hands of the leader, and in Patricia’s case, I believe her team feels that creativity is not only encouraged, but an expectation in order to stand out in the market - that sets an incredibly strong starting point. She is my pick for the creative leader role.

2. Sheena Lim, the CMO at TechStep, is my out-of-the-box pick. She is not a classic creative person, but she’s creative in a way that every team needs. She is a creative organizer, strategist, and solution-finder. She’s not the one coming up with the crazy social media gag, but she’s the one who sees the whole picture and how that gag fits in with what the company wants to achieve. Her creativity is more covert, behind-the-scenes. She is my pick for the creative big picture-ist (new word?) role.

3. Jakob Andresen, a Communications Manager at Telenor, is my classic creative pick. This is a guy who can design and create anything. He recently won a Cannes Lion Award for his work last year (which should be testament enough to what I’m claiming here), and I’ve now had the opportunity to see him in action for myself. He is the creative executor - collaborative and open-minded in the ideation phase, after which, it’s his turn to truly shine - taking that rough idea and turning it into something that no one else could have imagined. Everyone needs a ‘Jakob’ on their team, my pick for the classic creative ‘creator’ role.

Tor’s creative dream team

Tor:

My first pick is what I would also call a classic creative. Just born like that.

1. Thomas Ford, previously head of marketing at Promon and Vewd and now building his own startup. His core creative quality is that, according to him, an idea can never be taken far enough. There’s always another layer, another twist. He combines this with a sometimes bizarre sense of humour. Critically, he also combines it with encyclopedia style knowledge (he was part of the quiz team at Oxford where he got his MBA and during his undergraduate studies). When you have tons of knowledge on a huge number of topics, that feeds new angles and perspectives. Thomas is a creativity machine.

My second pick is a conceptual mastermind, coming from the world of industrial and product design.

2. Bao Nguyen, currently building a totally new way of publishing in Frekk Forlag. You should check it out. I first met him when he was co-CEO and creative director at Umble, a brand consultancy in Oslo. He joined me in building the core brand identity of Sonair. My work sessions with him were like coming into a lush garden, with abundant energy and opportunity. He didn’t just get our business, he was inside it. He could smell it, feel it. Crucially, there was also resistance, questions, and criticism. Creativity thrives on constant refinement. What came out was a wonderful identity that I’ve used to build a bridge from Sonair to the world ever since. Bao reminds me that AI won’t replace humans, any time soon.

My third pick is a guy who’s made a living out of orchestrating large-scale creativity.

3. Eddie D’Sa, CEO of Bloom advertising agency, previously head of NORD DDB and Naked Communications. When you meet Eddie, the world opens up. At first, whatever thought or idea or challenge you have feels small and insignificant on the canvas he rolls out. Soon, you realize that you can play a much bigger role than you thought. It’s about catching the magic by deploying a mix of classic advertising methodologies and the most recent marketing science. I think he thrives as agency CEO because people feel that he stretches them in exactly the right ways. I especially liked his work with turning around the idea that McDonald’s is just fast food to a business that plays a role in society (like that of the careers of young people and the contributions of local farmers).

I have a bonus pick. It’s someone you know.

4. Berit Framnes, running her own comms agency (Native Communication), with some of Norway’s best brands on her client list. With Berit, you get three amazing qualities in one: You get someone who can build infrastructure for creativity that delivers value to a business strategy. You get someone who can sit down in almost any context and make creativity flow - if it’s on her own, with a team, or in a workshop. And you get someone who can execute ideas – to give them wings, relevance, staying power. Always with a nose for what’s human and interesting. To top it off, she knows how to work the system in large and small organizations. Just an amazing creative thinker, doer, colleague, and friend.

Creativity comes in many flavors

Tor:

Ahh - looking back at this list, I realize that creative people come in all kinds of flavors. That’s wonderful in itself.

By design, we didn’t turn to the creativity gurus out there who have written books and go on stage at the largest marketing festivals. We wanted to highlight people around us, whom we’ve worked with directly.

Berit:

Wow, first I have to say thanks for the major shout out…I didn’t expect to make your creative list, but appreciate it greatly. My face is a good shade of tomato red right now after reading all those nice things, so I’ll move on quickly.

Hopefully, everyone was simply flattered to have made our lists. In the spirit of spreading the positive feedback, I invite all of you dear readers to add your top creative people picks to our so-far-unused comments section below.

Who’d make your creative all-star team and why? Share your thoughts and perhaps you’ll make someone’s day.

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💡 3 takeaways — summarized by AI

1. Creativity isn’t one thing
   The most effective creative teams are made up of different creative strengths — leadership, execution, structure, and imagination all matter.
   
   

2. Execution is part of creativity
   Ideas don’t become creative work until someone carries them through the details and brings them to life.
   
   

3. Creative environments don’t happen by accident
   The right leaders, collaborators, and conditions determine whether creativity thrives or stalls.