[field_profile_type] Think Creative Leadership Lab: Russ Schoen and Paulina Larocca
Paulina Larocca is a leading creativity and innovation expert with over 12 years’ experience delivering innovation for multi-national corporations and a keynote speaker on creativity and creating a more innovative culture.
Paulina is an American-born Australian who has lived in Australia for nearly 30 years based out of Sydney.
She is a creativity and innovation specialist working inside large corporations. For the last 6 years, she has been working as the Creativity and Concept Director for Pernod Ricard Winemakers the global wine division of Pernod Ricard – one of the world’s leaders in wines and spirits – driving the front end of the pipeline by identifying and creating new product concepts with a specialisation in breakthrough innovation.
In addition to driving the global innovation pipeline, she is also responsible for delivering the creativity agenda within Pernod Ricard Winemakers, which includes developing and delivering Th!nk Creative Leadership Lab – an in-house7 day creative training programme focused on developing creative leadership skills of their top talent to drive business-wide innovation.
In 2014, she completed a MSc Creativity and Change Leadership from Buffalo State University in NY.
Paulina lives with her husband, Paul, and cat Thomas (her sometimes alter ego) on the leafy lower north shore of Sydney. She is animal mad, into meditation and studying the psychology of flow, also known as the zone, as defined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.
Russ Schoen is a partner at Foursight, in charge of supporting and developing the FourSight practitioner network. In addition to coaching, training and designing learning events, Russ works as a facilitator, speaker and trainer in the areas of deliberate creativity, innovation, high performance and change leadership. He has facilitated programs worldwide including programs in Singapore, Italy, Australia, England, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the US.
A sampling of organizations to benefit from his training, on-going facilitation and speaking in the last few years include: T. Rowe Price, International Flavor & Fragrances, Kraft, Coca-Cola, TAP Pharmaceuticals, SC Johnson, Philips Electronics, Praxair, Discover, Kimberly-Clark, Zimmer and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Russ is a contributing author to a number of creative leadership related materials including the FourSight suite of materials. In addition, Russ is adjunct faculty at the Center for Studies in Creativity where he teaches graduate courses in facilitating creative process.
Russ holds a Master of Science in Creativity from the State University of New York at Buffalo and is a graduate of the Second City Conservatory specializing in improvisation. He also received the Alumni Achievement Award from the International Center of Creativity SUNY at Buffalo in 1998. He is a specialist in the field of individual, team and organizational innovation and leadership and holds certifications in a number of additional training programs including Polarity Management and Emotional Intelligence. Russ also serves as a leader at the annual Creative Problem Solving Institute, the annual Creativity European Association conference in Italy and the Mindcamp Creativity Conference in Toronto.
In addition to his work with organizations, Russ is a co-founder of the Creative Youth Leadership Academy (www.creativeyouthleadership.org) which helps train young people to adopt a mindset and apply a toolset to help them see more options in their lives and to make healthier choices.
When not working, Russ spends his free time in Chicago improvising and practicing aikido. To learn more about Russ, visit www.foursightonline.com.
