Toby Scott

Toby Scott

Toby likes to surprise people with their own ingenuity.

As a leader in the creative industries, his early career was as a director for Theatre, TV and radio. He subsequently became a Director of Arts Council England, a Director of the UK Design Council as well as Head of Arts for the UK Government. He is currently on the board of the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland.

As an innovator, he has been an advisor to the UK government on innovation, led an innovation task-force for the UN (where he is currently innovator-in-residence) and teaches innovation at 3 different business schools. He currently works with a number of Irish companies including Irish Life, ESB and SMBC to help them create future value for their customers.

As a creative problem solver he applies basic creativity techniques to help distributed, collaborative teams to find novel solutions to complex challenges. He teaches creative problem solving to organisations as diverse as the NHS, Universal Pictures and the US Army. Current projects include finding a solution to the opioid crisis in Arizona, tackling gender-based violence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and finding mechanisms to develop the executive function of the brain in children.

Toby is married with 3 kids and a few thousand bees. He lives in Sligo.