creative education trust ceo

Cookies on Companies House services

We use some essential cookies to make our services work.

We'd also like to use analytics cookies so we can understand how you use our services and to make improvements.

You've accepted analytics cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

You've rejected analytics cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

We use cookies to make our services work and collect analytics information. To accept or reject analytics cookies, turn on JavaScript in your browser settings and reload this page.

Please press ENTER to search

CREATIVE EDUCATION TRUST

Company number 07617529

• Company Overview for CREATIVE EDUCATION TRUST (07617529)
• Filing history for CREATIVE EDUCATION TRUST (07617529)
• People for CREATIVE EDUCATION TRUST (07617529)
• Charges for CREATIVE EDUCATION TRUST (07617529)
• More for CREATIVE EDUCATION TRUST (07617529)
• Persons with significant control

Filter officers

Officers: 35 officers / 23 resignations, hughes, catherine sara, becque, lucy, bull, nicholas james douglas, carter, owen david, figgis, simon richard frank, gerald, diana judith, jordan, marc lowis aron, joseph, merlin, mcdonald, emily olivia, rumbold, abbie clare, soul, frances joan, creative education charitable trust, uk limited company what's this, brann, nicholas stephen, palmer, theresa lorraine, allwood, charles john, anderson, david john lane freer, bhavan, sasha sakunthala, buck, sarah, dr, butler, kevin yardley, casson, dinah victoria, clarke, kevin, dickson, michael george tufnell, farrow, raymond, forster, karen brenda, groom, mary josephine, jeffries, yvonne clare, morgan, sadie, prof, murphy, alan, read, kevin, richardson, william boys, dr, townsend, ralph douglas, dr, un ates, didem, walls, peter ewart, waters, michael john, professor.

Cookies on Get Information about Schools

We use some essential cookies to make this service work.

We'd also like to use analytics cookies so we can understand how you use the service and make improvements.

beta How could we improve this service? Your feedback will help.

Establishment group CREATIVE EDUCATION TRUST

Multi-academy trust

Download group data

• Academies (17)
• Compare School and College Performance in England (opens in new tab)

The Milton Keynes Academy

The hart school, lynn grove academy, ash green school, harpfield primary academy, abbeyfield school, thistley hough academy, woodlands primary academy, queen eleanor primary academy, weavers academy, wrenn school, caister academy, three peaks primary academy, wroughton infant academy, wroughton junior academy, the bulwell academy, ellis guilford school, legal duty to provide governance information.

All maintained school governing bodies and academy trusts have a legal duty to provide all of the governance information requested on this page in so far as it is available to them.

This will increase the transparency of governance arrangements. It will enable schools and the department to identify more quickly and accurately individuals who are involved in governance, and who govern in more than one context.

The information requested says nothing in itself about a person's suitability to govern. However, it is essential information for the department to be able to uniquely identify an individual and in a small number of cases conduct checks to confirm their suitability for this important and influential role.

You should provide all of the information requested insofar as it is available to you. A minimum set of information needs to be provided before a record can be saved.

A suggested privacy notice for schools is available for download: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-protection-and-privacy-privacy-notices (opens in new tab)

Delegated authority of local governing body

Not recorded

Corporate contact

This only applies to organisations (most often a diocese or higher education institution) which are a corporate member or director/trustee of an academy trust. They should provide contact details here for someone in their organisation who can provide information on which members of their organisation have acted in the capacity of corporate member or corporate director/trustee.

Shared chair of local governing body

Shared local governors, chair of trustees, accounting officer, chief financial officer, historic (left within last 12 months).

• Board of Directors

About Creative Education Foundation

“the challenges we are facing are without precedent…and we are going to need every ounce of ingenuity, imagination, and creativity to confront these problems.” ~ sir ken robinson  .

Alex Osborn founded the Creative Education Foundation (CEF) in 1954. Alex was one of the original advertising “Mad Men” and the “O” in BBDO. He founded CEF based on the idea that creativity can be learned and developed.

With Sidney J. Parnes, Ph.D., Alex developed the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process and founded the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI). CPSI is the oldest, longest-running global creativity conference that attracts hundreds of attendees from around the globe and across industries.

CEF also runs the Parnes Global Fellowship program, which trains rising leaders in CPS to make positive change in their communities, and awards the Ruth B. Noller Research Grant for cutting edge creativity research. CEF publishes the longest-running academic creativity journal, the Journal of Creative Behavior , and also provides CPS Professional Development Training to teachers, students, and professionals. CEF is a registered, 501-c-3 nonprofit organization.

Our Mission

The mission of the Creative Education Foundation is to spark personal and professional transformation by empowering people with the skill set, tool set, and mindset of deliberate creativity.

Our vision is to unlock the creative genius in everyone. The Creative Education Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization of leaders in the field of creativity theory and practice. Every day, principles fostered by CEF programs are helping someone, somewhere in the world, develop new products, make business operations run more profitably, restructure organizations and agencies to become more effective and less encumbered, reinvigorate economies, make improvements in our schools, revitalize communities, and replace ineffective methods and systems with new, more workable ones.

We convene businesses, governments, NGOs, and individuals to improve global health and wellness, increase opportunity for women and girls, reduce childhood obesity, create economic opportunity and growth, and help communities address the effects of climate change.

The Core Values of CEF

• Creativity is innate; it can be deliberate, studied, taught, and learned.
• Constructive creativity requires personal integrity, as well as integrity in process, product, and environment.
• Courageous and respectful communication yields meaning and understanding.
• We express viewpoints with clarity and self-awareness, ask questions to better understand others’ viewpoints, and listen generously.
• We trust and use the Creative Problem Solving process in our leadership and program development.
• Play fosters creativity and connects us to our goals and each other.
• We achieve quality outcomes by bringing together people of different backgrounds, cultures, perspectives, and thinking processes.
• Variety and differences require us to remain open-minded, to use debate, and to manage conflict as tools for stronger outcomes.
• Generosity, awareness of self and others, and ongoing learning are essential characteristics of partners, volunteers, and staff.
• Service requires high-level personal, interpersonal and organizational goals, exceptional delivery, and achievable commitments.
• Individual growth and organizational growth go hand-in-hand.
• Seeking both organizational growth and organizational stability requires fiscal responsibility, efficiency, effective resource management, and teamwork.

Beth Miller

Executive Director

Beth is a 20+ year nonprofit leader who is passionate about history, education, leadership, and creativity.   As the Executive Director of the Creative Education Foundation (CEF), she has grown and professionalized all contributed and earned revenue streams including the development Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Professional Development training for public school educators and administrators.   Beth and the CEF team are successfully navigating the Covid-19 pandemic and have developed new virtual programs, which have expanded the CEF audience.   Currently, Beth is exploring collaborative partnerships with The Illumination Project, the Center for Policing Equity, and various national Invention Conventions.  

Beth taught writing at Trinity College for 10 years, and who served as Writing Fellow at Quinnipiac University where she taught and assisted with writing program curriculum design. Beth earned her B.A. in Women’s Studies (2000) and her M.A. in American Studies (2003) at Trinity College, graduating with distinction for both degrees; she was also inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.   For her scholarship and community service, Beth received the Ann Petry Book Prize in American Studies, the D.G. Brinton Thompson Prize in United States History, the Samuel S. Fishzohn Award for Civil Rights and Community Service, the Elma H. Martin Book Prize for Student Leadership, and the Tyler Award for Interdisciplinary Studies.  

Beth currently serves as a Trustee of the Ahearn Family Foundation, and recently completed her tenure as a member of the Trinity College National Alumni Association Executive Committee. In 2005, Beth was hired to write “A Life-Giving Spirit:” 75 Years at the Bushnell , which was a history of The Bushnell Memorial Theater in Hartford, Connecticut. In 2017, Beth received an honorary PhD in Arts and Humane Letters from Southern New Hampshire University for her academic and professional achievements.   Her award-winning Senior Seminar Thesis, “Challenging Race and Gender Boundaries in Antebellum America,” about Prudence Crandall was adapted as the play, “An Education in Prudence,” produced by the Open Theater Project in Boston, MA in February 2018.      And, in 2019, Beth was recognized by her alma mater as one of the “50 for the next 50 Years,” which celebrated Trinity’s 50 th anniversary of co-education by honoring 50 professors, alumni, and students as Trinity’s current and future women leaders.

Jamie Robinson

Office Manager

Jamie is the Office Manager and Bookkeeper at the CEF office in Scituate, MA. Her career prior to CEF has been doing bookkeeping for local businesses. Jamie and her husband have two children and live in Marshfield, MA. She is also an avid runner and has completed several marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 2008 and 2015.

Jane Fischer

Creativity Trainer

Jane has over 25 years of experience in developing and delivering educational sessions, personal and professional development workshops, and training curriculum. Much of this experience covers her two decades in health education leadership, with 15 of these years in college health promotion and peer education training.

For the past decade, she has worked as a Creative Change Facilitator. Her passion is to help individuals, teams, and organizations arrive at creative solutions to the challenging and ambiguous problems they face, and to do so through improvisational mindsets. Jane’s perspective is greatly shaped by 20 years as a professional improv comedy performer.   She is currently a member of ComedySportz Buffalo and Twisted Sister Act.

Jane holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a minor in Social Work from Ithaca College, a Master of Arts in Health Arts and Sciences from Goddard College, and a Graduate Certificate of Advanced Study in Creativity and Change Leadership from the International Center for Studies in Creativity at SUNY Buffalo State. She is certified as a Foursight® facilitator, a facilitator of Lego® Serious Play® Methods & Materials, and a Laugha-Yoga leader. In addition to working with nonprofit organizations, colleges, community organizations, and businesses, she has been honored to deliver keynote presentations and lead interactive workshops at numerous conferences and events.

Roseanne Avella

Flcc Coordinator

Roseanne is a true creative and entrepreneur.    For over 2 decades she has worked to combine her love of creative and business.    She has an eye for detail and a rich understanding of technology.    Bootstrapping multiple businesses after graduating from Ringling College of Art and Design, she has provided creative services to virtually every industry – completing or overseeing nearly every type of graphic design or online/web-based project.

Working for Creative Education Foundation, Roseanne brings her skills to provide creative and expertise to market the Florida Creativity Conference.  

CEF Board of Trustees

Tricia Garwood

Tricia became passionate about the creative process her senior year of high school and has been researching creativity and teaching corporate, educational, and individual clients how to develop and apply creative and innovative techniques ever since. Through her Philadelphia-based consulting business, The Idea Shop, Tricia helps her clients establish a creative culture through individual and corporate coaching, seminars, classes, and facilitating ideation sessions.

She joined the Disney Company in 2001 and is currently leadership development manager at the Disney University, a role in which she works with executives to assess and then design the right learning solution to drive leadership success and optimize business. Tricia also provides consultation to various clients within the company to help them fully tap their creative expertise. Through her research and experience, Tricia has explored the often-stormy relationship between the psychological fundamentals of creativity and the practical components of innovation with their direct applications in business, the arts, and sciences. Tricia has a Masters in human resources from Villanova University in and a doctorate in interdisciplinary leadership from Creighton University where her dissertation focused on collaboration and leadership creative problem solving preferences. Tricia has authored and co-authored a number of publications over the years, most recently a chapter in Emerald Publishing’s “Grassroots Leadership and the Arts for Social Change” entitled Benevolent Subversion: Graffiti, Street Art, and the Emergence of the Anonymous Leader.

Kirk Young serves as the Vice President of Student Affairs at Jamestown Community College, a position he has held since 2014. Prior to joining JCC, Kirk worked for ten years at Utah Valley University, a large regional university in Utah. Throughout his years working in higher education, he has worked in enrollment, fundraising, and marketing, as well as serving for several years as the director of the Center for the Advancement of Leadership at UVU. Prior to his career in higher education, Kirk worked in sales and management in private industry where much of his work focused on employee development and engagement.

Kirk holds a BA in psychology from Utah Valley University, an MS in sociology from Brigham Young University, and a Ph.D. in leadership studies from Gonzaga University. His master’s studies focused on the social impacts of large-scale mega events, particularly the 2002 Winter Olympics. His doctoral studies focused on the 360-degree assessment as a leadership development tool. His other areas of expertise include transformational leadership, appreciative inquiry, servant-leadership, leadership and creativity, and strengths-based leadership. Kirk is a certified strengths coach with the Gallup organization, and spends some of his time consulting with individuals and teams on strengths-based performance and leadership solutions.

Kirk is the founder of 221b Performance Solutions, a leadership and organizational development firm that works closely with organizations across the country to assess performance, design solutions, and implement strategies for addressing a variety of challenges. In this capacity, Kirk is responsible for helping individuals, teams, and organizations identify and achieve their potential.

Kirk currently lives in Lakewood, NY with his wife, Katie, and their three children.

Mary Wisenski

Mary Wisenski is a CPA and a Director of Assurance & Advisory Services for Fiondella, Milone and LaSaracina LLP (FML). She has more than 17 years of public accounting experience across a variety of industries including manufacturing, bio-technology, software, and consumer goods. She began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers and joined FML in 2004. Mary is responsible for supervising and managing financial statement audits both under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (US GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), as well as employee benefit plan audits, and consulting engagements related to Sarbanes-Oxley initiatives for publicly- traded companies. In addition, Mary provides a variety of consulting services to both public and private clients focusing on internal audit services and her diverse industry experience ranges from startup businesses to large multi-national corporations. Her internal control experience includes the identification of significant accounts, the detection of prevent and detect controls within significant processes, and the development and execution of testing strategies for internal control environments. In addition, Mary has significant experience identifying control weaknesses and assisting in the development of process improvement opportunities within an organization’s control environment. Mary’s experience includes performing such work on Connecticut Water Service, Inc., Arvinas, Inc. Twin River Worldwide Holdings, Inc., Stanley Black & Decker, Inc., Delcath Systems, Inc., The Eastern Company, and American Bank Note Holographics, Inc., to name a few.

Mary has extensive professional and volunteer experience working with nonprofits. She performed audits for Theater Works, Inc. in Hartford, CT, as well as The Justice Education Center, Inc.. She served on the Board and was the former Treasurer and Co-Chair of Connectikds, Inc., a tutoring and mentoring organization also in Hartford. Mary is interested in CEF’s mission and work as creativity and critical thinking and sees these as critical life skills for one’s career and in life in general. She sees being able to deal with a situation and problem solve using creative thinking is the key to independence and confidence. Though Mary resides in Connecticut, her roots are in Buffalo, NY and she is there several times a year visiting family. She is excited about CEF’s Buffalo connections.

Frank Prince

Frank is the Founder and President of Unleash Your Mind Consulting, an independent consulting firm focused on creative leadership and innovation since 1990. Frank is an executive consultant to CEO’s and Senior Management teams. Organizations hire Frank to develop strategies that drive results through innovation. He facilitates the creation of long-range strategic plans. Frank also counsels executives on their presentation skills and co-creates presentations with them.

Frank attended his first CPSI in 1984 and it changed his life and career. He has served as a CPSI leader since 1989. He served as an adjunct instructor for the Center for Creative Leadership and as an adjunct professor for George Fox University teaching “Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.” He also taught “The Creative Manager” course at Motorola University. Frank founded One Ball One Village, a nonprofit organization which brings remote villages throughout the world together through building community centers with clean water, sports fields and play supplies.

Frank applies the same creativity, strategic planning and goal achievement processes to his personal life through a passion for riding motorcycles and extreme adventure travel. A few major accomplishments include: winning the Baja 1000 on a motorcycle, racing a sled team in the Iditarod and completing an Antarctic expedition with Cornell University and National Geographic. He always has a new adventure in the works.

Frank lives in Tampa, Florida with his two children and wife Cherri who he met at CPSI in 1999. She also serves as a CPSI leader and is the Head of Growth and Innovation for Seed Strategy.

Judy Bernstein

Board Member

Judy currently serves as Director, Design Thinking Strategy as part of an FCB Health team that uses Creative Problem Solving and Human Centered Design to spark breakthrough thinking and insight-led innovation.  She designs, facilitates, and manages group innovative thinking and insight sessions across a range of brand and organizational needs. Previously, Judy was principal of CBA Full Gallop, an insights and innovation firm that provided qualitative research and facilitation to major manufacturers of consumer packaged goods, Rx, OTC and medical devices. 

She also served the Joint Special Operations University’s Center Design and Innovation as Adjunct Professor of Creative Problem Solving where she had the honor of introducing elite military operatives to the body of knowledge she first encountered at CPSI in 2014. Additionally, she had the pleasure of working as an instructor for the LUMA Institute supporting client teams in developing their ability to apply LUMA’s approach to innovation and problem solving.

Judy holds a MS in Creativity and Change Leadership from the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State and a BA in Theater Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  

Mallory Combemale

Mallory Combemale is a facilitator, entrepreneur and designer of transformative experiences. She is currently a Co-Founder of   Inheritance Project , where she focuses on leading holistic inclusion, leadership development and culture transformation programs for a wide variety of organizations.

Mallory also guides personal healing and transformation, specializing in breathwork, meditation, and trauma-informed approaches to healing. Through   Breath Connection , she empowers individuals with scientifically supported breath practices to improve leadership skills such as emotional intelligence, creativity, collaboration and resilience.

A Singaporean-French-American citizen raised in London, Mallory has always been fascinated with identity and facilitating cross-cultural understanding. She is passionate about empowering leaders with the skills and self-awareness to lead in a diverse, global and uncertain future. Creative problem solving skills are an essential part of this and she is inspired by helping CEF further its educational mission.

Katie Garry

Katie Garry is a Creative Director at Grey Midwest. During her 15+ year creative advertising career — in agencies and as an entrepreneur — she’s worked with the likes of small-town startups to Fortune 500s in beauty, CPG, fintech, food and beverage, hospitality, among others.  

Katie brings concepts from CPS, Design Thinking and Improv into her work to develop robust visual and verbal storytelling that best communicates the heart of a brand while connecting with the heart and mind of the consumer.

Katie’s perspective to work is through play. She plays with ideas, experiences and challenges until ah-has are uncovered and brains are tuckered out. Katie is someone who grabs attention, but never steals the show. She makes everyone feel seen, amplifies the voices of her team, and serves as a fountain of resources and creativity, asking for nothing in return but to celebrate in the collective success.  

Katie holds an MA in Journalism from the University of Memphis and a dual-BA in Journalism and Organizational Communication from Ohio Northern University, where she served as editor-in-chief of the   Northern Review   and as President of the Delta Zeta sorority. ONU is also where she met her husband, Ryan. They have three young daughters—two who are theatre-minded elementary-schoolers and one toddler who runs the show.    

Nicole Haddad

Nicole Haddad believes wholeheartedly in the power of creativity to fuel innovative thinking. She believes that the key to a thriving culture is confident, courageous individuals and teams who speak up and take risks to reimagine what is possible.

She is the founder of ArtWorks, where she uses creativity to transform the most disengaged, disconnected and burned-out groups into passionate, energetic teams who can tackle their most pressing business challenges with confidence.

As a creative leadership coach and team development facilitator, Haddad helps organizations build thriving cultures through programs that focus on creativity & innovation, cultivating sustainable collaboration, transformative team development, and creative leadership, which help professionals approach problem-solving with a creative mindset so that bigger and better solutions emerge to produce breakthrough results.

Haddad brings over 15 years of experience in advertising, marketing, and creative problem-solving training to students in the form of highly engaging and impactful workshop-style sessions where students learn through purposeful play in a space that encourages tinkering, experimenting, asking thoughtful questions and sharing unique perspectives.

Haddad earned her MBA in marketing and management from SMU. She is a certified LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator and Foursight innovative problem-solving trainer.

Kimberly Hawkins

Kimberly   Hawkins   is a Change Management Consultant that specializes in the technology industry.  She has worked as a Human Resources Professional for over 20 years prior to transitioning to the change management discipline. Additionally, she has worked in education as an Adjunct Professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA teaching Human Resources.

Her current interests include understanding how diversity, project management, and creative problem solving can work together to help solve some of the most challenging and complex problems of our times.  She was led to the Creative Problem Solving Institute through her natural curiosity about what she witnessed as disconnect between organization’s promoting creativity but not always supporting cultures that truly support the risk taking and tinkering needed to discover and synergize new ideas.

 She is a Western New York transplant (Albion, New York to be exact) to Atlanta, Georgia.  She is a currently a participant in the year-long Tulsa Remote program sponsored by the Georgie Kaiser Foundation where she lives and works in Tulsa for a year as a remote worker.  She believes the remote workforce is the emerging industry and she is excited to be having this experience and making Tulsa her other home.

She has a undergraduate degree in Sociology and Philosophy from Hamilton College and a Masters in Industrial Labor Relations from Cornell University.  Additional she holds a graduate certificate in project management from Grantham University. She is also on the Board for the East Point Georgia Cultural Enrichment Commission, a graduate of the Atlanta United Way Board Training Program, and a member of the Atlanta Change Management Professional organization.

Erika López

Erika is a seasoned sales professional incorporating videogames to the corporate market to improve their training on soft skills. A social person who builds rapport and connects with prospects a clients in a way that impact results when doing business in Latin America, where people buy from people.

Creative problem solver by nature, in the quest of transforming and building awareness on accessibility in all industries from a vision of the world at 4 feet. A quick thinker, embraces the unexpected and likes being challenged. Taking action, getting results and generating enthusiasm are her drivers in all the things she does.

Known by two talents: singing and finding good food.

Liz Monroe-Cook

Liz Monroe-Cook has been a leader at CPSI since 1991. She is a consulting psychologist who began her work as a clinician, but transferred to organizational applications through a qualitative research position at D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles. She trained moderators at the RIVA Training Institute, and was a frequent presenter and board member at the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QCRA).

Liz has led projects with varied clients including the US Government, corporations, non-profits, professional associations, and institutions of higher learning. She has extensive experience in strategic planning, group idea generation, leadership development, team development, analysis and planning work, and retreats. Her expertise includes an array of deliberate creativity approaches, polarity thinking, communication and relationship skills, emotional intelligence, and group facilitation.

Liz has led many workshops at CPSI, MindCamp Canada, MindCamp Chile, Florida Creativity Weekend, and the Creativity European Association (CREA). In 2008, Liz received the CEF Distinguished Leader Award, and in 2014 the CEF Leadership Service & Commitment Award. She was a Fire and Police Commissioner for six years in the Village of Oak Park, Illinois and served more than four years on the board of directors for the Geneva Foundation, a transitional living and development program for youth 16 to 19. She is currently a Mission Steward for Child’s World America.

At Michigan State University, Liz studied music, history and psychology for her BA in humanities. She earned an MA in counseling and Ph.D. in counseling psychology, also from MSU. She lives in Oak Park (Chicago area) with her husband, Dale, a fellow psychologist. They have two adult children, Brenna and Jonathan.

Melissa St. Clair

Melissa St. Clair is the Head of Inclusion, Diversity & Equity (ID&E) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for Nuveen, a global investment manager. Melissa has end-to-end responsibility for the strategic planning, delivery, execution and measurement of Nuveen’s International ID&E programming and Corporate Social Responsibility efforts in 22 countries across Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Prior to her role at Nuveen, Melissa served as Vice President at TIAA (Nuveen’s parent company), leading the firm’s Inclusion Programming and Innovation and Diversity Strategies team. Prior to her career in ID&E, Melissa managed TIAA’s Contingent Worker Program at TIAA and led the firm’s award-winning and best-in-class Supplier Diversity Program.

Melissa has more than 17 years of experience in communications, staffing and procurement, and diversity-related fields in the financial services industry.

Ms. St. Clair received a bachelor of business administration (B.B.A) in International Business with a French Minor from Texas Tech University.  Melissa serves on the Board of Trustees for the Creative Education Foundation, and the Board of The Sundara Fund, a non-profit whose mission is to empower women and eradicate health and hygiene disparities across the globe. She also co-founded Sundara’s Rise 100 which provides mentorship, seed funding and resources to female entrepreneurs that are building sustainable businesses in low to middle income countries.   Melissa is a founding member of the Women’s Council at Make-A-Wish Metro NY, as well as a wish granter to children with life threatening medical conditions. From 2017-2020, she also served on the steering committee at Lincoln Center Kids which develops musical and artistic performances for neurodiverse audiences, including children with autism and other disabilities.

Melissa is a recipient of the 2020 Women’s eNews “ 21 Leaders for the 21st Century ” award and a Pride Global “ Trailblazing Women” honoree. She is married with two children and resides in London.

Alexander Zorychta

Alex is obsessed with helping student entrepreneurs find their confidence to take the plunge and help them get to product-market fit. He currently works within Amazon Web Services Startups to help university entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

Alex has founded startups in biotech, media, mobile gaming, and social networking, one of which was funded by Y Combinator, and he served as Head of Product for Zealot Interactive. Alex spent most of his career designing and directing student entrepreneurship programming that 4x’d the rate of viable high-growth entrepreneurs at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, using research-backed and relationship-based approaches. Alex has coached thousands of student entrepreneurs 1-on-1 and in workshop formats internationally, the most popular of which has been “Strangers to Best Friends in 45 Minutes” that was first tested at CPSI 2017.

In addition to program design and individual coaching, Alex teaches classes in creativity and entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia. Most recently, he was a full-time faculty member in the McIntire School of Commerce teaching multiple sections of ENTP 1010: Introduction to Entrepreneurship. Before that, he designed and taught STS 3580: Creativity for Invention to undergraduate engineering students based on the rich educational concepts promoted by the Creative Education Foundation, and taught STS 4580/STS 5500: De-Risking Entrepreneurship, a course for both undergraduate and graduate engineering students.

His published work includes “Exploration of Discriminant Validity in Divergent Thinking Tasks: A Meta-Analysis” which explored improvements to the classical ways of measuring creativity, “Harnessing Deliberate Creativity” which was a technical note for business school professors to offer to their MBA students, “Aspiring Entrepreneurs Should Not Major in Entrepreneurship” which made the case for students to supplement with entrepreneurship classes rather than concentrate, and “The Social Mechanism of Supporting Entrepreneurial Projects Beyond the Classroom” which explored using community of practice as the most effective way to endow entrepreneurial mindset.

Alex received his MBA as well as his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia, and is on a hiatus from work toward the M.S. in Creativity and Change Leadership at Buffalo State University.  

CEF’s Lifetime Trustees

Dr. Sidney J. Parnes (1922 – 2013)

Sid Parnes is professor emeritus and founding director of the Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College (1967). Sid met the CEF Founder, Alex Osborn, at the very first CPSI and took the conference content and morphed it into a “How to” conference, piloting this idea in his Creative Retailing Conference in 1956 at the University of Pittsburgh. Impressed with his initiative, Alex recruited Sid to work with him and evolve the model shortly thereafter.

From 1967 to 1984 Sid served as President of the Creative Education Foundation. He was the premier researcher on the development of creative behavior, so much so that he decided to launch The Journal of Creative Behavior (in ’67); the longest running and foremost academic journal dedicated to creativity in the world. He is responsible for assembling the most comprehensive library on creativity with more than 2,400 volumes. Throughout his career, Sid has emphasized two key principles on deliberate creativity. First, creativity is the result of a balance between divergent and convergent thinking and second; everyone can be taught to apply creative behavior in their personal and professional lives.

Gordon A. MacLeod (1926 – 2010)

Retired Partner, Hodgson & Russ LLP

Marion Osborn (1922 – 2008)

Past Secretary, Creative Education Foundation, Inc.

Past Board Chairs / Presidents

Duane wilson.

Chief Operating Officer, Boys and Girls Clubs of St. Joseph’s County

2017 – 2020

Thom Gonyeau

Principal, Mountain View Group

2014 – 2016

Katherine O. Heusner, Ph.D.

2010 – 2014

David Magellan Horth

Senior Designer, Center for Creative Leadership

2004 – 2010

Hedria Lunken

Author, Speaker and Founder of Hedria Consulting

2004 – 2007

John Osborn

2001 – 2004

1997 – 2001

Lyman Randall (1933 – 2009)

1994 – 1997

Dorie A. Shallcross

Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts

Raymond A. Binis

1984 – 1988

Sidney J. Parnes

Co-founder of the International Center for Studies in Creativity

1967 – 1984

Lee Bristol

Former Head of Manufacturing and Advertising, Bristol-Meyers Company

1964 – 1967

Alex F. Osborn (1888 – 1966)

Founder, Creative Education Foundation

1955 – 1964

Trustees Emeriti

Robert f. berner.

Professor Emeritus, University at Buffalo

Louis Gersten (1922 – 2010)

Retired President, Utilo Corporation and Board Member, National Stroke Association

Beatrice Parnes

Doris j. shallcross.

Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts

Paul Torrance, Ph.D. (1915 – 2003)

• Advertising
• Subscriber Area

REVEALED: The 87 trusts told to justify CEO pay

Jess Staufenberg

27 Mar 2018, 18:08

More from this author

The 87 academy trusts whose chief executive pay has been challenged by the government can be named for the first time.

Schools Week can exclusively reveal the trusts which received a letter from the Education and Skills Funding Agency demanding they justify CEOs salaries of more than £150,000.

The letter from Eileen Milner, the head of the ESFA, landed in the postboxes of some of the most well-known and least-known trusts in the country.

The pressure from government follows extensive media coverage of soaring CEO pay as teaching staff’s pay rises remain frozen at one per cent. A Schools Week investigation last week revealed that two-thirds of CEOs of 24 trusts with 20 or more schools trusts got pay rises last year . Together the trusts handed out £118,000 more than in 2015-16 – from £3.9 to £4 million – to their leaders.

The named trusts are those which the ESFA has identified as paying more than £150,000 to their CEOs this year. Of the top 10 biggest trusts in the country, eight make it onto the list.

These are Academies Enterprise Trust, ARK Schools, United Learning, Delta Academies, Harris Federation, The Kemnal Academies Trust, Oasis Community Learning, and Ormiston Academies Trust.

The only two of the biggest trusts not to be sent a letter by Milner were Plymouth Cast and David Ross Education Trust.

Schools Week has recently revealed that former CEO John Mannix’s salary at Plymouth Cast was £55,000 in 2016-17, and interim CEO Dr Karen Cook’s is presumably lower than £150,000 this year too.

And Rowena Hackwood, new CEO at the David Ross Education trust, got a nearly £30,000 pay cut compared with her predecessor Wendy Marshall and was paid exactly £150,000 this year.

The full list, provided by the Department for Education:

Academies Enterprise Trust AIM Academies Trust Aquinas Church of England Education Trust Limited ARK Schools Ashmole Academy Trust Ltd Aspirations Academies Trust Aston Community Education Trust Bourne Education Trust Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust Brampton Manor Trust Central Learning Partnership Trust Chingford Academies Trust City Learning Trust City of London Academies Trust Community Academies Trust Core Education Trust Creative Education Trust Delta Academies Trust Dixons Academies Charitable Trust Ltd E-ACT Education South West Enfield Learning Trust Eynsham Partnership Academy Future Academies Gateway Learning Community GLF Schools Graveney Trust Great Academies Education Trust Greater Manchester Academies Trust Greenwood Academies Trust Guru Nanak Sikh Academy Limited Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation Trust Harris Federation Hartismere Family of Schools Hatton Academies Trust Holy Family Catholic Multi Academy Trust Inspiration Trust Inspirational Learning Academies Trust Kent Catholic Schools’ Partnership L.E.A.D. Multi-academy Trust Landau Forte Charitable Trust Leigh Academies Trust Lion Academy Trust Loxford School Trust Limited Matrix Academy Trust North East Learning Trust Northern Schools Trust Nova Education Trust Oasis Community Learning Ormiston Academies Trust Outwood Grange Academies Trust Partnership Learning QED Academy Trust REACH2 Academy Trust RMET South Farnham Educational Trust Southmoor Academy Swale Academies Trust Tauheedul Education Trust The Boston Witham Academies Federation The Brooke Weston Trust The Cardinal Hume Academies Trust The Collegiate Trust The Dean Trust The Education Alliance The Education Fellowship Trust The Elliot Foundation Academies Trust The GORSE Academies Trust The Heath Family (North West) The Hoddesdon School Trust The Howard Partnership Trust The Kemnal Academies Trust The Laurus Trust The Park Federation Academy Trust The Rodillian Multi Academy Trust The Rosedale Hewens Academy Trust The Sabden Multi Academy Trust The Slough and East Berkshire C of E Multi Academy Trust The Spencer Academies Trust The Two Counties Trust The White Horse Federation Tollbar Multi Academy Trust Trinity Multi Academy Trust United Learning Trust Washwood Heath Multi Academy Trust Wellspring Academy Trust Wembley Multi Academy Trust

Continue the conversation, share this article on social media

Your thoughts, leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

One comment

On March 12 Schools Week published a piece about how Transforming Lives Education Trust (a multi-academy trust) paid their CEO a salary of between £270,001 and £280,000 in 2016/17. However Transforming Lives Education Trust doesn’t appear on this list. I can only hope DfE’s analysis of CEO pay is rather more rigorous than Schools Week’s ‘investigation’. Also what about the academy trusts with just one school that have staff earning more than £150,000 a year, who were written to at the end of 2017 – has a list of those trusts been published?

Become a subscriber and stay up to date with the latest breaking news and industry discussion.

• Bahasa Indonesia
• Slovenščina
• Science & Tech
• Russian Kitchen

Le Corbusier’s triumphant return to Moscow

The exhibition of French prominent architect Le Corbusier, held in The Pushkin Museum, brings together the different facets of his talent. Source: ITAR-TASS / Stanislav Krasilnikov

The largest Le Corbusier exhibition in a quarter of a century celebrates the modernist architect’s life and his connection with the city.

Given his affinity with Moscow, it is perhaps surprising that the city had never hosted a major examination of Le Corbusier’s work until now. However, the Pushkin Museum and the Le Corbusier Fund have redressed that discrepancy with the comprehensive exhibition “Secrets of Creation: Between Art and Architecture,” which runs until November 18.

Presenting over 400 exhibits, the exhibition charts Le Corbusier’s development from the young man eagerly sketching buildings on a trip around Europe, to his later years as a prolific and influential architect.

The exhibition brings together the different facets of his talent, showing his publications, artwork and furniture design alongside photographs, models and blueprints of his buildings.

Russian art reveals a new brave world beyond the Black Square

Art-Moscow fair targets younger art collectors

In pictures: 20th century in photographs: 1918-1940

Irina Antonova, director of the Pushkin Museum, said, “It was important for us to also exhibit his art. People know Le Corbusier the architect, but what is less well know is that he was also an artist. Seeing his art and architecture together gives us an insight into his mind and his thought-processes.”

What becomes obvious to visitors of the exhibition is that Le Corbusier was a man driven by a single-minded vision of how form and lines should interact, a vision he was able to express across multiple genres.

The upper wings of the Pushkin Museum are separated by the central stairs and two long balconies. The organizers have exploited this space, allowing comparison of Le Corbusier’s different art forms. On one side there are large paintings in the Purist style he adapted from Cubism, while on the other wall there are panoramic photographs of his famous buildings.

Le Corbusier was a theorist, producing many pamphlets and manifestos which outlined his view that rigorous urban planning could make society more productive and raise the average standard of living.

It was his affinity with constructivism, and its accompanying vision of the way architecture could shape society, which drew him to visit the Soviet Union, where, as he saw it, there existed a “nation that is being organized in accordance with its new spirit.”

The exhibition’s curator Jean-Louis Cohen explains that Le Corbusier saw Moscow as “somewhere he could experiment.” Indeed, when the architect was commissioned to construct the famous Tsentrosoyuz Building, he responded by producing a plan for the entire city, based on his concept of geometric symmetry.

Falling foul of the political climate

He had misread the Soviet appetite for experimentation, and as Cohen relates in his book Le Corbusier, 1887-1965, drew stinging attacks from the likes of El Lissitsky, who called his design “a city on paper, extraneous to living nature, located in a desert through which not even a river must be allowed to pass (since a curve would contradict the style).”

Not to be deterred, Le Corbusier returned to Moscow in 1932 and entered the famous Palace of the Soviets competition, a skyscraper that was planned to be the tallest building in the world.

This time he fell foul of the changing political climate, as Stalin’s growing suspicion of the avant-garde led to the endorsement of neo-classical designs for the construction, which was ultimately never built due to the Second World War.

Situated opposite the proposed site for the Palace of the Soviets, the exhibition offers a tantalizing vision of what might have been, presenting scale models alongside Le Corbusier’s plans, and generating the feeling of an un-built masterpiece.

Despite Le Corbusier’s fluctuating fortunes in Soviet society, there was one architect who never wavered in his support . Constructivist luminary Alexander Vesnin declared that the Tsentrosoyuz building was the "the best building to arise in Moscow for over a century.”

The exhibition sheds light on their professional and personal relationship, showing sketches and letters they exchanged. In a radical break from the abstract nature of most of Le Corbusier’s art, this corner of the exhibition highlights the sometimes volatile architect’s softer side, as shown through nude sketches and classical still-life paintings he sent to Vesnin.

“He was a complex person” says Cohen. “It’s important to show his difficult elements; his connections with the USSR, with Mussolini. Now that relations between Russia and the West have improved, we can examine this. At the moment there is a new season in Le Corbusier interpretation.” To this end, the exhibition includes articles that have never previously been published in Russia, as well as Le Corbusier’s own literature.

Completing Le Corbusier’s triumphant return to Russia is a preview of a forthcoming statue, to be erected outside the Tsentrosoyuz building. Even if she couldn’t quite accept his vision of a planned city, Moscow is certainly welcoming him back.

All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

to our newsletter!

Get the week's best stories straight to your inbox

This website uses cookies. Click here to find out more.

Advertisement

Supported by

Companies Linked to Russian Ransomware Hide in Plain Sight

Cybersecurity experts tracing money paid by American businesses to Russian ransomware gangs found it led to one of Moscow’s most prestigious addresses.

• Share full article

By Andrew E. Kramer

MOSCOW — When cybersleuths traced the millions of dollars American companies, hospitals and city governments have paid to online extortionists in ransom money, they made a telling discovery: At least some of it passed through one of the most prestigious business addresses in Moscow.

The Biden administration has also zeroed in on the building, Federation Tower East, the tallest skyscraper in the Russian capital. The United States has targeted several companies in the tower as it seeks to penalize Russian ransomware gangs, which encrypt their victims’ digital data and then demand payments to unscramble it.

Those payments are typically made in cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies like Bitcoin, which the gangs then need to convert to standard currencies, like dollars, euros and rubles.

That this high-rise in Moscow’s financial district has emerged as an apparent hub of such money laundering has convinced many security experts that the Russian authorities tolerate ransomware operators. The targets are almost exclusively outside Russia, they point out, and in at least one case documented in a U.S. sanctions announcement, the suspect was assisting a Russian espionage agency.

“It says a lot,” said Dmitry Smilyanets, a threat intelligence expert with the Massachusetts-based cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. “Russian law enforcement usually has an answer: ‘There is no case open in Russian jurisdiction. There are no victims. How do you expect us to prosecute these honorable people?’”

Recorded Future has counted about 50 cryptocurrency exchanges in Moscow City, a financial district in the capital, that in its assessment are engaged in illicit activity. Other exchanges in the district are not suspected of accepting cryptocurrencies linked to crime.

Cybercrime is just one of many issues fueling tensions between Russia and the United States, along with the Russian military buildup near Ukraine and a recent migrant crisis on the Belarus-Polish border.

The Treasury Department has estimated that Americans have paid $1.6 billion in ransoms since 2011. One Russian ransomware strain, Ryuk, made an estimated $162 million last year encrypting the computer systems of American hospitals during the pandemic and demanding fees to release the data, according to Chainalysis, a company tracking cryptocurrency transactions.

The hospital attacks cast a spotlight on the rapidly expanding criminal industry of ransomware, which is based primarily in Russia. Criminal syndicates have become more efficient, and brazen, in what has become a conveyor-belt-like process of hacking, encrypting and then negotiating for ransom in cryptocurrencies, which can be owned anonymously.

At a summit meeting in June, President Biden pressed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to crack down on ransomware after a Russian gang, DarkSide, attacked a major gasoline pipeline on the East Coast, Colonial Pipeline , disrupting supplies and creating lines at gas stations.

American officials point to people like Maksim Yakubets, a skinny 34-year-old with a pompadour haircut whom the United States has identified as a kingpin of a major cybercrime operation calling itself Evil Corp. Cybersecurity analysts have linked his group to a series of ransomware attacks, including one last year targeting the National Rifle Association. A U.S. sanctions announcement accused Mr. Yakubets of also assisting Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main successor to the K.G.B.

But after the State Department announced a $5 million bounty for information leading to his arrest, Mr. Yakubets seemed only to flaunt his impunity in Russia: He was photographed driving in Moscow in a Lamborghini partially painted fluorescent yellow.

The cluster of suspected cryptocurrency exchanges in Federation Tower East, first reported last month by Bloomberg News, further illustrates how the Russian ransomware industry hides in plain sight.

The 97-floor, glass-and-steel high-rise resting on a bend in the Moscow River stands within sight of several government ministries in the financial district, including the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Signals and Mass Communications .

Two of the Biden administration’s most forceful actions to date targeting ransomware are linked to the tower. In September, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a cryptocurrency exchange called Suex, which has offices on the 31st floor. It accused the company of laundering $160 million in illicit funds.

In an interview at the time, a founder of Suex, Vasily Zhabykin, denied any illegal activity.

And last month, Russian news media outlets reported that Dutch police, using a U.S. extradition warrant, had detained the owner, Denis Dubnikov, of another firm called EggChange, with an office on the 22nd floor. In a statement issued by one of his companies, Mr. Dubnikov denied any wrongdoing.

Ransomware is attractive to criminals, cybersecurity experts say, because the attacks take place mostly anonymously and online, minimizing the chances of getting caught. It has mushroomed into a sprawling, highly compartmentalized industry in Russia known to cybersecurity researchers as “ransomware as a service.”

The organizational structure mimics franchises, like McDonald’s or Hertz, that lower barriers to entry, allowing less sophisticated hackers to use established business practices to get into the business. Several high-level gangs develop software and promote fearsome-sounding brands, such as DarkSide or Maze, to intimidate businesses and other organizations that are targets. Other groups that are only loosely related hack into computer systems using the brand and franchised software.

The industry’s growth has been abetted by the rise of cryptocurrencies. That has made old-school money mules, who sometimes had to smuggle cash across borders, practically obsolete.

Laundering the cryptocurrency through exchanges is the final step, and also the most vulnerable, because criminals must exit the anonymous online world to appear at a physical location, where they trade Bitcoin for cash or deposit it in a bank.

The exchange offices are “the end of the Bitcoin and ransomware rainbow,” said Gurvais Grigg, a former F.B.I. agent who is a researcher with Chainalysis, the cryptocurrency tracking company.

The computer codes in virtual currencies allow transactions to be tracked from one user to another, even if the owners’ identities are anonymous, until the cryptocurrency reaches an exchange. There, in theory, records should link the cryptocurrency with a real person or company.

“They are really one of the key points in the whole ransomware strain,” Mr. Grigg said of the exchange offices. Ransomware gangs, he said, “want to make money. And until you cash it out, and you get it through an exchange at a cash-out point, you cannot spend it.”

It is at this point, cybersecurity experts say, that criminals should be identified and apprehended. But the Russian government has allowed the exchanges to flourish, saying that it only investigates cybercrime if Russian laws are violated. Regulations are a gray area in Russia, as elsewhere, in the nascent industry of cryptocurrency trading.

Russian cryptocurrency traders say the United States is imposing an unfair burden of due diligence on their companies, given the quickly evolving nature of regulations.

“The people who are real criminals, who create ransomware, and the people working in Moscow City are completely different people,” Sergei Mendeleyev, a founder of one trader based in Federation Tower East, Garantex, said in an interview. The Russian crypto exchanges, he said, were blamed for crimes they are unaware of.

Mr. Mendeleyev, who no longer works at the company, said American cryptocurrency tracking services provide data to non-Russian exchanges to help them avoid illicit transactions but have refused to work with Russian traders — in part because they suspect the traders might use the information to tip off criminals. That complicates the Russian companies’ efforts to root out illegal activity.

He conceded that not all Russian exchanges tried very hard. Some based in Moscow’s financial district were little more than an office, a safe full of cash and a computer, he said.

At least 15 cryptocurrency exchanges are based in Federation Tower East, according to a list of businesses in the building compiled by Yandex, a Russian mapping service.

In addition to Suex and EggChange, the companies targeted by the Biden administration, cyberresearchers and an international cryptocurrency exchange company have flagged two other building tenants that they suspect of illegal activity involving Bitcoin.

The building manager, Aeon Corp., did not respond to inquiries about the exchanges in its offices.

Like the banks and insurance companies they share space with, those firms are likely to have chosen the site for its status and its stringent building security, said Mr. Smilyanets, the researcher at Recorded Future.

“The Moscow City skyscrapers are very fancy,” he said. “They can post on Instagram with these beautiful sights, beautiful skyscrapers. It boosts their legitimacy.”

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the year in which Colonial Pipeline was hacked. It was 2021, not 2020.

How we handle corrections

Andrew E. Kramer is a reporter based in the Moscow bureau. He was part of a team that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for a series on Russia’s covert projection of power. More about Andrew E. Kramer

Inside the World of Cryptocurrencies

Two years after the cryptocurrency market crashed, there are signs that crypto is booming again in the Philippines, long a center of crypto activity .

Pushed by a nonprofit with ties to the Trump administration, Arkansas became the first state to shield noisy cryptocurrency operators from unhappy neighbors. A furious backlash has some lawmakers considering a statewide ban .

Ben Armstrong, better known as BitBoy, was once the most popular cryptocurrency YouTuber in the world. Then his empire collapsed .

Federal judges are weighing whether digital currencies should be subject to the same rules as stocks and bonds. The outcome could shape crypto’s future in the United States .

New investment funds that hold Bitcoin have begun trading , and it might be tempting to invest in them. Should you ?

Since the FTX cryptocurrency exchange collapsed in 2023, a whole new market has emerged that hopes to profit from claims in the company’s bankruptcy .