Description

Susan Mackie is a leader in the areas of innovation, creativity, design-thinking, and applied neuro and cognitive sciences. Susan is currently CEO Be – Better People and Collaborator with Prof Carol Dweck on Growth Mindset Development. Susan’s focus as CEO of Be Learning is strategy, thought leadership and innovation through a R&D project. Susan’s professional work started in the area of cognitive thinking working with children across all ages and needs. This led to extensive work in the education sector, which then crossed over into the not-for-profit and business sectors. As a result, she has developed a variety of business and community networks. Susan has worked with employers and employees at all levels, from senior executives to illiterate workers. A large part of this work is designing ‘interventions’ that assist an organisation to become more productive and innovative.

Through the work of the Elevo Institute (formally the de Bono Institute), Susan has refined her knowledge and expertise in two areas:

  1. growing creativity skills and innovation strategy to assist Australia in growing its knowledge economy for a sustainable future, and
  2. developing the ‘learnable intelligence’ of Australia’s young people as creative thinkers, designers and thought leaders for the future. Susan is working in close partnership with Prof Carol Dweck on building a Growth Mindset programme for organisations and individuals.

Professionally, Susan is passionate about building networks to expand the capabilities of people and organisations, advising businesses on growth strategies and becoming truly innovative and ThinkPlus – a project to grow learnable intelligence for young people. On a personal level, Susan loves supporting locally grown food, Melbourne fashion designers and clothes that are manufactured locally and ethically.

Susan considers herself a Melbournian, proud of her city and would want to live nowhere else.

Specialties: Skill building and coaching in thinking, creativity and innovation. Research in participatory design and co-creation. Master trainer in Six Thinking Hats, Lateral Thinking and Power of Perception tools. Design of innovation programmes and capability for organisations. Facilitation and design of workshops for design thinking, solving wicked problems, and creativity. Development of a thinking metacurriculum to develop the learnable intelligence of young people.