Annie was born and raised in France before studying economics, psycho- and socio-linguistics in Germany. She looks back on three decades of experience in making creativity work for value creation in various contexts. She held diverse leading positions in the creative industry, the area of professional development and as a consultant to startups, including creative director, strategic planner, trend researcher, managing director as well as – her current occupation - Director of digital transformation strategy at the HPI academy.

Since 2013, she works in the eco-system of the Hasso Plattner Institute as a Transformation Strategist, Design Thinking Master Coach and Researcher. She creates tailormade executive development trainings and strategy workshops for global organizations and start-ups. As a member and PI of the largest global design thinking research program, the HPDTRP, she explores the impact of design thinking on transformation processes.

Transformation is one of the big buzzwords of today. That is for a reason. There is clear evidence, that if we do not transform the way we live, work and handle our resources, we will face massive problems.

In the middle of high transformation failure rates and an overall “lost-in-transformation” paralysis, we can observe a positive movement, where people: collaborate, put human needs at the center of their thinking and doing (instead of technology or profitability) and experiment into their way forward into a better tomorrow.

The good message is, that we actually CAN make transformation work. Design Thinking as a transformation strategy and as a trigger of our complete human intelligence has proven its energizing impact in organizations that go through various change processes. But one factor that is neglected and even discriminated against, in its role as an amplifier of successful change, is FUN. My educated guess is, that if we take fun as seriously as the well-known transformation driver, we will be more likely to succeed.