Mike Stevenson, Founder of Thinktastic, brings a virtually unique skill-set to market: inspirational speaking, persuasive writing, people engagement, strategic thinking, and abundant creativity. He describes Thinktastic as an opportunity to use a lifetime’s learning to inspire organisations across the UK, to change the way they think and work for the better. As a master of reinvention himself, few are better equipped to do so.
If Mike’s own life was a film script, it would be dismissed as far-fetched. Born in Edinburgh to a Scots/Irish father and Lebanese mother, Mike spent some of his early years in Pakistan and was in Egypt in the weeks leading up to the Suez crisis. After being kicked out of school at the age of 15 with no qualifications, he embarked on a downward journey that led to homelessness, depression, drug addiction and the brink of suicide before turning his life around and founding a multi-million pound business. On his way he carried bricks, fitted carpets, sold linoleum, furniture and suits, corked French wine, and worked shifts in a steel works and biscuit factory. He played guitar and performed on stage and in films – and all before he entered the world of marketing.
Now he is one of the UK’s most sought after speakers and creative thinkers, drawing on 30 years of top-level marketing experience with clients as diverse as M&S, Standard Life, BSkyB, University of Leeds, NHS and the Scottish Government.
He has the rare ability to cut through complexity and see opportunities for the taking. As a speaker, he lifts and refocuses his audiences to think and act differently. He describes himself as a positive disrupter – ready to challenge that which doesn’t work and find new and better ways to do business. He now deliberately recruits people that have faced and overcome adversity in their own lives. ‘That, he says, ‘gives us our distinction and edge’
Nowadays, he is at his most persuasive and inspiring when talking about creative leadership, customer centricity and disruptive innovation – few are better at shifting people from a ‘way we do things’ to ‘let’s do it’ mindset and his record of transforming organisational fortunes is exceptional.
