ABOUT US
CPSB is a professional services firm within the field of creativity and innovation. We are committed to helping our clients meet their innovation challenges. We combine our practical experience with cutting edge research to ensure that our services yield the desired results. Our core team serves our associates and clients in providing programs, workshops, courses, and consulting. Our network of associates provides a diverse group of talents, skills, and experiences – while sharing a common commitment and framework for practice. Our Creativity Research Unit includes a network of seasoned scholars and researchers to guide our research and development work.
CPSB has been in business for over 40 years. We are based in Buffalo, New York, which has been the crucible for the deliberate development of creativity since the 1950’s. It was the home of Alex Osborn, who developed Brainstorming and founded the Creative Education Foundation. Buffalo is also home to the first formal academic program on creativity and has often hosted the annual Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI). What better place to have a CPS-based business?
Scott Isaksen
Founder
USA
Marves Isaksen
VP of Finance & Admin
USA
Dr. Scott Isaksen is the founder of the Creative Problem Solving Group in Buffalo, New York, and a Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at the BI Norwegian Business School. A former professor and director of the International Center for Studies in Creativity within the State University of New York, he has published over 200 books, articles, and chapters in books. He has provided consultation and training on leadership and creativity for over 450 organizations in 35 different countries around the world. Scott is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Consulting Psychologists, the Academy of Management, and the Product Development Management Association. Scott has served as a consulting editor for the Journal of Creative Behavior since 1983, and is a visiting professor to various Universities and on the faculty for GE’s Leadership for Customers Programs.
Working with a number of colleagues, Scott has developed the Situational Outlook Questionnaire (SOQ) – a measure of the work environment for creativity and innovation, and VIEW: An Assessment of Problem Solving Style.
Marves is responsible for the financial administration of CPSB. In this role Marves prepares invoices, manages payroll, orders materials, works with CPSB’s accountant and attorney and communicates with clients.
Prior to working at CPSB, Marves was employed as a teacher at Starpoint Central High School. She also worked as an office assistant at Cushing Capital Corporation, a financial planning office.
Marves earned a Bachelor of Science in Education Degree, cum laude, from Buffalo State College.
In her free-time she enjoys spending time with family (especially her two grandchildren), watching Buffalo Bills Football, traveling and taking part in church activities.
OUR NETWORK
Luc De Schryver
Belgium
Luc De Schryver is the founder of O2C2 CONSULTING in Brussels, Belgium. And has years of experience as an international consultant. He brought the "systemic approach" to Europe and successfully applies this method here. This specific approach to stimulate and implement creativity and innovation in companies results in unique results for both profit and non-profit organizations.
Luc De Schryver started his "Creative Leadership trajectory" in 1991 at The University of Buffalo where he obtained the Master of Creativity and Innovation a year later. He has since collaborated with CPSB, to translate assessments, materials, and make cultural adjustments to the approach. Luc De Schryver is a certified ICP trainer, and is also accredited to train professionals to become certified VIEW and SOQ users.
Luc has broad experience as an international consultant. He has been applying a system approach for more than 25 years to give creativity and innovation a permanent place within organizations and teams. He specializes in applying the CPS methodology as scientifically researched and developed during the last fifty years.
Luc’s research interests focus on the success factors that lead organizations and teams to profitable, creative and innovative results.
Brian Dorval
USA
Brian Dorval is a founding partner of Think First Serve, a research, consulting and training company specializing in the use of creative-thinking, problem-solving and performance-improvement methods to help organizations figure out new ways to grow. Brian has more than 30 years’ experience helping people, teams, and organizations significantly improve their personal performance and business results. He has delivered over 750 innovation programs, training courses, and management-coaching and performance-improvement sessions for companies in 21 countries. Most recently, funded in part by the US Coast Guard non-profit grant program, Brian designed and facilitated the National On-Water Standards (NOWS) Program that produced national consensus on four American National Standards for recreational boating instruction that takes on the water for entry-level skills development.
As past vice president of client services for the Creative Problem Solving Group, Inc., Brian worked with many Fortune 500 and Times 1000 organizations to enhance performance in innovation. He is one of the co-developers of Creative Problem Solving (CPS) version 6.1™, publishing more than 70 articles, chapters and books on the topics of creativity, mental imagery and problem solving. In other performance areas, Brian is a United States Professional Tennis Professional (USPTA) certified tennis professional, who specializes in the mental game. He has worked with regionally and nationally ranked junior tennis players, as well as adults of all levels, to improve mental toughness and enhance performance in pressure situations.
Kevin Feng
China
Kevin Feng is the co-founder of China CLO100, a learning and co-creation platform for learning leaders in China. Kevin has had two decades of work experience in leadership development for mid-to-top leaders, organizational development, culture, and talent development. He was the Chinese Director for GE’s Crotonville Development Center. Kevin also worked for SOE, Philips, 3M, and GE.
He started his career as a sales and marketing professional and later chose HR as his life-long career. His most recent role was as senior HR leader for a Chinese company of 100 Billion Revenue. He is also an expert for China Action Learning Center, and has lectured at Antai Business School and Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Kevin is a CPSB certified trainer/facilitator since 2014 and collaborates with CPSB for work in China and Asia.
David Geuens
Belgium
David Geuens began his career as an innovation consultant in the US where he came across the CPS v6.1™ method to help guide the change process within organizations. Once back in Belgium he used this method extensively in his careers in advertising, marketing and digital. The real power of the framework lays in the fact that on the one hand the expertise of the people within the organization is leveraged but it also addresses all aspects needed to do an impactful transition.
This becomes even more relevant when dealing with digital transformation because when dealing with change, the journey is as important as the destination. The result of this process are ideas that are translated in concrete solutions in line with the business and the user.
As a Co-Founder of ACOMPANY, David is helping organizations to embed Digital and making it Stick by focusing on three types of services: THINK, STEER and LAND. This way there can be true impact for the organization.
Paul Saunders
United Kingdom
Paul Saunders is the founder of one-step-beyond consulting and has over 25 years' experience working with a wide range of global organizations around the world, enabling leaders and their teams to identify, understand and leverage the potential of cultural differences to drive innovation, change, growth and high performance. He has lived in six different countries and works in many more as a cross-cultural consultant, facilitator, trainer and coach. This gives him current and relevant first-hand experience inside large, global organizations of the challenges of working cross-culturally in a virtual, matrixed and ever-accelerating world – it also gives him the opportunity to get on and off a lot of planes.
Paul works at all levels within organizations, using his broad set of skills to work with clients to develop strategies, frameworks and tools which will enable cross-cultural issues to be tackled and resolved both quickly and pragmatically. His particular focus is on enabling global leaders to drive innovation, collaboration and growth in their global teams and businesses, for which he uses two proprietary diagnostic tools with great success. Renowned for his dynamic, interactive and thought-provoking style, Paul has the ability to engage people in challenging their perceptions and behaviors when working cross-culturally and to develop them into more effective global performers.
Paul believes strongly in taking an experiential approach to the challenges of working across cultures and his approach is very much hands-on, dynamic and engaging with powerful debriefs and learning actions designed to make a real and positive difference. He has a first degree in French and German, an MBA and is an active member of SIETAR (Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research). He is currently researching the challenges of virtual collaboration in driving creativity and innovation in multicultural teams and is also much in demand as an energizing and entertaining speaker at global meetings and corporate events.
Bill Shephard
USA
William Shephard is the Vice President of Group Services at CPSB, Inc. Bill is responsible for developing and maintaining high quality relationships with CPSB affiliates and associates including managing the qualification and licensing programs we offer.
Professionally in the field of organizational creativity and innovation since 1980, he is an experienced trainer, facilitator and presenter in the areas of creative problem solving, innovation and facilitation. Bill has extensive experience designing and conducting training events with a wide variety of organizations and multi-cultural settings. Of particular interest and expertise is the training and coaching facilitators in the concepts and skills needed to make CPS a successful creativity and change management process.
Prior to joining CPSB, he was the Chief Program Officer for the Creative Education Foundation. For 18 years he served as the Director of the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI), overseeing the development and activities of an international training cadre of over 250 creativity and innovation professionals.
Samantha (Sam) Stead
USA
Samantha Stead is a founding partner of Think First Serve Inc., which specializes in the use of creative-thinking, problem-solving and performance improvement methods to help organizations figure out new ways to grow. Samantha has more than 30 years of experience in helping teams and organizations deliver significant business results. As a past vice president of consumer insight and product development in an international direct marketing business, she specializes in strategic planning, developing and delivering new products and services, and in non-traditional market research. She has particular expertise in the design and implementation of in-depth consumer insight programs that uncover the motivations and drivers of behavior, and in helping organizations integrate that understanding within their work to create measurable impact. Samantha is qualified as a trainer and facilitator of Creative Problem Solving as well as VIEW™ and SOQ™. She holds BA and MA Honors degrees in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford, England, where she was also awarded the Scobell Scholarship for academic achievement.
Kate Stuart-Cox
United Kingdom
Kate is a founding partner of Perspectiv and has served clients in engineering, utilities, food and drink, care services, tourism, sports, luxury goods, and information technology across many parts of the world with a focus on teamship that sets the stage for collaboration and change.
Kate’s client experience includes supporting a multi-cultural international marketing company in becoming extraordinarily resilient and efficient in the face of constant competition, using Perspectiv’s 4Ps and Teamship approaches. Working across some of the most varying cultures in the world, Kate has drawn the organisation into an amazing example of what can be achieved when people lead and collaborate well together. She also designed and implemented a transformation program for a UK based global engineering consultancy.
Kate takes a systemic approach to the development of leadership and teamship capabilities and is constantly researching and refining what it takes for leaders, and for teams, to effectively problem solve and work effectively together. As a Visiting Lecturer at the Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice at Cass Business school in London, Kate often helps at the Centre and on the world-renowned Masters in Innovation Creativity and Leadership.
She speaks at conferences and meetings and has written and presented articles and book chapters on teamship, collaboration, and change.
Andy Wilkins
United Kingdom
Andy is a founding partner of Perspectiv from 1997 and has served clients in engineering, utilities, food and drink, care services, tourism, sports, luxury goods, and information technology across the world with a focus on leadership that sets the stage for innovation and change. The kernel of his work is based on developing business whilst developing people.
Andy’s client experience includes:
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supporting a program for figuring out what it will take to win in an elite sports development organisation, by helping people think of themselves more as “problem solving coaches”
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helping to shape and develop a 14 year transformation program for a major utility, targeted at growing future leaders through the provision of problem solving tools and facilitative leadership practices that release the collective genius of others whilst serving their whole career.
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enabling several mergers & acquisitions to greatly exceed expectations.
Also, as the non-executive Chairman of Ladder to the Moon, he works to apply his expertise into the care sector. And as a Senior Honorary Visiting Fellow at Cass business school in London and member of the Advisory Board at the Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice at Cass, Andy helped establish the Centre and teaches on 3 of the modules of the world-renowned Masters in Innovation Creativity and Leadership.
He regularly speaks at conferences and meetings and has written and presented more than 20 articles and book chapters on innovation, creative problem solving, change and leadership.
YUJUN (VICKY) ZHOU
China
Yujun Zhou (Vicky Zhou) is the founder of Cloud Ladder Innovation Consulting China, initiator of Ladder Innovation System Building, inventor of Fine-Food innovative thinking, and serves as a Lecturer in Innovation Strategy at Tsinghua University in China. Vicky holds a professional certificate for Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Stanford University Business School, a Master’s Degree in Design from Tianjin Polytechnic University, and is a Qualified user of the VIEW assessment.
Vicky won the Outstanding Entrepreneurship Women Award in China (2004) and has been interviewed by dozens of mainstream media within China including: CCTV, Fashion Yi, Hong, and Entrepreneurship Women. She has been invited to be the dean of the Innovation Institute of Allpku Consulting, and has published books on Methodology of Team’s Sustainable Innovation by Mechanical Industry Press (2016), and Innovation Strategy and Fine-Food Thinking in the Journal of Enterprise Management (2017).
She had worked with over 100 companies in innovation consulting or creative thinking training workshop including: Fotile Group, Baidu, Tencent, John Deer in China, Star-River Biology, Easy-to-Raise, China Nuclear Industry Construction, China Arms, China HuaDian, Fast Company in China, China CABR Technology, Jining Mining Industry, Everbright International, HC360, Blue Focus, Aimer Lingerie etc. Her personal interests include skiing and writing poems, having published her own book Collection of YunChuang Poems.