Carla Johnson

Carla Johnson is the world’s leading innovation architect, helping organizations and their teams think bigger, bolder, and more creatively. With a career spanning work with some of the world’s most admired brands — including Amazon, Dell, 3M, Intel, Hilton, LinkedIn, Pfizer, and Citi Bank — Carla has inspired thousands of leaders to embrace applied curiosity and rethink how innovation happens.

Across every industry, leaders are telling Carla the same thing: they need help getting teams to think more strategically instead of simply reacting faster, keeping up with the pace of change without burning people out, and getting more value from AI without losing the creative thinking that drives real growth. That demand is fueling interest in all three of her keynotes — with Applied Curiosity becoming her most requested program.

She is the author of 10 books, including RE:Think Innovation, which provides a proven 5-step framework for turning ideas into breakthrough results. Carla’s journey began in a one-room schoolhouse, where she was often the only girl tackling advanced subjects. She went on to become the only woman in a 250-person physics class and eventually became the 4th woman in 90 years to chair the prestigious ANA B2B group.

As founder of RE:Think Labs, Carla works at the intersection of creativity and business strategy. Her insights have been featured at major conferences across six continents, and she is recognized globally as a thought leader on innovation, creativity, and the evolving role of AI in the creative process.

Whether she’s showing teams how to apply curiosity as a strategic tool, rethink what innovation means, or harness AI as a creative partner, Carla delivers presentations that are bold, practical, and packed with actionable strategies audiences can implement immediately.