Hello! I’m Joanna Pieters
I’ve spent over two decades in the creative industries, bringing in tens of millions of pounds and helping extraordinarily talented creatives to do their best work.
How? By understanding the remarkable, powerful, misunderstood ways creative brains work.
Some things about me:
I’ve been a writer, editor and publisher and on the board of some of the UK’s largest media companies. After studying literature, music and publishing, I was appointed editor of a highly successful international classical music magazine at just 26. Later, as an MBA, I spent my corporate career building extraordinary creative teams by focusing on releasing creative brilliance, and building a fan base of loyal, excited readers.
I’ve helped writers, musicians, photographers, artists and craftspeople to get massive audiences for their work – in print, in exhibitions, concerts and events, from organising one of the UK’s largest travel photography competitions to working with solo musicians to get high-profile reviews.
I’ve spoken at events and led training around the world for creative industries and the performing arts – from the prestigious Hannover Violin Competition to Britain’s School for Creative Start-ups. As a mentor with the Cherie Blair Foundation for women, I’ve worked with innovative creative companies around the world, helping them identify and take the action that will skyrocket their work.
I’ve interviewed hundreds of professional creatives about their work and challenges, including my world-changing guests on my must-listen podcast The Creative Life Show.
I’m a creative. I write, I make music, I podcast, I spend as much time as possible with art, film, theatre, music, photography and design. I’ve played violin in most of London’s major concert halls, and on TV. But I’m not your competitor. My work is using my massive experience to make creative thinkers, dreamers and leaders like you hugely successful.
I’m a qualified coach, an MBA and a strategy nut. I’ve been a board member, an industry judge, a senior leader in a heavy-duty commercial creative world. But those are just tools. Those skills, that experience, help me do my real work of creating, supporting, thinking and transforming the life of highly creative people.
IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE OUTSIDE RESULTS
A great strategy is essential. Clarity and purpose underpin all great creative action.
But those things only happen when you use your creative mind in its fullest, most powerful way.
That’s what I help people do. Creatives, artists, musicians, photographers, designers, leaders, world-changers, all with remarkable minds that need to be nurtured and supported in a very particular way.
I can do that because I UNDERSTAND exactly how creative minds are different, and what creative people need in order to be fulfilled, inspired and producing great work.
I WANT YOU TO SUCCEED
I understand what it means to be a highly creative person, an Inner Original. How it means you create, improve, change things, all the time. How it means you see possibilities and opportunities.
But I also understand how that extraordinary brain can get overwhelmed by the need to turn the right things into action. (Even if you’re good at doing, are you truly, honestly, doing the right things to turn your most private dreams into public success? Because I know that the steps between the idea and the result are fraught.
I know the secret voices in your head that doubt you. The gatekeepers in your brain between your ideas and the outside world, the ones that create fear and confusion, and tell you to give up, play it safe, be small. I help you talk to those voices. Whisper to them. Sneak round them to make things happen, do things that will astonish and delight them (but you won’t be surprised, because you know you have that in you).
I help you turn your extraordinary inner dreams and ideas into real-world action, in the way that works for your unique creative brain.