Richard Florida

Dr Richard Florida is the Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and Professor of Business and Creativity at the University of Toronto and NYU; Senior Editor, The Atlantic and author of 'The Rise of the Creative Class', 'Who's Your City?' and 'The Great Reset: how new ways of living and working drive post-crash prosperity'.

The Economist recently said that Richard Florida was “as close to a household name as it is possible for an urban theorist to be in America,” Esquire has included him on its annual list of “The Best and the Brightest,” and Fast Company dubbed him an “intellectual rock star.”

He is author of several influential global best sellers, including the award-winning 'The Rise of the Creative Class', which 800-CEO-Read singled out as “one of the best business books of all time.” His latest book, 'The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited', Florida provides a revision to his international best-seller 'The Rise of the Creative Class' and proposes a dramatic new social compact for our time—one that can turn our emerging Creative Economy into an enduringly Creative Society.

A senior editor for The Atlantic, he writes frequently for major newspapers andappears regularly on CNN and other news broadcasts. TIME magazine recognised his twitter feed as one of the 140 most influential in the world. He is founder of the Creative Class Group, which works closely with cities, nations and companies worldwide.

Florida is Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and also NYU. He has taught at Carnegie Mellon University, and been a visiting professor at Harvard and MIT. He earned his Bachelor's degree from Rutgers College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.