Johanna Kouzmine-Karavaieff

Johanna Kouzmine-Karavaieff(Suo) is a consultant, researcher and cultural strategist with twenty years of experience from Culture and Creative Sectors. She is the managing director of ifa laboratory, focusing on cultural strategy, culture in the context of international relations and cooperation, transfer of skills & perspectives from creative sectors to business & industry, creative economy development and innovation. As Marshall Memorial Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States she focused on culture and youth as economic drivers and in cultural diplomacy. In 2020 she wrote a master thesis called "Cultural Diplomacy - an exercise for the tightrope artist - Politically motivated image building, cultural capacity building, or creating a better world?". Since autumn 2019 she has contributed to the European Commission, DG Grow as expert on how creative industries can help other industry and sectors innovate. She has also recently contributed as expert on innovation of the culture and creative sectors for the Basque government. In 2020 Johanna co-founded Artisans of Innovation (AOI), where she is Principal Consultant in Culture and Creative, specializing on cross-sector eco-system development and cross-sector collaboration. Within this context she also conducts commercial research on artists and their role in corporate innovation. Johanna also co-developed a model for the strategic placement of creative professionals in company boards to stimulate diversified thinking and human-driven innovation. She created corporate and education programmes for the private art collection Galila's Passion Obsession Collection in Brussels. Johanna also coordinates activities for the Cultural Relations Platform supporting the European Union to engage in international cultural relations. This year she writes a series of articles for Diplomatic World Magazine on the theme "Can the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development innovate cultural diplomacy?". Other recent articles include 'The Role & Value of Culture & Creative Industries During the Covid-19 Pandemic' and 'The Art of Positioning Culture on the International Arena for Competitive and Cooperative Advantage'.