The Story of Warren Yu - Lessons From a Systemic Pirate -
Release Date: 12/08/2025
The Story of Jakob Knutzen - Adventure, Creative Energy and Parenthood -
Radio Future Skills Academy
We often meet people through their professional surface. The roles they’ve held. The companies they’ve built. The neat story their CV tells. It’s efficient. It helps us place each other quickly. But it also skips a more interesting question. Who are you when the career story goes quiet? That question sits at the heart of a this conversation Morgan Duta had with Jakob Knutzen. Not as a quote machine or a success case, but as a mirror for something many of us recognize, often uncomfortably. Because Jakob talks very openly about a moment that I’ve seen again and again in leaders,...
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The Story of Warren Yu - Lessons From a Systemic Pirate -
Radio Future Skills Academy
Every now and then you meet someone who comes from a world so far from your own that you expect the conversation to be polite, distant, and maybe a bit abstract. That’s what I thought when Warren Yu joined us for Creative Leaders Unplugged. He carries decades of experience inside one of the most rigid and hierarchical systems imaginable, the U.S. military and government. I come from design, creativity, messy entrepreneurship. Two planets, right? But from the very first minute, something unexpected happened. We didn’t meet as a military officer and a designer. We met as humans. He told...
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The Story of Tod Nilson - Community building and the Woolly Mammoth -
Radio Future Skills Academy
The Real Work of Building Community Talking with Todd Nilson reminded us how misunderstood community building still is. We often treat it like marketing: launch a platform, create some content, hope people show up. But the way Todd talks about community is much closer to psychology, art, and human behavior than to funnels or metrics. What stood out most is his idea of the “woolly mammoth factor.” People don’t gather around your product. They gather around something essential to them, identity, purpose, survival, pride, belonging. If the only thing a company offers is “join our...
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The Story of Dara Douglas - Stories, Humanity, and the Courage to Learn
Radio Future Skills Academy
In this episode of Creative Leaders Unplugged, Morgan Duta and Arne van Oosterom speak with Dara Douglas, who leads the Co-Design Lab at PwC in the UK. Dara describes her work as a kind of corporate therapy, helping senior leaders align, make decisions, and connect beyond their roles. Listening to her, it’s clear this comes from somewhere deeper: growing up as one of nine siblings, learning early how to mediate, listen, and bring people together. What stands out most is her view on stories. Dara reminds us that stories are not just how we communicate, they’re how we connect, learn,...
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The Story of Natalie Nixon - Move, Think, Rest
Radio Future Skills Academy
In this episode, we chat with Creativity Strategist about the connections between dance, creativity, and personal growth. She shares transformative insights from her experiences in ballet, modern dance, and open water swimming, emphasizing the importance of embracing vulnerability and imperfection. We discuss her upcoming book, "," which advocates for a cyclical approach to productivity and the value of daydreaming in fostering innovation. Natalie also explores how organizations can cultivate curiosity and well-being, envisioning workplaces as collaborative ecosystems. This conversation...
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Alwin Put on 'The Hook'
Radio Future Skills Academy
This episode centers around the concept of "the hook," a transformative idea that has the potential to enhance participant engagement and foster meaningful connections during workshops and meetings.
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The Story of Leo Chan - Belonging and Redefining Creativity
Radio Future Skills Academy
The Power of Human Creativity in a Time of AI Reflections from a conversation with Leo Chan In a rich and personal conversation on the Radio Future Skills Academy podcast, Leo Chan joined Arne van Oosterom and Morgan Duta to talk about creativity, imposter syndrome, the importance of psychological safety, and the impact of AI. What unfolded was more than a talk about innovation, it became a shared reflection on what it means to be human, and how creativity is a deeply personal, vulnerable, and social act. Leo spoke openly about growing up feeling like he didn’t belong in the world of...
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Annika Madejska on Facilitating Evil
Radio Future Skills Academy
In this episode of The Naked Facilitator, we talk with Annika Madejska about her provocative workshop “Facilitating Evil.” What happens when we flip the script and explore how technology can be misused with good intentions gone wrong? Anika shares how speculative design, worldbuilding, and playful discomfort can trigger deep ethical reflection—and why sometimes, pretending to be “evil” for a day can lead to better choices in the real world.
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The Story of Jesse Poe - Music, Neurodivergence and a new start
Radio Future Skills Academy
Behind the Glass Wall “Sometimes, I feel like I’m behind a glass wall.” described this feeling during our conversation with . She spoke about observing the world, people, conversations, systems, all unfolding just beyond an invisible barrier. You’re present, yet not truly part of it. That image resonated deeply with . It brought to mind the times I’ve felt out of sync with the world around me. When societal structures and expectations don’t align with my way of thinking or being. It’s not about unwillingness; it’s about a fundamental disconnect that leads to...
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The Story of Alwin Put - Why Holding Space is Exhausting (and Beautiful)
Radio Future Skills Academy
The Hidden Life of a Facilitator By Arne van Oosterom Facilitation often looks easy from the outside. A room full of people, energy, sticky notes, good vibes, some structure, and someone calmly guiding the process. But what most people don’t see is the part that happens afterwards. When the room is empty again. When you’re back in the car. Or alone in a hotel room. We recently had Alwin Put on the podcast, a great facilitator and writer. One of the first things he said stuck with me. He described how much he loves working with groups—and then immediately admitted how exhausted he feels...
info_outlineEvery now and then you meet someone who comes from a world so far from your own that you expect the conversation to be polite, distant, and maybe a bit abstract. That’s what I thought when Warren Yu joined us for Creative Leaders Unplugged. He carries decades of experience inside one of the most rigid and hierarchical systems imaginable, the U.S. military and government. I come from design, creativity, messy entrepreneurship. Two planets, right?
But from the very first minute, something unexpected happened. We didn’t meet as a military officer and a designer. We met as humans. He told stories about family, heritage, loss, identity, the same stories we all carry whether we come from Shanghai, Hungary, New York or Haarlem.
That’s when I realised: the starting point for creative leadership is always the same. Strip away the titles, the roles, the armour. Ask someone who they are. And then simply listen.
What unfolded after that was like watching a movie. Warren is one of those natural storytellers who pulls you straight into the world he’s lived in, from his grandfather’s assassination to CIA front companies to being accused of “witchcraft and black magic” on a Navy ship because he dared to bring a new idea into a rigid system.
And still, somehow, everything he said resonated deeply with what we talk about in design thinking. The power of culture over technology. The need to make it safe to fail. The importance of “yes, and…”. The courage to hold space for others. The leader’s job of clearing obstacles so people can run freely.
At one point he describes his design studio, a simple conference room he quietly transformed into a kind of pirate ship inside the system. A place where people could bring fragile ideas, experiment, fail, recover, collaborate across ranks and cultures. A NICU for innovation, he called it. And I thought: yes, this is creative leadership in its purest form.
Not the shiny version. The subversive version. The courageous, slightly rebellious, meaningful version.
What struck me most is how his whole journey mirrors something many creative leaders recognise:
being an outsider, navigating contradictions, learning to adapt, holding multiple perspectives, and seeing what others miss. The pirate who doesn’t disrupt for ego, but for the greater good.
We ended our conversation with one simple question:
What are you looking forward to?
His answer was surprisingly soft and human, to help people, to create meaning, to help organisations rediscover their purpose when they’ve drifted away from it.
That’s the thing about pirates.
They’re not trying to burn the ship.
They’re trying to remind everyone why they’re sailing in the first place.
This episode is full of stories, insights, emotion, humour and hard-earned wisdom. Honestly, we could have talked for hours. But I hope the part we captured inspires anyone who feels stuck in a system, anyone wondering how to make change from the inside.
Maybe the answer isn’t to break the system.
Maybe it’s to create a small space where new possibilities can breathe.
A place where people feel safe to bring their ideas, their doubts, their scars.
A place where stories can be told.
A place where pirates are welcome.
Enjoy the episode.
And Warren, go write that book. The world needs it.