We’re a learning design consultancy helping teams and organizations build muscle for imagining what’s possible and taking action towards new futures
We craft learning engagements to help us meet the messiness of a world in transition. We leverage design, futures, and complexity thinking for co-creating in a world of converging crises
Toronto District School Board
Directors College – DeGroote School of Business
Health Leadership Academy
Rotary Climate Action
McGill Desautels School of Management
Toronto Metropolitan University
What people are saying…
“Sean Park is one of the best profs I have had – he makes class less like a class and more like an event. Through his teaching style I would gladly take any other course he provides.”
I had the valuable opportunity to connect and learn from peers, and advance my leadership skills using new and innovative ways of learning. The [leadership] course embedded thoughtful moments of introspection and self-reflection, coupled with novel approaches to teaching and learning. The use of simulation actors, interviews with industry experts, and hands-on real world scenarios broadened my understanding of foundational topics including managing people and culture, budgeting and strategic planning. Learning in groups with peers at a similar career stage enabled engaging and relevant discussions and I gained many practical tools and insights to broaden my leadership journey.
The experiential learning process made all the difference and it has changed the way I approach solving problems completely – even how I view them. Honestly one of the best courses I’ve ever taken”
– DeGroote MBA Student
“This was the first time I ever had to do something like this for group-based courses and I found it absolutely exceptional. I wish ALL group classes had this because it set expectations and an agreed mission statement to ensure all groups are contributing equally and on the same ‘page’. One of the best group experiences I have had”
– DeGroote MBA Student
“Our team was looking for a design thinking expert to support us in launching a new Innovation Challenge initiative for TDSB Business and Operations teams. We needed someone knowledgeable and adaptable, who produces high-quality work, to deliver two design thinking learning sessions, create a design thinking workbook and provide coaching support for engaged teams. Sean Park exceeded our expectations, and we are so happy he was our partner in launching this initiative into the system. In a short timeframe, Sean was able to develop customized learning sessions and an extensive workbook to support the needs of our teams. Throughout the process, he was highly responsive to our organization’s needs, and his extensive knowledge brought meaningful insights and ideas to the process. Due to Sean’s high level of professionalism and engaging approach to sharing design thinking learning, our first-ever Innovation Challenge was a resounding success!“
– Erin Wood
Manager, Strategic Transformation
TDSB
Future of Work – Faculty of Health Sciences Senior Leaders Retreat
As McMaster University moved towards in-person work g following the closures of the pandemic, Sean guided the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2022 through a six-month foresight process that culminated in priority themes, personas, a retreat, and imaginative ‘job ads from the future’. A faculty-wide process for sharing stories from staff and faculty combined with signal scanning and trend research resulted in a set of needs related to collaboration, work-life balance, equity, career advancement, space, and productivity. Senior leaders from across the faculty worked together to make sense of the data through the lens of different staff and faculty personas and then reimagined what work might look like in the near future for various roles in light of AI, the struggle for a just and equitable world, and climate change.
Health by Design: An Introduction to Design Thinking CPD Course
Sean collaborated with Dr. Sasha Litwin and Dr. Teresa Chan to offer Canada’s first health design thinking continuing professional development course. Jointly offered by McMaster’s Faculty of Health Science and UofT’s Temetry School of Medicine CPD offices, The course uses live online workshops and a small group project, to help health and social care professionals from Canada and abroad to explore how design mindsets and methods can power the development of new health systems, services, and products rooted in people’s lived experiences.
Re-Imagining the Internal Medicine Resident Experience
HiFi Leadership Program
Imagine doing for leadership education what mannikins and simulation have done for medical education. Using scenarios and actors that brought to life the human resources, finance, and strategy challenges faced by leaders in academic health science centres, Sean worked with Dr. Teresa Chan and the McMaster Health leadership Academy to create a 9-month sandbox for developing leadership know-how.
Design Thinking and Strategic Foresight at McMaster University
Sean led the design and delivery of multiple courses across Health sciences, engineering and business teaching design thinking and strategic foresight. Leveraging Community action learning projects, innovation self assessments, coaching and collaboration with designers and futurists, these courses are consistently rated as the highlight of students programs. Sean is a recipient of the McMaster President’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning for his work.
Building Innovation Capability with the Toronto District School Board
A multi-year project with the TDSB helps staff from across the organization learn and apply design thinking on Real innovation projects. Sean customized a curriculum including workshops, workbooks, and coaching to help teams go from fieldwork to iterated prototypes over a four-month period. More than 95% of staff found the experience rewarding.
Future of Mindfulness in Hamilton
Following the pandemic, Mindfulness Hamilton a community non-profit enabling access to mindfulness events and teachings – worked with Sean to guide the Hamilton mindfulness community through a process of reflecting on the needs of the community, re-imagining what mindfulness could look like, and to prototype new ideas as part of a longer term strategy. Two virtual co-creation sessions crowdsourced the issues and needs from the community and used trends and signals research to imagine emerging challenges and opportunities. Sean worked with the organization’s leadership to identify promising ideas to prototype, test, and develop.
We support organizations with a social purpose build the skills and mindsets to navigate complexity, imagine new possibilities, and take meaningful action. We work at the intersection of design, futures, and systems thinking to support leaders and teams in making sense of change and shaping the future with intention.
Our approach is life-centered, recognizing that thriving organizations and communities emerge from strong relationships—between people, systems, and the ecologies we’re part of. We focus more on shifting patterns of thinking and acting than solving problems. Our view of impact privileges perspectives on how relationships are nurtured as primary and metrics, secondary.
We believe learning happens through iterative, recursive action. By prototyping, experimenting, and co-creating, we surface insights that traditional planning alone can’t uncover. We help teams move between big dreaming and disciplined implementation, making ideas tangible through stories, strategies, and practical tools.
Radical collaboration is at the heart of our work. We go beyond bringing together diverse perspectives to find a sense of ‘right relationship’ that honours the broader ecology. By more honestly wrestling with uncertainty, loosening our sense of what’s possible, and taking the short-medium and long view, we help organizations build resilience and shape futures where they—and the communities they serve—might thrive.
Sean Park, PhD
Principal
As a facilitator, educator, and designer, I love working at the intersection of creativity, leadership, and systems change—helping people think differently about the future and the impact they want to make.. My work is shaped by who I am—a father, musician, improviser, mentor, and curious human navigating this shared planet.
My academic background blends creativity, curriculum design, and leadership with influences from cybernetics, wisdom traditions, and design thinking. I’ve been an alum-in-residence at Stanford d.school and taught human-centered design and foresight at McMaster University, where I also led programs in health leadership and innovation.
Teaching and learning are at the heart of what I do. I’ve been fortunate to receive multiple awards recognizing my contributions, including the McMaster President’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning, Department of Medicine Undergraduate Teaching Award and STLHE Alan Blizzard Award for Collaborative Course Development.
Beyond academia, I helped design and lead the Studio Y Systems Leadership Fellowship at MaRS Discovery District and spent years as a mindfulness educator. Outside of work, I co-direct an Afro-Brazilian percussion ensemble, geek out on design fiction, and seek out the perfect brisket—usually with my son, Theo, by my side.
Contact us if you are an organization that would like to:
