Robert Poynton

"If you don't stop to think, life will force you to stop to think."

Rob designs and facilitates workshops and retreats, in which he uses ideas from improv theatre to help people (and organisations) respond creatively to complexity and change.

He believes in playing around with things (and people) rather than trying to control them. He thinks we can learn from and even enjoy uncertainty, rather than dread it.

In April 2020, together with Alex Carabi, he invented a virtual ‘counter-space' called Yellow. And in the summer of 2021 launched an online course called ‘The Everyday Improviser’ to help people to do precisely that.

He is the Author of DO Pause and the Pause Manifesto, and has been a contributor to The Skoll World Forum, Singularity University Global Summit and Schumacher College.

He divides his time between Oxford, where he is an Associate Fellow at the Saïd Business School, and an off-grid house in rural Spain from where he runs ‘The Pause Project’.