Richard Florida

I'm a public intellectual. I've been a professor for some 25 years. I wrote The Rise of the Creative Class, which received the Washington Monthly’s Political Book Award and was cited as a leading “breakthrough idea” by the Harvard Business Review. In 2005, Esquire Magazine named me to their list of the Best and Brightest.

I am founder of the Creative Class Group (CCG), headquartered in Washington DC with offices in Toronto, and elsewhere. CCG is a global advisory services company, charting trends in business, communities and lifestyle. We work with communities and companies worldwide.

I am professor of business and creativity at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management where I also direct the newly formed Centre for Jurisdictional Advantage and Prosperity. Before that, I taught for nearly two decades at Carnegie Mellon University. I have also been a visiting professor at MIT and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

I'm a working class kid from New Jersey, my dad left school during the depression and worked in a factory. I was fortunate enough to win a Garden State scholarship which changed my life-course by allowing me to attend Rutgers College. Later I received my Ph.D. from Columbia University. I live in Toronto with my wife and business partner, Rana.