meet the team
Developing pioneering strategies for business, government, and community competitiveness, the Creative Class Group is comprised of next-generation thinkers and strategists who offer organizations and regions access to leading-edge knowledge, trends, research, consulting, education, and professional development worldwide.
Richard FloridaFounder
Richard Florida is one of the world's leading public intellectuals. Esquire Magazine recently named him one of the ‘Best and Brightest’. He is author of the national and international best-selling book, The Rise of the Creative Class, which received the Washington Monthly's Political Book Award and was cited as a major breakthrough idea by the Harvard Business Review. His ideas have been featured in major ad campaigns and such as BMW and are being used globally to change the way regions, nations, and companies compete.
He is founder of the Creative Class Group, an advisory services firm, charting new trends in business and community.
Richard is a regular columnist with The Globe and Mail newspaper and has written articles for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Harvard Business Review, The Boston Globe and The Financial Times. He is author of the book, Who's Your City? which has been hailed a National Best-Seller, an International Best-Seller and Amazon Book of the Month. His new book, The Great Reset explains how new ways of living and working will drive post-crash prosperity.
He is Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and Professor of Business and Creativity at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Previously, Florida held professorships at Carnegie Mellon University, a visiting professor at Harvard and MIT, and a visiting fellow of the Brookings Institution. Florida earned his Bachelor's degree from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Rana FloridaChief Executive Officer
Rana Florida is the CEO of the Creative Class Group, managing new business development, content, marketing, publishing, multi-media and global operations.
She has more than 20 years of experience in corporate strategy, communications, marketing and branding. Rana was an internationally syndicated advice columnist (Gannett) for almost a decade and a Fox News contributor in one of the top 10 media markets. She was the lead communications strategist for one of the largest airport concessionaire (Host Marriott Services Host) based in Washington, DC.
Prior to that, Rana served as Vice President of Corporate Communications for the world’s largest producer of live family entertainment with operations in over 50 countries and 6 continents.
She worked with some of the world’s most recognizable brands including Disney, Chrysler, and Starbucks. She has managed top PR teams including Hill and Knowlton in Los Angeles, New York and Washington, DC as well as running crisis media training in the Watergate building. She continues to work with major media including CNN, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, CBC and shows such as Good Morning America, The Today Show and 60 Minutes.
Prior to her corporate and media work, Rana worked for the City of Detroit as the lead publicist for the city's cultural institutions. In this multi-faceted position she worked closely with the Mayor's office, tourism and economic development organizations and chambers of commerce.
Rana is heavily involved in philanthropy having served as a board member for the Council for International Visitors, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Fashion Works for LG Fashion Week as well as supporting and donating to numerous charitable organizations. Rana holds a Bachelor of Arts in communications and a MBA in marketing and management.
Steven PedigoSteven Pedigo, Creative Class Group Speaker & Facilitator
Steven Pedigo serves as the Director of Research and Communities for the Creative Class Group, a global think tank comprised of leading researchers, academics and strategists. In this role, he provides cutting-edge analysis of global economic and demographic trends to Fortune 100 companies and major media outlets. Steven collaborates with expert researchers to develop consumer and innovation measurements for clients such as BMW, FedEX, IBM, Dewar’s, Fast Company and Kiplinger’s Magazine.
Steven is also responsible for managing the Creative Class Leadership Program, a worldwide community engagement program. He has successfully launched these programs in numerous U.S. and international communities from El Paso, TX; to Vancouver, BC, and Noosa, Australia.
In addition to his work with the Creative Class Group, Steven oversees communications and content strategy for the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), a national think tank and advocacy organization that encourages private sector investment into U.S. urban centers.
Prior to joining the Creative Class Group and ICIC, Steven was Vice-President for Business Attraction and Research for Greenlight Greater Portland, a regional economic development organization for the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region.
Steven started his career in economic development as the Director of Research for the Greater Washington Initiative (GWI), a regional marketing organization for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. As researcher and writer, Steven’s work has been featured in such publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Dallas Morning News.
Steven holds a bachelor\'s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and graduate degrees from the H. John Heinz III School for Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Lou MusanteCommunity Facilitator
Lou Musante is a facilitator and project leader for the Creative Class Group. He has facilitated creative community engagements in more than fifteen communities. Some of these communities include: Charlotte, NC; Tallahassee, FL; Duluth, MN; El Paso, TX; Tacoma, WA; Dayton, OH and Noosa, Australia.
In addition to his extensive community facilitation background, Lou is a leading expert in customer listening, market research, organizational culture assessments and strategic planning. Lou is also a founding partner of Catalytix, Inc., a former Creative Class Group company and spinout from Carnegie Mellon University.
Lou holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and master’s degree in information science.
David J. MillerEntrepreneurship & Strategies
David J. Miller is a community facilitator with the Creative Class Group. As a founding developer of the Creative Communities Leadership Project, he brings his vast experience in economic development, real-estate, and campus entrepreneurship to help communities achieve greater economic prosperity. Along with extensive experience in global policy, David has worked as an adviser to large commercial real estate tenants and multifamily property owners, directed Internet operations and strategy for MachineWeb.com, Inc., and managed e-commerce and digital music for Rollingstone.com.
David also has extensive experience in the global policy arena having served as researcher and writer for Ambassador David M. Abshire, founder of The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C.
David holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, a master’s in international politics of Asia from the University of London (dissertation title: Changing Definitions of Security in the Information Age: The People’s Republic of China and the Internet), and a bachelor’s in international relations from the University of Michigan. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in entrepreneurship.
Reham AlexanderDirector of Global Operations and Events
Reham Alexander is the director of global operations and events for Creative Class Group. She handles client relations for and management of all domestic and international speaking engagements.
She has orchestrated events around the world from the Global Cities Forum in Abu Dhabi, the Johnson and Johnson marketing meeting in New York, the Asia Pacific Cities Summit in Korea with over 1,000 delegates and mayors from over 150 cities worldwide to the IBM partners meeting at the British Museum in London. She works with a wide array of clientele to stage large scale events as well as managing media and publishing, high profile government and business leaders and professional associations. Clients include Fortune 100 companies, government, education, healthcare, nonprofit and economic development organizations.
Reham received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan with a double major in Political Science and Communications and post-graduate work at Wayne State University. Reham has a background in advertising and marketing and has worked as a freelance corporate consultant for the past several years. She has been a long time columnist for the Detroit News, Calgary Sun and the Record.
Martin KenneyCommunity Development
Martin Kenney is a professor of human and community development at the University of California, Davis Center for Entrepreneurship where he is also a research fellow. He is a senior project director for the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy. Martin is the author of five books and over 120 scholarly articles on the development of Silicon Valley, venture capital, university-industry relations, and the globalization of services.
Christian UnverzagtDesign Consultant
Christian Unverzagt is a partner in design and responsible for the brand and image of the Creative Class Group. He is a designer and educator based in Detroit. He heads M1/DTW, a nationally recognized, multidisciplinary studio working at the intersection of design, cultural production, and emerging technologies through the design of objects, artifacts, identities, and spaces.
Unverzagt has received numerous awards including I.D. Magazine's Annual Design Review and a "50 Books" award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). M1's work has been published widely and exhibited in Los Angeles, Austin, Detroit, New York, and Boston. Christian teaches design at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, focusing on visual representation and graphic communication.
Sarah FifeCommunity Facilitator
Sarah Fife is a Community Facilitator with the Creative Class Group in Australia. With a background in Social History and a master's degree in Public Policy and Management from the H John Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University, Sarah is interested in leading initiatives which have a positive impact on communities.
Sarah served in a managing role to the Chief Executive of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania. She was instrumental in helping launch The Rise of the Creative Class to the best-seller list. Sarah lives in Sydney with her husband, Tim.