Unleash | Innovate


Helping leaders unleash their innovation within! Build impact - get the returns!

Innovation & Design Mentor

  • Innovation: wish for it, or make it happen?

    There is huge potential to innovate and have impact. It’s all around us – in our businesses, our teams, and our communities. We see it and sense it, but how might we lead for it?

  • Make it stick, get the return.

    Innovation is hot, capability is built, conditions change, support wanes, capability is lost. But the need for value creation and growth (products, services, processes, policies, joint ventures) never goes away. How do we design for it, deliver for it and make it stick to get continual returns?

  • Scaling a mountain? Go with a guide.

    Mountain climbers ascend with companions, and often with experienced guides. Building innovation capability with your team, leadership and governance is a journey. This is why I’ve kicked “the Jim Scully” practice into life, to journey alongside you as your experienced guide.

Hi, Kia ora - I’m Jim Scully

Glimpse of my journey

I was lucky to be surfing the early wave of human-centred design and design thinking. I learnt from amazing global pioneers in the field. I’ve used the power of design to innovate across businesses, in government and across countries.

Leaders have hectic lives, every slice of your time and energy matters. I know, I have lived your leadership schedules in start-ups and multi-nationals across several countries. I’ve helped NZ exporters via Better-by-Design, Singapore grow its design thinking, and the UN Development Program experience a design jam. I even built (with my awesome team) the first customer/human-centred design capability in NZ government.

Most leaders aren’t satisfied with the status quo, they aspire to advance. To support them, I founded a for-impact business ThinkPlace | Wahi Whakaaro Aotearoa NZ. I have now created the Jim Scully Practice.

My new ‘why’

In 2024, I figured that the golden thread running through my career was growing innovative leaders and teams. So I’ve decided to dedicate the next chapter of my career to equipping these leaders as they strive for more impact. If that’s you, let’s chat!

Passions beyond work

  • facilitating global innovation labs with UNLEASH, a not-for-profit organisation. These give me a triple shot of inspiration, energy and hope every time!

  • kayaking off the coast, fishing up a river, skiing down a mountain.

  • walking our dog (River) with my family on Wellington’s steep, green hills.

Global + Local

I love working with leaders where-ever they are.

Over my career, I've worked on five of the seven continents  🇦🇺 Australia, 🌏 Asia, 🌍 Africa, 🌎 North America and 🇪🇺 Europe, drawing insights from each—and visited 🇦🇶 Antarctica and 🌎 South America for inspiration and adventure.

PS The photos are from my journeys.

What are people
saying about Jim?

“I have worked with Jim Scully for over a decade, often collaborating to deliver workshops and experiences for senior government officials. Jim is  a master at bringing a group together to catalyse new ways of looking at the world to generate new insights. You can ‘trust the process’ when the process is good and the right method is applied to the right challenge. On a personal level, Jim is unfailingly generous with his time and wisdom – he has been a valued sounding board for me. For raising my spirits and energy levels, a ‘Jim session’ has much more impact than any ‘gym session.”

Sally Washington, Practice Fellow (Policy capability & Public management)

“Jim has been an invaluable and highly respected part of the UNLEASH community, serving as a highly dedicated Facilitator at four UNLEASH Innovation Labs in Singapore, China, India and Rwanda where his outstanding innovation expertise, empathy, and motivational leadership have inspired numerous UNLEASH international teams across the world turning bold innovative ideas into action.”

Flemming Besenbacher,DSc, DSc h.c. mult., FRSC, Professor and Chairperson of UNLEASH, and former Chairman of Carlsberg Group

Jim Scully brings extensive experience, expertise, and thought leadership in applying a wide array of innovation approaches ranging from systems thinking to design thinking, to address diverse transformation challenges and building innovation capacity within institutions and organizations.”

Banny Banerjee, Global ChangeLabs Stanford

“Jim has helped me and the teams I have worked with navigate the complexities of driving innovation and change in forestry. He has a wonderful ability to view things from different perspectives, challenge your thinking, and often sets you down a more inspiring path.”

Claire Stewart, Programme Leader, Forest Growers Research

A Postcard from 2040……..

To you,

It’s 2040, you are part of a thriving community of innovative leaders. Through your leadership, you have built innovative teams—teams that continue to drive change long after you’ve moved on. By 2026, you have already created several of these high-performing teams.

In 2025 you made a crucial decision. You decided you needed a guide and ally to walk beside you to unleash your inner innovator. You called on Jim Scully to be your Innovator Mentor. He had figured out that the golden thread running through his career was growing innovative teams that deliver. You wanted to weave that same golden thread into your career. Your work together helped you catalyse your leadership for innovation and impact. The rest is (future) history

Regards……..

Not quite your postcard from the future, near or far?
Let’s write one together.

Schedule a call

I’m keen to hear what success means for you. What’s working , what isn’t and the forward path.