The New Abnormal
#TheNewAbnormal podcast (which has over 250,000 downloads) focuses on understanding today and anticipating the future. Discussing these subjects via the viewpoints of my guests has led to some fascinating conversations with activists, creatives, writers, philosophers, strategists, psychologists, lecturers, futurists, etc. Re: my bio, I'm a strategist, author and speaker. My 1st book went to No1 in the business charts, whilst my 2nd was shortlisted for the 'Business Book of the Year' Awards. (The podcast partners with The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, a global leader in applying futures studies to solve strategic challenges, helping clients to be #FuturesReady.) So, we hope you enjoy listening to the series - which was set up during the early days of Covid, and is divided into Series One [2020-21] Two [2022] Three [2023] Four [2024] and Five [2025]. All rights reserved. #TheNewAbnormal podcast series © Sean Pillot de Chenecey 2020. Please note that it's currently on hold, as I literally don’t have the time to record any episodes at the moment, but it’ll return in late summer...
The New Abnormal
Steve Vranakis 'Leading-edge creativity and reinventing the agency model'
Series Two
In this episode of #TheNewAbnormal, I interviewed Steve Vranakis.
He's an award winning creative who worked on the launch of the iPhone, with Amazon, NASA (Space Lab), The United Nations, UNICEF and headed up the Creative Lab at Google in EMEA for nearly a decade.
Appointed as the first ever Chief Creative Officer for Greece, he developed a new country narrative as a Special Advisor to the Prime Minister.
Some of his past projects inc a machine learning musical instrument, an installation giving youth a voice at the UN, the launch of a physical coding platform that teaches kids to code, and bringing dinosaurs back to life in VR at the Natural History Museums in London and Berlin.
In 2015 Steve went to the island of Lesvos to build a mobile information site to help Syrian refugees fleeing civil war keep safe. (This was scaled across dozens of NGO’s going on to help thousands of refugees).
His work has been recognised by the D&AD, Cannes Lions, ADC, One Show's, Campaign Big, Webbys, Lovies, FWA, BIMA and Clio's.
Steve's has been featured in WIRED, The NY Times, Telegraph, WSJ, Creative Review, Huffington Post, FT, Design Week, Adage and he’s written for Adweek, Marketing, Campaign and conducted interviews with the BBC, CNN, CNBC, Lürzer's Archive and Shots.
While president of D&AD, he made it his mission to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get into the creative industries.
As you can imagine, we cover a lot of ground in this interview as we discuss his extraordinary career, how he pictures the 'Agency of the Future' alongside his views on 'hope, community and resilience'…