Helping groups of any size accomplish shared goals. Founder, Power Pairs

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About

Rita J. King shapes culture for high performing teams and organizations through color-coded problem definition to align people with goals.

Rita is the founder and president of Power Pairs Inc. and a leadership advisor who has spent two decades helping teams across industries, including multiple Fortune 50 companies, navigate periods of tumultuous transformation. An ethnographer who studies culture, she specializes in the relationship between humans and our evolving technology.

Rita has served as a Futurist at NASA Langley's National Institute of Aerospace, an Innovator-in-Residence at IBM, and a Senior Fellow at the Salzburg Global Forum, the Aspen Institute, and the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, where she led a 25-country study on the transformation of culture through digital communities. She has designed and delivered keynotes and workshops for organizations including Amazon, GE, FedEx, 3M, and Samsung, and her investigative journalism has been broadly cited. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, CNN, and NPR, among many others. She holds an honorary doctorate in Applied Imagination from Centenary University.

Rita sees this unique moment in history, between the Industrial and Intelligence Eras, as the dawn of the Imagination Age, a time that demands creative approaches to leadership, problem-solving, and teamwork. AI as Applied Imagination, not just artificial intelligence.

Rita has been interviewed and featured in 18 books including Manoush Zomorodi’s BORED AND BRILLIANT (Macmillan), Rob Walker’s THE ART OF NOTICING (Penguin Random House) and The New York Times bestselling author Chris Guillebeau’s THE HAPPINESS OF PURSUIT (Penguin Random House). For over a decade, Rita served as Executive Vice President of Science House in New York City, where she advised Fortune 50 CEOs, CIOs, and senior executives on aligning organizational goals with ways of working. As a futurist at the National Academy of Sciences Science and Entertainment Exchange, Rita has collaborated with some of the most creative minds in Hollywood and TV to design future scenarios, technologies, and characters. She has held fellowships at institutions like The Aspen Institute, The Salzburg Global Forum and The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, applying her imagination to issues of security, culture, and ethics.

Early in her career, Rita was an investigative journalist and wrote intimate stories about people's lives so families could connect on a deeper level.

Services

Articles by Rita J.

  • On Remaining Human in The Age of AI: Applied Imagination

    A response to the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas We don’t fully know what it means to be human. Roughly half the cells…

    2 Comments
  • How to Think about Hybrid Work Policies

    If you’re in a position to shape your company’s hybrid work policy, this post is for you. Does it contain practical…

    10 Comments
  • Chaos Eats Culture for Breakfast

    Every person in an organization is ultimately responsible for co-creating a dynamic, productive culture. But culture is…

    5 Comments
  • Creative Descriptions of Organizations as Cities

    If your company were a town or city what would it be? I recently posted a survey asking people about their jobs, and…

    1 Comment
  • Now is the Time To Reimagine Labor

    As we head into Labor Day weekend at a time of great stress and struggle for American workers, the time is right to…

  • What Search and Rescue Missions Teach Us about Staying Calm

    When Gabriel A. Silva is on a search and rescue mission in the California mountains, he needs to stay calm despite the…

    5 Comments
  • Why They Want to Leave You: No Feedback, Bad Meetings

    I've been interviewing people about why they want to leave their jobs. The subject of this interview is in many ways…

    2 Comments
  • Want to keep employees engaged?

    There are many ways to make employees feel motivated so that they give their best performance at work and a new study…

    4 Comments
  • Reconnecting after Being Apart

    I was crushed at first that Jo didn't rush into my arms after 15 months apart. "Give Rita a hug," my best friend told…

    5 Comments
  • The Courage to Create

    When survival is threatened, creativity can be viewed as inessential or impossible to attain. And yet that’s when…

    35 Comments

Activity

Experience

  • Power Pairs Graphic

    Founder

    Power Pairs

    - Present 2 years

    Know yourself and others, navigate with confidence. Power Pairs is a method for individuals, teams and organizations to be authentic and flexible as we evolve alongside each other and our tools.

  • Science House Graphic

    EVP for Business Development

    Science House

    - Present 15 years 4 months

    Manhattan

    I work with senior leaders and their organizations to close the gap between strategy and execution for better results with less stress. Our clients include four out of ten of Forbes' most admired companies. We work across industries.

    Our headquarters, a seven-story townhouse occupied for 35 years by Abraham Lincoln's granddaughter, Mary Lincoln Isham, is a cathedral of the imagination. It is a spectacular venue for bringing teams together when they need to focus, think, let down their…

    I work with senior leaders and their organizations to close the gap between strategy and execution for better results with less stress. Our clients include four out of ten of Forbes' most admired companies. We work across industries.

    Our headquarters, a seven-story townhouse occupied for 35 years by Abraham Lincoln's granddaughter, Mary Lincoln Isham, is a cathedral of the imagination. It is a spectacular venue for bringing teams together when they need to focus, think, let down their guard and be creative.

  • Futurist

    Science and Entertainment Exchange of the National Academy of Sciences

    - Present 13 years 1 month

    Los Angeles

    I am a futurist at the Science and Entertainment Exchange. I invent story architecture, gadgets, scenarios and futuristic technologies with a novel twist for TV and Hollywood.

  • Investigator, Reporter, Creative Writer, Futurist

    Writer

    - Present 26 years 4 months

    global

    I have worked as an investigative reporter with a focus on telling high impact stories about complex issues including the nuclear industry, the relationship between corporations and the government and the emerging digital culture. Features by me or about my work have appeared in major media globally, including The New York Times, Psychology Today, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Al Jazeera, TIME, CNN, Fox News, NPR, the BBC, the Christian Science Monitor, The Village Voice, Forbes, Fast…

    I have worked as an investigative reporter with a focus on telling high impact stories about complex issues including the nuclear industry, the relationship between corporations and the government and the emerging digital culture. Features by me or about my work have appeared in major media globally, including The New York Times, Psychology Today, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Al Jazeera, TIME, CNN, Fox News, NPR, the BBC, the Christian Science Monitor, The Village Voice, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. and many more.

  • Salzburg Global Seminar Graphic

    Global Fellow

    Salzburg Global Seminar

    - Present 14 years

    Salzburg, Austria

    I am a Salzburg Global Fellow with a focus on global collaboration through science, art and imagination.

  • Dancing Ink Productions Graphic

    Founder and Creative Director

    Dancing Ink Productions

    - Present 20 years 4 months

    I founded Dancing Ink Productions in 2006 when IBM commissioned me to investigate and report back on the business value of how IBMers around the world were using the Internet.

    The mission of Dancing Ink Productions is to explore and shape the new global culture and economy in the Imagination Age. As the Industrial Era fades, its legacy systems still permeate work and education. The Intelligence Era is not yet here, but it presents a design challenge because it contains many intangible…

    I founded Dancing Ink Productions in 2006 when IBM commissioned me to investigate and report back on the business value of how IBMers around the world were using the Internet.

    The mission of Dancing Ink Productions is to explore and shape the new global culture and economy in the Imagination Age. As the Industrial Era fades, its legacy systems still permeate work and education. The Intelligence Era is not yet here, but it presents a design challenge because it contains many intangible and even invisible components, like code, algorithms, evolving cultures and identities, and huge amounts of data that must be turned into insights if we are to succeed in designing new systems. Since imagination is how the neurons in our brain make connections between ideas, it seemed like the perfect way to break out the period in between these two longer eras. It takes imagination to get away from legacy systems, whether technological or cultural, and it takes imagination to shape the new era which isn't yet here.

    Dancing Ink Productions clients include IBM, Manpower, the British Council, the National Institute of Aerospace and more. I continue to develop the Imagination Age at Science House. Dancing Ink Productions continues to serve as an experimental studio for my work including my successfully funded Kickstarter campaign, Mystery Jars.

  • Model Meetings Graphic

    Co-Founder

    Model Meetings

    - 8 years 3 months

    NYC

  • O'Reilly Media Graphic

    Author, Presenter, Creator

    O'Reilly Media

    - 5 years 1 month

  • Fast Company Graphic

    Contributing Writer

    Fast Company

    - 8 years 6 months

    NYC

  • Manpower Inc. Graphic

    Strategic Advisor

    Manpower Inc.

    - 13 years 5 months

  • IBM

    IBM

    14 years

    • IBM Graphic

      Consultant

      IBM

      - 14 years

    • IBM Graphic

      Innovator-in-Residence IBM Analytics Virtual Center

      IBM

      - 3 years 1 month

  • Futurist

    NASA Langley's think-tank, the National Institute of Aerospace

    - 2 years 1 month

    Langley, Virginia

  • Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs Graphic

    Senior Fellow

    Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

    - 2 years

    Manhattan

  • Consultant

    Linden Lab

    - 1 year 2 months

  • Creative Director

    American University in Cairo

    - 1 year 4 months

Publications

Projects

  • Color Mindset

    For too long, we’ve been choosing between rigidity and flexibility. Now we need to get ourselves out of the gray and gain clarity. Color Mindset is the philosophy, Power Pairs is the tool for bringing Color Mindset to life.

    Other creators

Honors & Awards

  • Honorary Doctorate in Applied Imagination

    Centenary University

    Centenary University is evolving to meet the demands of the world in which graduates will work. When I was invited to deliver the commencement speech in May 2017, I was honored to learn that Dr. David Haney, the university's new president, was planning my Honorary Doctorate in Applied Imagination instead of the customary Humane Letters.

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