“Firstly, I want you to know that I have a huge amount of both affection and respect for Haq. You can't have a meeting with him and not feel deeply moved by his passion for both creativity and humanity. He drips both beautifully.
I’ve seen first-hand how Haq’s empathy-led facilitation approach elevates confidence and ambition in senior leaders - truly living up to the 21CB value of ‘ambushing with humanity’.
His sessions help maximise the return on that most expensive organisational investment - synchronous time together. By helping teams overcome their own perceived limitations, he enables them to take on harder, better things than they might otherwise have thought possible.
I truly enjoy being in the room where Haq happens and I know you will too.
If you don't, you are probably dead.
Enjoy the guy.”
Jonathan Mildenhall, Chief Marketing Officer, Rocket Companies. Ex-Chief Marketing Officer, Airbnb
“Everyone is saying the way Haq hosted the session was awesome. There’s something that’s quite lowkey about the way he delivers really intellectually smart stuff. It doesn’t come across as smug or pleased with itself because he brings a level of humility that meant people weren’t made to feel stupid. Some people came in with maybe a negative preconceived notion of what ‘creative training’ would be but then were surprised in the way that it talked their language and was applicable to their world.”
Jo White, Partner, Headland Consultancy
“Having Arif join us for Creativity Decoded was fantastic. He brought an impressive depth of knowledge and practical experience. Arif is genuinely authentic, communicating in a thoughtful and relatable manner. His infectious energy made a significant impact, and I especially enjoyed the interactive aspects of the training, which encouraged us to explore a variety of perspectives on creativity. This session proved to be extremely beneficial for both agencies and brands. Thank you, Arif! Here’s hoping for a boost in creativity and effectiveness among Belgian brands.”
Isabel Van den Broeck, Managing Director of Creative Belgium, Co-Founder of the Creative Belgium School
“If you want you team to be shaken up, challenged and then put back together then Haq is your person. He brings an immense energy to everything he touches that your business can't fail to benefit from. A masterful facilitator, an inspiring trainer and truly understands what it takes to get out great creative work. I always leap at the chance to work him and you should too.”
Sara Tate, Partner, TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, ex-CEO TBWA London
“From the smallest details to the main stage event, and everything in between, nothing was overlooked. Your care and enthusiasm for delivering an extraordinary experience came through in every moment and every interaction. The smiles on the faces of the live audience and the level of engagement in the virtual rooms are true testaments to your amazing work. On behalf of PepsiCo, than you for creating such a special experience”
Jane Wakely, Chief Marketing Officer, PepsiCo
“Our team has been buzzing with excitement and energy after the creative excellence sessions last week… Arif’s energy and delivery of content was really incredible. He did a great job at facilitating all of the right conversations and landing the right points.”
Vandita Pandey, Chief Marketing Officer ANZ, Snacks & Beverages, PepsiCo
“You made a large group of creatives drop their cynical guard and play with imaginations, insecurities, and wonder. It made me see first hand, your expertise in manipulating a broad audience into collectively seeing the forest for the trees”
Carol Dunn, Executive Producer, Human Worldwide
“Haq is a one of a kind leader / facilitator / provocateur / human. 21CB have partnered with him for over four years and he never fails to deliver incredible value for our client transformation programs for the likes of Marks, Linkedin, Pepsico and more. He treats experience design and workshop facilitation with the same level of intensity and craft as Dan Wieden would on a Nike anthem. He manages to bring a combination of positive joie de vivre to live event facilitation while also being all over every element of the detail in his semi-legendary 'minute by minute' docs. I'd honestly trust him to facilitate any high pressure workshop or event and I know he'd pull it off.”
Neil Barrie, Global CEO & Co-Founder at TwentyFirstCenturyBrand
“The purpose of the strategy workshop was to align our distributed leadership team around a unified vision for our annual conference Engage 2025, bringing together 21 leaders across multiple departments
The facilitation of the workshop was just really incredible. It was wild. I kept looking around the room and seeing how engaged everyone on our team was throughout the entire day.
It honestly didn't feel just like a workshop. It felt like a strategic reset with the alignment of so many key people within our company that we were able to get through in just one day.
The workshop had a huge impact. We were able to walk away with clear priorities, bold ideas, and really feel like we were truly aligned as a team - It's really rare and special to get that level of clarity and creative energy in just one session.
So that was really, really special and really incredible.”
Brianna Rohrhoff, Director of Corporate Events & Strategic Sponsorships, Smartsheet
“My favorite talk was Arif Haq’s keynote. It was so brilliant and relevant that I felt it should have been followed with a “please elaborate” instead of a Q&A.”
Sergio Lopez Ferrero, Chief Production Officer, McCann Worldgroup
“I have to say this was the best training I’ve had since joining Kraft Heinz. To be utterly cheesy – it made me really step out of the company-focussed view and see briefing and feedback in a new light. LOVED IT!”
Kraft Heinz brand manager
“The idea of a course on something as naturally ethereal as creativity didn't exactly fill me with excitement. Quite the opposite. But having experienced what Arif and his team did over those two days with my agency and our biggest client in steamy Singapore, I'm a convert. Provocative, collaborative and genuinely informative, even to this cynical old dog."
David Nobay, Founder and Creative Chairman, Marcel Sydney
