Creative Gym Launches Academy to Elevate Business Performance Through Creativity

Founding Team Introduces Year-Round Membership Program to Boost Organizational Creative Capabilities

AMSTERDAM, March 28, 2025 – Companies seeking to embed creativity as a driver of growth, innovation, and transformation now have a new partner: Creative Gym. This new academy offers a year-round membership program and targeted training programs designed to help organizations unlock and apply their full creative potential.

Founded by industry veterans Dinesh Sonak (formerly of Heineken, frog, THNK, ADCN), Mervyn ten Dam (ex ACHTUNG!), and David Snellenberg (ex Dawn), Creative Gym blends decades of experience at the intersection of creativity and business. Operating from the Moving Arts Centre Amsterdam (MACA) at the city’s iconic NDSM Wharf, the academy aims to reframe creativity as a critical business discipline.

Why Creativity Is a Business Imperative

Creativity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a proven performance differentiator. Research from McKinsey & Company, Harvard Business Review and Stanford University shows that organizations with a strong creative focus consistently outperform peers financially. At the same time, recent studies from WeTransfer reveal a growing demand among professionals for coaching and development in this area.

“Creativity is not optional—it’s essential,” says Dinesh Sonak, Director at Creative Gym. “It’s a foundational set of mindsets and skills that drive success in today’s work environment. There is a vast amount of untapped creative potential across professionals, teams, and organizations. These muscles need consistent training to deliver peak performance.”

Creative Gym Membership:
A New Model for Creative Performance

Creative Gym’s membership model enables organizations to build creative capabilities systematically, tackle strategic and operational challenges more effectively, and elevate the quality of their creative output.

The academy continues the legacy of ADCN Academy programs, such as the well-known Boosting Creativity training series, while introducing new modules focused on innovation and transformation. These programs integrate creativity with themes like inclusion and emerging technologies, including AI.

The Champions of Creativity membership — described as a “creativity accelerator” for brands — offers year-round access to a suite of training sessions, coaching sessions, tools and resources across functions and skill levels. Early members include brands such as Bol, KPN, Swapfiets and IKEA.

Creative Gym Foundation:
Accelerating the Next Generation of Creative Changemakers

Through its Foundation, Creative Gym invests in emerging talent and breakthrough ideas within the creative industries. The Foundation Board is chaired by Wesley ter Haar (Monks), Natasha Greenhalgh (Nxt Museum), and Fatima Elatik (Patta Academy), and collaborates with platforms and communities like ADCN, PlusPlusOne, and What Design Can Do to deliver training and mentorship programs.

A Network of World-Class Partners and Trainers

Creative Gym collaborates with a broad spectrum of media, creative and education partners including ADCN, Global, DPG Media, Ad Alliance, AH Retail Media Services, LinkedIn, Monks, Dawn, Vandejong, Thonik, and STRAAT. The academy engages over 1,000 professionals each year through training led by top-tier creativity experts from leading agencies, brands, startups, and institutions—from Wieden+Kennedy and B Lab to Oatly and THNK School of Leadership.

About Creative Gym

Creative Gym is the academy for creativity in business, growing creative capabilities and unleashing the creative potential and impact of professionals, teams and organizations. Through its year-round membership model, dynamic training programs, and practical tools, the academy helps companies activate their creative potential and harness it as a core engine for growth and change.