Dr. Gigi Johnson

Managing Partner, Rethink Next and Maremel Studios

 

  • Transformational experience builder 
  • Engaging keynote speaker on creative and tech change
  • Creator in XR and music 
  • Explorer of impacts of new technologies for 25 years at Rethink Next, Maremel Studios, UCLA, and Bank of America.
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Dr. Gigi Johnson

Creative Tech Futurist +
Transformative Experience Creator

 

Gigi Johnson has worked on where the future may be going for more than 25 years. She has explored where technology change impacts creative work, media, social media, music, regional communities, and education in each one of her many adventures. 

Gigi co-founded Maremel in 2005 and Rethink Next in 2018 to explore digital disruption in how we work, learn, and create.   She has built conferences, training, events, research, and learning media around helping leaders and groups work with next-generation technology and evolving communities.  She has advised leaders in start-ups and larger organizations in media, music, and education. She also is building virtual and immersive worlds and experiences.

Dr. Johnson speaks around the world on digital transformations — both in the past and in the extended future.   Through Rethink Next, she also has been running immersive events and collaborations on the possible futures of creative work in local communities.  Rethink Next also ran the Amplify Music Communities programs, launched during the Pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

She taught at UCLA for 22 years before branching back to creative and collaboration work at Maremel and Rethink Next in 2021.  She taught at UCLA Herb Alpert School for 11 years in music innovation and advanced marketing, and she produced and hosted the UCLA podcast “Innovating Music.”  For 5 years, she ran the UCLA Center for Music Innovation, a think-tank on future music technologies and systems change.

Before UCLA Alpert, she ran centers and graduate and executive courses on digital disruption at UCLA Anderson for a decade, after years of financing media M&A at Bank of America.  Gigi also has run 2 VOD networks and produced 8 years of concerts, 3 early web series, and 2 family music albums.

Gigi holds a doctorate in educational leadership for change and media studies from Fielding Graduate University, an MBA in finance and entertainment from UCLA Anderson, and a BA in Film/Television Production from USC Cinematic Arts.