Dr. Gigi Johnson
Co-Founder and President, Rethink Next and Maremel Studio
Reimagining Decisions, Futures, Collaboration, and Experiments in an AI-Embedded World
- Builder of professional leadership program
- Keynote speaker on human systems and tech change
- Creator in AI, XR, and digital music
- Explorer of impacts of new technologies for 25 years at Rethink Next, Maremel, UCLA Anderson, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, and Bank of America
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, digital media, social media, music, regional communities, collaboration, and education.
Gigi co-founded Maremel in 2005 and Rethink Next in 2018 to work with organizations on how digital technologies and systems disrupt and rebuild 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 has built virtual and immersive worlds and experiences for partners and with organizations.
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.