The youngest child in a large, Irish Catholic family, John Sweeney was raised on a farm near Madison, WI, and is one of the only cheese heads to have had his head actually made out of cheese. Sweeney graduated from St. Norbert College in 1988 (before his head was made out of cheese) and entered the workforce as a bright-eyed, ambitious, corporate real estate consultant. Never one to sit still, he quickly climbed to the top of the corporate ladder, became a partner in the business and took in the view from the top. He was very good at his job, but it still felt like a job. It was missing something. So Sweeney gave up his lucrative professional income, sold his shares and took a job with aspirations of comedy and minimum wage at the Brave New Workshop.

His big, 5-year-old-with-a-sugar-high personality had found the perfect fit: the world of improvisation as a performer and speaker. It fit so well that he bought the Brave New Workshop in 1997. Which meant that, once again, he’d climbed to the top of the corporate ladder. This time, however, he had the principles of improvisation at his disposal and he knew how they could help his business. It may seem obvious to say that people in business have to improvise, but he knew first hand how difficult that could be. So he decided to use the tools he’d learned from improvisation to become a speaker and teach businesses how to apply the skills of improvisation to overcome business challenges. To date, his message and methods have helped an extensive list of clients including Ceridian, Microsoft, Target, General Mills, US Bancorp, Medtronic, Hampton and many others.

That’s a little background on John Sweeney. Of course, the best way to find out what John Sweeney is like is to see him at work.