ABOUT

OBJECTIVE

The Business of Creativity newsletter began as an extension of The Business of Creativity education platform.

Over time, it became our most accessible and consistent channel for sharing the thinking behind our work and flagship course: Creativity for Growth presented by Sir John Hegarty.

A clear point of view, delivered weekly, that readers can apply to their own challenges.

Beyond being a content channel, it supports the wider business in straightforward ways: keeping our ideas visible, creating long-term relationships with readers who care about creativity and growth, and allowing people to assess our deeper offerings - courses, events, consultancy - based on the quality of the thinking.

As we say, “Creativity isn’t just for a select few. It’s a fundamental skill - teachable, scalable, and essential in every corner of life and business.”

Because, we collectively believe, that in a market of infinite noise, being boring is the most expensive mistake you can make.


STRATEGY & EXECUTION

Initially centred around the views of Sir John Hegarty - creative icon and course leader of Creativity for Growth - the newsletter has since expanded to include a broader mix of voices.

In 2025, we refined the format. Listening to our readers, polling showed that the opinion piece was the most valued section, so we made it the focus.

Each week, a guest contributor shares a strong point of view on creativity and growth, and responds to two consistent questions:

What is your creative North Star? - a sentence or theme they try to live by
What has inspired you lately? - something they’ve watched, read, or listened to that they’d recommend.
This structure grounds every issue in both principle and culture. It makes the ideas practical, not abstract.

It shows creativity at work across disciplines - from brand and design to technology and enterprise - and gives readers perspectives they can take back into their own work.

Recent contributors have included Stephania Silveira, Creative Director at The LEGO Group; Sol Rashidi, the world’s first Chief AI Officer for enterprise; and Brian Collins, co-founder of COLLINS.

This range is deliberate.

That widening has made it more diverse, inclusive, and reflective of the creative practitioners we admire: strategists, founders, designers, marketers, technologists.

All with a shared belief that creativity is essential to business success.


RESULTS

The results from 2025 reflect the positive editorial shifts we made:

○ Growth: 57% increase in active subscribers growing from 8.6k to 13.5k.

○ Engagement is strong: 55.9% open rate vs 41% average open rate across Beehiiv newsletters, and 43.89% open rate for creativity-focused newsletters

○ Alongside this, our LinkedIn presence has become a major distribution channel: we now have 52.3k newsletter subscribers on the platform, with 1.15 million article views over the past 12 months - a signal of both appetite and trust in our content.

○ The audience is global, with the largest subscriber bases in the USA, United Kingdom, and Australia.

○ In 2025, The Business of Creativity was acquired by Whalar Group - a move that reflects its value and its role within a wider creative ecosystem.


Testimonials:

“I look forward to this newsletter each week. It cuts through the noise and is an inspiring read. Thank you.”

“Thanks for making this one of those newsletters I always read.”

“Bloody love this!”

“It is great to see these thoughts and ideas expressed and promulgated. Thank you.”



Taken together - the purpose, the editorial clarity, the quality of contributors, the global growth and sustained engagement, the acquisition, the testimonials - it’s clear that this newsletter is trusted, read, and needed.

And each week, it reinforces a simple idea that business keeps proving - and that becomes more urgent in an AI-shaped world: creativity drives growth.