Max Dickins is the founder of Hoopla Business, the corporate training, events and content arm of Hoopla: the UK’s biggest improv school. Since 2012 they’ve been applying the ideas and skills of improvisartion to workplace challenges. They’ve worked with big name firms across a huge variety of industries, all over the world from Paris to Hong Kong to Sydney. Everything from big advertising agencies like JWT or AMV/BBDO, top-level tech firms like Facebook and Apple, national media brands like the BBC and NBC Universal, through to big finance and management consultancy firms like Goldman Sachs and Accenture. Max likes to think of improvisation as like yoga for your soft skills, if yoga makes your body more flexible then improv makes your thinking and communication more agile. At a time of unprecedented and rapid technological change, Max is passionate about upskilling individuals and the businesses they work in, so they are equipped with the creativity and emotional intelligence skills that will future proof them in the market place.
Max started his career as a radio presenter for Absolute Radio, spending two years behind the mic and being nominated for a prestigious Sony Radio Award in the process. On the stage he’s worked as a professional stand-up comedian, with his third solo-show ‘My Groupon Adventure’ a sell-out smash hit at the Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh festival in 2014. His first book, inspired by that show, ‘My Groupon Adventure’, was published in June 2016. He’s recently worked as playwright, with his shows ‘The Trunk’ and ‘The Man on the Moor’ successes with audiences and critics alike. He’s currently proud to be the presenter of ‘Voom Room’, featuring news, gossip and great guests from the Vigin Media Business Voom competition. (Think Dragon’s Den, but with Sir Richard Branson).
