Biography

As a Culture Futurist® with 30 years of leadership experience in the arts, creative industries, life sciences, and business, Theo Edmonds applies cross-sector insight to authoring Wondervation®, a method for advancing how innovation is practiced during periods of cultural and technological upheaval. An artist, poet, entrepreneur, and analytics innovator, his work focuses on the human side of the future of work and unlocking systemic creativity in partnership with technology.

Theo’s executive, artistic, and research background spans corporate healthcare, social innovation, academia, and the creative economy. He has led projects for Fortune 100 companies, city and state governments, family offices, universities, and national arts organizations.

He currently serves as Associate Research Professor at the University of Colorado Denver and as Culture Futurist in Residence at the Colorado Springs campus. He previously served as Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in CU Denver’s College of Arts and Media. He sits on the executive committee of the board of directors at Americans for the Arts and serves on steering and advisory committees for several international initiatives focused on integrating neuroscience with economic systems.

In 2022, concerned that American innovation was losing its sense of wonder, Theo launched a two-year national journey. He traveled from Appalachian coal towns to Capitol Hill, and from Silicon Valley C-suites to South Florida art studios, asking a single question: “What’s holding your organization’s creativity back?”

The answers shaped what came next. In 2025, he founded Creativity America to begin removing those barriers. Working directly with leaders in the private and public sectors, the initiative offers a new model for economic growth that integrates the foresight of artists with the strategic execution of business leaders in high-velocity markets. He calls it the Wonder Economy™, a systems-level, neuroscience-informed approach to innovation. 

A gay, neurodiverse, eighth-generation Appalachian from Breathitt County, Kentucky (also known through J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, though Theo offers a distinct perspective on its innovative spirit), Southern Living Magazine named him “50 People Changing the Face of the South” in 2015 for co-founding the arts innovation nonprofit IDEAS xLab. Theo built and led a National Science Foundation-funded team that developed the Cultural Wellbeing Index and was awarded the Epic Trailblazer Award for Innovation in Research from University of Louisville.