Sylvain Bureau PhD from the Ecole Polytechnique (best thesis award in 2007), is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris Saclay in economics. He co-founded the Art Thinking Collective and the Jean-Baptiste Say Institute at ESCP.
Visiting scholar at Duke University, UC Berkeley and the City University of New York, his work characterizes the similarities of creative practices in the worlds of science, art and business. He has published numerous scientific articles, which have been frequently featured in the media (Financial Times, Forbes Japan, France Culture, Huffington Post, Harvard Business Review France, Les Echos, Usbek & Rica...). Sylvain also co-authored Free Your Pitch (Pearson).
Based on his research, Sylvain developed Art Thinking. He teaches this method through the Improbable seminar in France (ESCP, Ecole Polytechnique, Centrale Supélec, 42, Ecole de Guerre...) and abroad (Stanford, HEC Montreal, University of Oulu, Catholic University of Milan...) in collaboration with artists and cultural institutions (in particular with the Centre Pompidou and the Louvre Museum). The participants trained by Sylvain are very often executives and engineers (Airbus Defence & Space, BPCE Group, CNES, EDF, Daher, Galeries Lafayette, Orange, Sacem...).
To improve his teaching practices, Sylvain has taken two courses on online and offline teaching at Harvard Business School (in 2009 and 2020) and at the International Teacher Program (2017 and 2018). In 2021, the Improbable seminar was listed among the top 10 pedagogical innovations worldwide.