Matt Stillman has worked one-on-one with over 1000 people to help them understand and solve their problems. As a deep listener, Matt identifies unseen connections. He uses creative techniques to identify new directions and new solutions, bringing his clients to a new understanding and moving them towards new opportunities in their lives.
Prior to his career as a professional problem-solver, Matt was a program development executive at Food Network, where he oversaw the production of thousands of hours of programming. His job was to come up with new ideas, find good ones and then make them better and then discover talent to make it all come together. He discovered Iron Chef and Good Eats among many others.
Matt is a 15 year veteran of long form improvisational comedy, primarily at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in NYC. As a student of Amy Poehler, he learned about how improvisation is about listening and focusing on the other person, giving back and agreeing and adding new information by embodying the philosophies of “yes, and” and “if this, then what?” He wrote a book integrating improvisational comedy concepts with the Ten Commandments, fearlessly mixing the sacred with the creative.
Matt conceived of, wrote the treatment for and co-produced a feature length documentary film about the origins of poverty and why it persists in a world with so much wealth. His film, called “The End of Poverty?” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was featured in over 40 festivals around the world. Matt has spoken at the United Nations about the film and poverty four times as well as many other educational and socio-political forums.
Currently Matt is developing a study to radically transform the property tax system in New York City.
He created JED Talks, a satire of TED Talks, now in development for television.
Collaborating with Bridget Pilloud, Matt is writing The Antipreneur’s Handbook: 8 Counter-Intuitive Approaches to Business and Life.
Matt Stillman lives in New York City with his wife Susan.