Michael Soto: Getting Coffee with Colleagues

Michael Soto is the Co-Founder of Spark Collaboration, where he has helped organizations create powerful networks by systematically pairing staff to have coffee together for increased employee engagement, productivity and innovation.

Spark builds upon the success of ‘Randomised Coffee Trials,’ a process that Michael helped design at Nesta, the UK innovation foundation. In 2015, Spark won the ‘International Project of the Year’ Employee Engagement Award for the work it has done with the International Federation for the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Spark has been highlighted in Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post as well as US News and World Report.

Prior to Spark, Michael worked at Nesta, the UK innovation foundation, where he was part of the Innovation Skills team and helped develop a learning platform for practitioners interested in innovation. As part of a project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, he undertook field research in Colombia to surface innovation tools and processes which Nesta subsequently expanded upon to develop the DIY Toolkit.

Michael has attended Harvard University, the University of Sussex, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota.