Aithan Shapira

Aithan Shapira, MFA, PhD, is an artist and executive leadership development expert whose work bridges fine art and organizational innovation. Shapira is a Lecturer at MIT Sloan and founder of TILT, a firm dedicated to evolving leaders and organizational cultures for dynamic environments. Born in the United States to Israeli parents, Shapira’s multicultural background informs his approach to both art and leadership, with his paintings, prints, and concrete constructions exploring themes such as migration, place-making, and way-finding. His artwork is recognized for its layered contradictions, including the use of materials like concrete and soap life preservers, and a distinctive palette of yellows crafted from earth, ash, and limestone.

Shapira’s academic and creative research includes studies at the Royal College of Art & Design and immersive fieldwork in an Australian Aboriginal community, where he examined creativity in cultures of survival. He serves as a visiting critic at arts institutions internationally. His work has been exhibited at Harvard University’s Sackler Museum, the Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, FL, JCC Manhattan, Royal Academy of Arts in London, and in public installations across New York City as part of "Stations of the Cross" at CCNY. Shapira’s exhibitions span museums and galleries in New York, London, and Miami, and he is a recipient of the Daler-Rowney Drawing Prize.

At MIT Sloan, Shapira integrates artistic practice with executive education, focusing on leadership development, creativity in business, and organizational change. His executive training methods are informed by more than 20 years of experience in unlocking creative capacities for innovation. Shapira has developed and delivered curricula for global leaders, change agents, organizations, and government entities, including the MIT Sloan Executive Education course "Unlocking the Power of Perspectives: Problem Solving with Clarity, Creativity, and Collaboration." He has contributed to leadership and skills retraining programs at MIT Sloan, Harvard iLab, Stanford d.school, and Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship.

Shapira’s methodologies have been implemented with organizations in technology, healthcare, finance, and green energy, including NASA, the United Nations, Greenpeace, Google, Mass General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. He serves on McKinsey’s think tank for learning innovation. Over his career, Shapira has trained more than 12,000 leaders, 240 facilitators and coaches, delivered over 160 keynotes, and developed leadership curricula for more than 30 Fortune 500 organizations. Through TILT and his work at MIT, Shapira advances the perspective that creativity is a rigorous discipline essential for driving meaningful change in organizations.