About Us

Creativity as a Way of Life

Bridging the gap between business and Art

We believe that creativity plays a key role in business success and personal fulfilment. We know it’s not something reserved for artists, but a skill everyone can develop. We use the power of the expressive arts to help our clients understand and harness their own creativity.

Our Difference

We believe that by taking a creative approach to business and life our clients will increase their business and personal impact and live better.

Our Story

Step Up Create was founded in 2014 after Katie had a life changing realisation while on a business trip to Dubai. After many years travelling in an international strategy and communications role, it was time for her to finally embrace her creativity as a business asset and start her own venture.

Given Katie’s long association with top business schools, Step Up Create’s first assignments started there, working with international masters and MBA students at ESADE and other schools developing their career, innovation and communication skills above all.

After a while it became clear that our real differentiator was our ability and experience using the expressive arts in business and professional contexts. So in 2018 with the incorporation of Raquel Calvo, also an Art therapist and coach, we pivoted the company towards this niche. This lead to our working with big name companies as part of their training and coaching programmes.

Since then we have widened our work with business schools to include more creativity and arts for leadership courses, we have continued serving leading companies in the areas of leadership, communication, creativity and teamwork and have worked extensively with teams and individuals in coaching.

Raquel left Step Up Create at the beginning of 2021 to pursue her own venture in creative coach training, Art – Soma, while Katie and a team of collaborators have continued to grow the company.

Following many requests from our clients, this year we are happy to announce a collection of new courses aimed at professionals who wish to harness the power of their creativity.

We are enjoying writing our story and we look forward to the role you will play in it!

Get our Creative Insights

Katie Annice Carr

Artist, Business Coach and Founder of Step Up Create, Katie Annice Carr has spent her career bridging business and the arts. In her classes and coaching, she uses a mixture of approaches from her background in business and law, experience in international strategic communication, and her training as a coach and art therapist.
She has facilitated workshops in China, Costa Rica, Cuba, India, Nicaragua, Panama, Spain, and the U.K. in English and Spanish. She is a lecturer and coach at ESADE business school and teaches on the MSC, MBA, Executive MBA and Executive programmes. Before launching Step Up Create, Katie spent 15 years in international strategic communication for business schools and law firms. This gave her a chance to do business in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, the United States, India, South East Asia and Europe.
Katie has an unusual mixture of qualifications that uniquely position her for helping companies and professionals achieve their full potential. Starting with the most recent, she is a Gestalt Therapist (Institut Gestalt) and ORSC Trained relations and systemic coach. She has a masters in Transdisciplinary Art Therapy and Human Development from IATBA, is a Certified Coactive Coach (CPCC) and Associate Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coach Federation, she is a Certified Lego® Serious Play® Facilitator, she holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from ESADE, a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (LPC) from the College of Law, a Masters in Legal Studies from the University of Bristol and an Undergraduate Degree in Drama from the University of Bristol.

Katie is a working artist has studied numerous courses in the expressive arts particularly painting and illustration, photography, theatre, ceramics and singing. She currently attempts to balance creation in all of these areas with running a business and bringing up her young sons. She is bilingual and is based in Barcelona.