Adam Lerner
Founder, Designer, Facilitator @Solvable
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WORK HISTORY
Founder, Designer, Facilitator @Solvable
Vancouver, BC, CA
Solvable started back in 2011 on the idea that innovative solutions could be the remedies to the wicked problems ailing our social and planetary systems. This theory of change subscribed to the worldview that so called breakthroughs are technical–once found, they are the key to unlocking new futures. Like the way high pressure turns carbon to diamonds, our work was to shape collaboration conditions amongst innovation teams so jewels would form.In 2019, my worldview shifted. With escalating climate disasters and growing socio-economic and racial divisions, it felt like the end game of colonial modernity—no matter how innovative the solutions were, they were predicated on the values of the dominant paradigm that solved on the backs of people of colour, women, the poor, flora, fauna, and the biosphere. These were fixes that failed because the innovations reproduced our unsustainable and violent culture while furthering its perpetuity.Once we saw through our disillusionment that there was no win-win in doing well by doing good, we adapted Solvable to work on the undercurrents of cultures and mental models—working within the cracks of what is being released to enable a different kind of future. Our theory of change is that the organizations fail to adapt because all too rarely spaces are created that invite others ways of knowing and being together in the work. This is not a failure of knowing that adaptation is needed, but rather the inability to interrupt the momentum that keeps groups, institutions, and communities in the space of incrementalism. This is why we offer processes in place of answers, questions instead of declarations. We kept the name Solvable as an accountability to our legacy and to hold the paradox of our past with our present. Same name, different meaning.
EDUCATION
Colorado College
BA, History
Texas McCombs School of Business
MBA, Marketing & Entrepreneurship
SKILLS
ABOUT ADAM LERNER
My head, heart, and hands are called in by this particular moment in history—of ruptures, fissures, cracks—to transform beyond a racist, unequal, and extractive culture.I design and hold spaces for edgewalkers, groups, organizations, and systems moving towards alternative futures at Solvable and occasionally write essays on consciousness during the polycrisis in The Understory. I spent nearly fifteen years in various agencies exploring design as innovation in worldmaking. My undergraduate history degree at Colorado College taught me to think. My MBA at the University of Texas taught me how to create and deploy strategy. Working across networks and systems for over a decade at Solvable helps me sense the alternative futures that are not just possible, but also here now. I currently live as a settler in what is currently known as Vancouver, Canada, on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations.
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