New Coursera-Hosted Course Equips Professionals to Use Creativity as a Strategic Tool Across Industries
PHILADELPHIA, August 6, 2025 – Today, Wharton Online, the digital learning platform of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, announced the launch of Creativity in Business and Other Disciplines, available on Coursera, one of the world’s leading online learning platforms. This self-paced course is designed to help learners apply creativity as a strategic, problem-solving skill in fields ranging from business and marketing to design, architecture, science, and technology.
Creativity is often misunderstood as a gift rather than a capability that can be cultivated. Creativity in Business and Other Disciplines challenges that assumption through a hands-on, cross-disciplinary curriculum informed by the work of more than 60 world-class innovators. The course blends cognitive science, design thinking, gamification, AI, and art to provide learners with a practical toolkit for generating and evaluating ideas that solve real-world problems.
Learners will hear directly from renowned thinkers and practitioners whose careers embody boundary-pushing creativity, including Nobel Prize-winning mRNA scientist Dr. Drew Weissman, internationally acclaimed glass sculptor Dale Chihuly, and global fashion icon Tommy Hilfiger. Their perspectives illustrate how creativity drives transformation—in labs, studios, boardrooms, and beyond.
“Everyone, regardless of age or profession, can enhance their creativity,” said Yoram (Jerry) Wind, course academic director, Lauder Professor Emeritus, and professor of marketing at Wharton. “This course helps people across industries systematically strengthen their creative capacity and apply it in meaningful, measurable ways.”
Wind developed this course as an evolution of a popular MBA elective he taught at Wharton for more than a decade, now redesigned for a broader audience of professionals and learners worldwide.
“Creativity is one of the most in-demand skills in today’s workforce,” said Marni Baker Stein, Chief Content Officer at Coursera. “This course from Wharton Online helps demystify creativity and gives learners practical tools to apply it with intention, whether they’re leading teams, launching products, or navigating change. It’s an incredible opportunity to learn from some of the world’s most innovative minds and build a skillset that’s essential in an AI-driven future.”
Through a self-paced, nine-module journey, learners will:
- Discover 12 proven sets of approaches to creativity, including morphological analysis, gamification, and interdisciplinary collaboration
- Design and implement personal experiments to practice new frameworks and approaches in real time
- Build a personalized creative toolkit to use in their own work or organization
- Hear the real-world experiences of 60+ distinguished creatives, innovators, and industry leaders
By the end of the course, learners will understand the processes that drive innovation across domains and be equipped to lead with creativity, courage, and curiosity. Participants who complete the course will receive a certificate issued by Wharton Online through Coursera.
Creativity in Business and Other Disciplines is available now for enrollment on Coursera. Learners can access the course here. Course fee is $99.
Yoram (Jerry) Wind is the Lauder Professor Emeritus and Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, where he has been a transformative force since 1967. A pioneer in marketing and management education, he founded the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, co-created the Lauder Institute and Wharton Executive MBA, and has published over 300 scholarly works and 30 books. A recipient of all four major marketing awards and a 2017 inductee into the Marketing Hall of Fame, Wind continues to shape global business and education through research, consulting, and initiatives such as the Reimagine Education competition and a new AI-powered learning paradigm.
About Wharton Online
Wharton Online, the Wharton School’s digital learning platform, makes high-quality business education available to learners anytime and anywhere. From certificate programs that issue Continuing Education Units to specializations across a variety of business and management topics, Wharton Online’s offerings equip learners to advance their careers. And with 100K certificate-earning learners and more than one million total learners who have accessed courses, Wharton Online boasts an impressive network of business leaders around the globe.
About the Wharton School
Founded in 1881 as the world’s first collegiate business school, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is shaping the future of business by incubating ideas, driving insights, and creating leaders who change the world. With a faculty of more than 235 renowned professors, Wharton has 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students. Each year 100,000 professionals from around the world advance their careers through Wharton Executive Education’s individual, company-customized, and online programs, and thousands of pre-collegiate students explore business concepts through Wharton’s Global Youth Program. More than 105,000 Wharton alumni form a powerful global network of leaders who transform business every day. For more information, visit www.wharton.upenn.edu.
About Coursera
Coursera was launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. It is now one of the largest online learning platforms in the world, with 183 million registered learners as of June 30, 2025. Coursera partners with over 350 leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, and degrees. Coursera’s platform innovations enable instructors to deliver scalable, personalized, and verified learning experiences to their learners. Institutions worldwide rely on Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, citizens, and students in high-demand fields such as GenAI, data science, technology, and business. Coursera is a Delaware public benefit corporation and a B Corp.
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