Her Story

After studying psychology for seven years and working as a consumer psychologist, Amantha Imber yearned for something more meaningful. Though she pursued a career as an advertising psychologist for several years, she ultimately found the work too ethically challenging. In 2006, her desire to go back to her organisational roots and help other people prevailed, and she quit her job to carve out her own path.

Today, the risk of doing her own thing has certainly paid off, as she stands at the helm of Inventium, one of Australia’s leading innovation consultancies and fastest-growing businesses. For Amantha, being surrounded by a skilled and supportive team has been imperative to her success. “Build a great team around you. I obsess over recruitment – I think it’s by far one of the most important things I do in my role as a business owner. Through being obsessive and not settling for average (or even above-average), I have built a team of absolute superstars without whom, Inventium would have been nowhere near as successful as it is today.”

A successful businesswomen, writer and psychologist, Amantha can be described as an accomplished jack-of-all-trades. She has added to her growing list of titles by being a finalist for the Telstra Business Women of the Year, best-selling author behind The Creative Formula: 50 scientifically proven creativity boosters for work and life and co-creator of the BRW Most Innovative Companies List.

Aside from having worked with business giants like Disney, Coca-Cola, American Express and more, she has also written for reputable publications such as the Australian Financial Review, BRW, Australian Business Solutions and Smart Company.

Outside of the corporate sphere, Amantha has had an international record deal for her debut album Like Samantha without the S. She describes herself as a devotee of Kevin Spacey and a die-hard Seth Godin fan.

With her second book, The Innovation Formula, out now, Amantha Imber shows no signs of slowing down.

Strategies for Success

• Share generously. I operate from a mindset of plenty rather than one of scarcity – which means myself and my team default to sharing as much of Inventium’s methodologies as possible.
•  Embrace failure. I feel like I have a healthy relationship with failure, because for me, it’s all about the opportunity to learn. If I don’t take a risk (and therefore, risk failing), I don’t have nearly as much of an opportunity to learn.
• Practice humility. At Inventium, we have a strict, no-ego policy. If we even get a whiff of ego during our recruitment process, we will knock back even the most qualified of candidates. Being humble means recognising there is always more to learn and being open to lessons coming from the most unlikely of people and places.
• Be a time optimiser. I despise dead time so I have developed different strategies to avoid it. I set up a mobile office in the back of taxis, use my frequent time on planes to work on big tasks that require un-interrupted thinking time, and set myself problems to incubate on during my morning runs.
• Drop the mask. I hate how the corporate world makes people feel they have to put on a mask at work, and essentially, check their real self in at the door. Myself and the team refuse to adopt the dress code or the mask. We simply bring ourselves to work, we speak and write like humans, and what you see is what you get.