If you’re looking for a dynamic super creative who will (literally) add rocket fuel to your events and campaigns – Dr Nelly Ben Hayoun- Stépanian will deliver in spades. She is known for electrifying audiences and leaving an impression that resonates long after she has left the room.
Dubbed the Willy Wonka of Design and Science, award-winning director and Designer of Experiences, Nelly is a critical explorer and a fearless and passionate provocateur combining experiences, ideas, design, technology, film, radical pedagogy, music and art. Supporting the creation of organized communities, Nelly builds platforms for others to experience plurality, decolonial practices, social and racial justice, solidarity and equity, so that history does not repeat itself on earth or beyond.
Over the past 15 years, Nelly has performed and spoke about her unique practice and transdisciplinary expertise to sold out shows and in the world’s biggest venues and stages. Her passion is always authentic, truthful, accessible and it is felt by any individuals-being with 17500 people at the Hollywood Bowl, or in a more intimate setting with a handful of individuals. She inspires and she shares her positive energy and learnings with everyone in attendance. As an experienced keynote speaker, she has spoken worldwide about experiential design practices in the context of nightlife, outreach, community and education. Nelly is also a radio host on underground radio station Worldwide FM, and a host, who has been a MC on multiple events such as the Dezeen Awards.
In conversation, hosting panels or as opening or closing keynote, she is very at ease on stage and she enjoys to make the audience participate.
She has held an astonishing range of first-of-its kind roles. As Designer of Experiences at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute) she founded the worlds first International Space Orchestra, a group made up of NASA space scientists and astronauts. Nelly’s musical collaborations include grammy-award winning artists such as Kid Cudi, Pussy Riot, Damon Albarn, Bjork, Sigur Ros, Beck, and most recently, with The Avalanches.
Nelly works across disciplines, she is a Associate Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for politics and humanities where she works to support plurality and the freedom of thinking across borders, Vice Chair of the IAF (International Astronautical Federation) Technical Committee on the Cultural Utilization of Space (ITACCUS), a member of the IAF Space Education and Outreach Committee (SEOC), and a member of the IAA (International Academy of Astronautics) Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) permanent committee amongst others since 2013, and a founding member of the IAF Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Administrative (IDEA) committee in 2023. In 2022, she was granted a Karman Fellowship and took part into a one-year programme designed to support 15 carefully selected global leaders to strengthen personal relations, meet with thought-leaders in technology, science, business, politics and the arts, and take personal commitments to further advance space-related agendas for the betterment of humanity. Ben Hayoun-Stépanian was the chief of Experiences at file transfer service WeTransfer for 10 years working with WeTransfer’s president Damian Bradfield towards building a sustainable B Corp Business, Nelly also assisted in the business development and strategy in the USA. During Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s tenure at WeTransfer the company grew its client base from 10,000 users to 90 millions active users a month.
Now, if you’re ever in the mood for a wild ride, Nelly has also led multiple large scale scientific and cultural expeditions, trained special forces such as FEMA (The Federal Emergency Management Agency) in the USA or the United Nations on space disasters such as near earth objects and asteroid impacts. Her design practice brought her investigation to the empty lands of Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the Large Hadron Collider, CERN situated 100m below ground. She has also collided atoms at SLAC (National Accelerator Laboratory), trapped herself in a Soyuz rocket capsule in Baikonur Cosmodrome,and experienced a sonic Booum in the neutrino Observatory Super Kamiokande in Japan while hunting for extremophiles and the worms of Hell in platinum mines in South Africa.
She is founder of the pioneering University of the Underground, a free MA programme taught by an all-star line up that aims to teach students how to “design experiences and events that best support social dreaming, social actions and power shifts within institutions, companies and governments”.
As if this was not surreal enough, Nelly also has two doppelgangers who work with her to appear at multiple places at the same time, a Barbie doll and a Lego made of herself.
Her design work has been exhibited at the National Museum of China, MOMA, V&A, the MET and other leading design institutions. Wired awarded her their inaugural Innovation.
