Holger Nils Pohl
Holger Nils Pohl is an award-winning communication designer, visual strategist, author, and trainer who creates clarity — helping people navigate complexity through drawings, stories, and tools that reveal what matters. He's also autistic, which shapes how he sees, thinks, and creates.
He has written over a dozen books on creativity, innovation, autism, and emotional expression — including collaborations with Tendayi Viki and Alex Osterwalder. One of them he typed entirely on his phone while carrying his third child in a belly carrier. He has led hundreds of workshops and keynotes worldwide and taught at Berlin University of the Arts and Hochschule Macromedia Cologne.
In 2025, a stroke changed everything and nothing. Since then, he's been exploring what clarity, healing, and creativity mean when your brain has changed — and sharing that journey openly.
Holger lives just outside Cologne with his wife, three kids, three horses, a dog, two cats, and some very stubborn rabbits. When he's not sketching, writing, or building things from wood, you'll find him in the garden shooting hoops, losing games of Magic: The Gathering to his kids, or just staring at the clouds.
Photo by Selda Schretzamnn,
https://www.selda-photography.com
What others say about Holger
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Dr. Alexander Osterwalder
Bestselling Author, Strategyzer
"We spend an insane amount of time on making our messages clear, simple, and visual. To achieve this we draw on Holger’s outstanding visual facilitation skills again and again." -
Christian Rangen
Strategy Innovation Consultant
"Holger is one of the world’s leading visual strategy facilitators and visual recorders. With the magic of his pens & iPad, he can make the most complex information easily understandable. His expertise is working with companies and management teams, helping them visualize, understand and communicate their strategy, innovation and change efforts."
My Passion(s)
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Clarity & Visual Thinking
I write and teach about clarity, visual thinking, drawing, decision-making, and innovation. I'm deeply invested in how we work together, and how a pen and a piece of paper can untangle problems that a hundred meetings couldn't.
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Drawing & Painting
After nearly twenty years away from it, I now draw and paint every single day (I actually drew and painted throughout the years, but solely for business purposes). It started as part of my recovery after the stroke in 2025. It became the engine of everything: the books, the videos, the thinking itself. If you want to watch clarity happen in real time, that's what my YouTube channel is for.
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Autism
I'm autistic, and I make things for the autism community, starting with Falscher Planet, a children's book that has found its way into more than a thousand families, followed by Kaya und der Apfelbaum and Theo und die Schattenblumen, plus a printable toolbox that helps autistic kids and their families navigate big emotions. This work matters to me beyond any business logic.
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Fantasy
I write fantasy books with dragons, strange creatures, magic, new worlds, mysteries, and characters who still need to find their place in life. Those books are early stage work-in-progress. I write entirely by hand, one page at a time. It's slow. That's the point.
Still here?
Then maybe we should talk.
If you're wondering what working together could look like — a presentation training for your team, a series of Crossroad Sessions, or something you have in mind that I haven't thought of yet — the best first step is simple: write me. I read every mail myself, and I'll answer honestly, including when I think I'm not the right person for it.
And if you'd rather just keep an eye on what I'm up to: every Sunday I send The Clarity Chronicle: a short, personal letter about clarity, creativity, and whatever I'm figuring out that week. No marketing, I promise.