Tell us a bit about your journey from being a Rotman MBA student to becoming a futurist.
It has certainly been a winding road, but I think for most Millennials, career paths are becoming more and more unconventional. During the MBA program at Rotman, I focused on Strategic Management and learned how to help businesses make the right decisions for the medium and long term. I also really enjoyed Statistics — how to assign probabilities to decisions, and game theory. And of course, Economics: How do the macro decisions of businesses, sectors and entire countries impact the decisions we make?
Perhaps most importantly, I took a course called Strategic Foresight, and that really planted the seed. By the time I graduated, I had learned all of the varied components of what it means to practise ‘futurism,’ and how to apply that to ambiguous settings that require both qualitative and quantitative data analysis.
Basically, we’re passing AI the keys to human language and attention.
I realized that people can make a living around building scenarios about where the future is likely headed, based on emerging technologies and unknown variables. However, I didn’t think about it as a career for myself. I was set on the becoming a management consultant, and I was fortunate enough to land an internship with A. T. Kearney. They actually played a vital role in my ability to take the leap of faith.
While I loved consulting — and I
