John Austin

"I am not a futurist. I make everyone in the audience a futurist!"

-John Austin, PhD

What if you could see the future?

What if you could thrive when others struggle in times of great uncertainty?

Dr. Austin will create an experience unlike any other to get your group focused on the future.

Your group will not just talk about the future...your group will experience the future.

NOTE: These customized, highly-interactive sessions are well-suited for micro-events, team meetings, and community-building events in addition to your larger events. Dr. Austin will help you cascade a message throughout all levels of your organization.

Commitment to Positive Impact: As a speaker focused on aspirational futures, Dr. Austin is committed to positive impact. Our commitment:

1. The 10% Promise: 10% of the speaker fee after expenses will be committed to a non-profit. While we do not allow clients to specify a recipient, we aim to direct this donation to support client topics of interest. We will work to support philanthropic aims of your event or organization.

For your next all-hands meeting, employee development, or community event: Help your audience transform their understanding of uncertainty and learn actions enabling them to thrive. Building from his Uncertainty Intelligence framework, Dr. Austin will share small moves and mindset shifts that allow us to transform discomfort with uncertainty into positive momentum and inspired action.

For your next sales meeting, conference, board meeting, vendor support event, or leadership development program: Create an aspirational mindset by placing all participants in a future custom designed for your organization. Which companies are thriving in these futures? How have customer needs changed? How is value created? These future-focused insights will find their way into conversations throughout the rest of your event.

By combining Dr. Austin's uncertainty vectoring model with widely available AI tools, we show audience members how to create adaptable futures which can be updated quickly as the world shifts. Revisit your custom future map 3, 6, or 12 months later at your future events and update your customized future stories with little effort. In so doing, connect your past events to your current event, and to your future aspirations.

About John

John Austin brings together a unique mix of experiences to create high-energy, mindset-shifting talks. He brings his experience as a global strategist, professor and leadership coach, stage actor, entrepreneur, and award-winning researcher to everything he does.

Dr. Austin is a founder of the Dynamic Foresight Group as well as the P.D. Merrill Endowed Chair of Business and Inaugural Dean for the University of New England Honors College. He teaches in executive programs for Wharton Executive Education (UPenn), Penn State University, Duke CE, and Georgetown University.. He has been on the faculty at Penn State University and The University of Washington. Dr. Austin also worked as a Principal at the noted strategy and scenario planning consultancy, Decision Strategies International (DSI). He has worked with numerous global Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and professional associations developing leaders and leading long-term projects in the areas of strategic foresight, leading through uncertainty, change management, team performance, and strategy execution.

Dr. Austin holds a BA in economics from The Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in organization studies from Boston College. He's conducted research on team leadership, organizational change implementation, and strategic decision-making. His research on knowledge-based decision-making teams is widely cited in the academic literature, as is his work on the strategic actions of internal change agents.

Dr. Austin's research has been published in leading management and applied psychology journals including the International Journal of Project Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Organization Science, as well as practice-oriented publications such as HR Magazine, Fast Company, and The OD Practitioner. His work has been recognized with three Best Paper awards from the Academy of Management. He is the author of Unquestioned Brilliance: Navigating a Fundamental Leadership Trap and Leading Effective Change: A Primer for the HR Professional published as part of the SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series.

When John is not working you will find him hiking, kayaking, walking his dog and enjoying his time as part of an island community on the coast of Maine.