• The Australian Strategic Foresight Company

    Helping You Re-Imagine Your Future

  • The Australian Strategic Foresight Company

  • The Australian Strategic Foresight Company

Our Clients

What can we do for you?

In a fast moving modern world there is real value in being able to think differently about the future and be more open to the possibilities before you.

Our key services are keynote presentations for conferences and workshops, specific workshops on future thinking and complexity, and tailored consultancy on strategic thinking and planning using a futures perspective. We apply the processes and techniques of foresight and how to deal with complexity to facilitate your strategic thinking and capacity for decision making in complex and uncertain circumstances so you can:

Create high levels of situational awareness

Think and plan better than your competitors

Seize opportunities before anyone else

Manage your strategic risks

Develop a capacity for strategic flexibility

Testimonials

Paul was brought onboard to facilitate a Strategic Plan for the RSL Victoria network of 270 sub-branches.

Paul was able to bring together representatives of many Sub-branches from the smallest (15 members) to the largest (14,000+ members).  All attendee’s were made to feel that their input was important and valued to create a successful document for the future of RSL Victoria.”

Note: The new Strategic Plan was overwhelming endorsed by the sub-branches at the July 2023 State Conference and Paul continues to work with the RSL to implement the strategy

Kevin Hillier OAMPresident Frankston RSL Sub-Branch

“We at Our Community have been running conferences of thought leadership for over 1000 people for sixteen years and the presentation by Paul Higgins was mesmerising.  His command of the topic and audience was inspiring, visionary, and practical. Paul stared into the future while also being grounded in takeaways for every person in the audience.  Paul Higgins is not just highly recommended, he is a must see and must experience speaker.” 

Denis MoriartyGroup Managing Director, Our Community

“Paul Higgins recent presentation at Mindshop’s annual Australasian / New Zealand advisor conference entitled: ‘Bringing the future into your advisory practice’ was excellent on many fronts. Paul’s ability to simplify the complexity out of the topics he covered and his practical insights on future trends resonated very well with our attendees. Paul also managed to tailor the messages he delivered to our target audience and to the overall conference theme which ensured a strong start to our conference. Thank you again for a great presentation.”

James MasonManaging Director Mindshop

“When we engaged Emergent Futures to work with us on our strategic planning processes we were a little uncertain about how the process would go. It turned out that while we did not get what we originally thought we wanted, we got exactly what we needed. Because they shaped their approach to fit the organisation’s needs and were  willing to stand up and challenge the way we did things we now have a flexible plan that fits the reality of our organisation and the environment we work in. We also have a strategic thinking framework that allows us to make responsive strategic decisions while still providing a strong governance structure for the board.”

Stella AvramopolousCEO : Kildonan Uniting Care

You definitely won’t get a ‘vanilla’ presentation when you engage Paul Higgins. Paul is very connected to the world we live in and will immerse himself in your business in preparation for your event and deliver a thought provoking and insightful view of future possibilities. My advice is not to just engage Paul for a keynote – the best part is the exchange of ideas across the room when the presentation has concluded and everyone has something to say. Thank you for energising our recent Leadership Retreat Paul.

Lisa MaddenGroup Manager, People & Culture, McPherson Media Group

It was a genuine pleasure working with Paul Higgins (of Emergent Futures) on the energy security workshop for the Australian Sugar Milling Council recently.  Paul brought incredible professionalism to the role – a great balance of foresight, planning, engagement and rigour, resulting in a well executed workshop.  However the real value of Paul’s involvement was based on his willingness to dig deeper into the issue, challenge industry and individual thinking – right down to post workshop follow up, and providing further strategy clarification.  I’d welcome the opportunity to work with Paul again.

Sharon DennySenior Executive Officer, Government & Business Development Australian Sugar Milling Council

“Paul brought a higher level of thought to participants, lifting thinking from the usual annual cycle to challenge us on how we were responding to opportunities that already existed. It brought context to what we see as the important things now. You could see people sit up as they thought about what we do and what we can do. He didn’t provide the answers, but empowered people to begin thinking of the questions our organisation needs to be asking ourselves “

John O’ConnellCEO : Life Education Trust New Zealand

“Engaging Emergent Futures was one of the best things we did in our whole planning process. Their alternative perspectives and insights on how to think about the future were exactly what we needed to challenge our thinking and stimulate new ideas. Their approach also helped us frame challenging issues in a way that effectively communicated those ideas to others, which is something we couldn’t have achieved by ourselves.”

Bruce FinneyCEO: Cotton Research & Development Corporation

“I couldn’t be more impressed at the professionalism and the commitment that Paul Higgins made to a recent Keynote Address that he gave at the National Small Business Summit. The presentation was informative, entertaining – he both delighted and frightened delegates. A sign of a good presentation is when speakers across the course of the day keep referring back to it and the key points that he made  – and that certainly occurred with Paul’s keynote: The Double Edge Sword that is the future landscape for small business. What particularly impressed me was the effort that Paul put into preparing the presentation and ensuring that it would be well received – No pulling a set script off the shelf for this presentation.  Paul initiated lots of communication before the event, ensured that his examples and case studies would be relevant to our guests and was an absolute professional throughout.  Thanks Paul – I hope that we get to work together in the future”

Bambi GordonDirector, The Growdon Group, on behalf of the Council of Small Business of Australia for the National Small Business Summit

“As a result of holding this session we will be doing some new and different things in our organisation, there were immediate, tangible outcomes and benefits for us.”

Sarah DaviesChair of Kids Under Cover and CEO of the Melbourne Community Foundation.

“Paul facilitated a meeting for Australian Dairy Farmers on a quite sensitive industry topic with a range of views from dairy farmers across the country.  He helped set up this important half-day meeting so it flowed well, conducted pre-meeting discussions to get people’s views and managed a very large meeting with a very large number of stakeholders with diverse and passionate views very well. We found his forthright yet diplomatic approach and background knowledge extremely helpful and would not hesitate to use Paul’s services again.”

David LosbergSenior Policy Manager: Australian Dairy Farmers
  • Really good topic for the group to think about future thinking, often get caught in the day to day operations or single year planning,
  • Really liked our speaker today, I would have happily listened for longer as I feel he had plenty more stories to tell,
  • Great presentation and topic today,
  • Paul’s presentation was great, lots of useful ideas and insights
  • Key takeaway for me was the Wardley Mapping model, I am keen to have a go at this,
  • Great subject,
  • Thought provoking particularly as we approach our strategy day,
  • Great presentation and I loved the examples shared,
  • Some key take-outs on long term thinking approach to risks, very well presented,
  • Very smart person!
  • thanks for an enlightening session this morning., I hope we can do it again with another of my syndicates later this year.
CEO Institute Syndicate 53Members responding to Foresight for Practical Strategy Presentation June 2022

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