Leadership

Nicolas Balcom Raleigh

Nick Balcom Raleigh is FEN President for 2023-2024. He envisions FEN as a venue where Europe’s futures community can meet, know each other, and be known to each other. He values the network’s openness to new members, low-bureaucracy (e.g. no fees, minimal infrastructure), and opportunities to foster connections among the many and varied foresight practitioners, researchers, educators, and users across Europe. He looks forward to encountering both new and established actors in the futures field.

In his academic life, he is an interventionist researcher seeking to advance understanding of the roles imagined futures play in organizations and companies who are innovating to address climate change. He is a PhD scholar and co-chair of the UNESCO Chair on Learning for Transformation and Planetary Futures at Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC), Turku School of Economics – University of Turku. He holds a M.A. in futures studies from the Turku School of Economics – University of Turku. (Photo credit: University of Turku – Noora Mela)

Lena Tünkers

Lena Tünkers aims to expand people’s capacity to imagine alternatives and uses the future to alter perspectives and narratives in the present. She is an independent process designer and facilitator playing mainly with the approaches of Futures Literacy and Experience Design. Amongst her clients are EIT Urban Mobility, EIT Food, Media Evolution, GIZ, Porsche, Kaospilot, and Danish Refugee Council. She previously worked in the field of innovation and business design. First, in corporate or institutional contexts with HelloFresh, Spotify, and the UN. Then, in the start-up ecosystem in Denmark and Kenya where she focused on the topics of frugal innovation, sustainable consumption, and agriculture. She is co-founder and partner of the German network ZUKÜNFTE, a board member of the Danish bootcamp Founders of Tomorrow, and hosted the House of Beautiful Business community in Copenhagen. She holds a M.Sc. degree in Innovation & Organizational Entrepreneurship from Copenhagen Business School.

Epaminondas Christofilopoulos, PhD

Epaminondas Christofilopoulos holds the UNESCO Chair on Futures Research, hosted by the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas, he is Chief Scientific Advisor to the Special Secretariat for Foresight, at the Presidency of the Government, and President the Metropolitan Organization of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki (MOMus) . He is an Onassis Foundation Fellow and holds a PhD in Strategic Foresight, while his academic profile also includes studies in Physics (BSc), Environment(MSc) and International Relations.  He has initially worked in the fields of technology transfer and international research cooperation, coordinating many projects in Europe, Latin America, Asia and especially China for over a decade.

He has been working in the field of futures research since 2010, designing and implementing a variety of projects on topics such as the future of innovation, technology, work, urban farming and China, to mention a few. He has published monographs and peer-reviewed articles in the main futures journals,  chapters in several books, and he has adapted in Greek the book “Playing with the Future” for teachers and students aged 8 to 16. In collaboration with UNESCO, he is supporting the concept of Futures Literacy and designs experiential workshops for students and organizational executives. Finally, he is the co-chairman of the Greek node of the Millennium Project, a global think tank based in Washington DC.

Anna Sacio-Szymańska, PhD

Anna is a principal and strategic accounts manager at Warsaw-based corporate foresight company 4CF, which represents the emerging school of professional foresight, one that is focusing on the use of anticipation to reach strategic goals in a fluid and uncertain environment.

She holds a PhD in Management from Cracow University of Economics. Her main area of interest is foresight capacity building. Anna has extensive knowledge and experience in the public sector research, innovation management and technology foresight activities. She has been a scientific leader, manager and team member of 10+ European and national R&D projects. She has published on foresight-informed decision-making in public policy planning, in the business sector and in career development.

She is a Member of the Polish Node of The Millennium Project and a Member of the Polish Society for Futures Studies. Anna is evenly passionate about poetry, photography and long-distance running, which allow her for the immediate time-travelling.

Cornelia Daheim

Cornelia Daheim is a foresight expert and consultant, founder and director of Future Impacts Consulting in Cologne, Germany. Since 2000, she has been leading foresight projects for customers from several industries and policy fields such as Alstom, BASF, DEFRA, SKT or UKCES, up to CEO level, and within the framework of international as well as European research networks. In recent years, her topic focus was on the future of work, energy, mobility, future of food and societal change. Before founding her own company, she has successfully developed Z_punkt The Foresight Company’s international business, a new quantification and modelling approach in corporate foresight, and led the company as managing partner from 2008 to 2014.

Ms Daheim has experience in foresight assignments in Europe, the US and Asia. In 2003, she founded and has since acted as head of the Millennium Project’s German Node.

Blaž Golob

Blaž Golob, Director of GFS (GoForeSight) Institute, Slovenia EU (Millennium Project Node), Chairman Ljubljana Forum on Future of Cities and Co-Chairman of Zagreb forum on Creative cities. He is an author of Smart City Platform – Power to the People knowledge concept design that has an impact on smart city solutions developments in the region of South East Europe. He is an adviser to SmartIS company leading regional smart city solutions provider that has offices in Slovenia and Croatia. He became a member of the European Commission EU Strategic Policy Forum on Digital Entrepreneurship on February 2014 and European Commission Expert Group “Foresight Leaders for Research, Science and Innovation Policies” (FLEG) in March 2015. He was elected as president of Foresight Europe Network FEN in Paris UNESCO headquarters in November 2014.

Blaž is an expert for smart cities development, foresight and governance, EU affairs, digital economy and law. He co-operates with EU Institutions, different governments and city authorities, civil society and private companies. He graduated at University of Ljubljana Slovenia & specialized on European Law at Cambridge University.

Ibon Zugasti

Ibon Zugasti, M.S. is Partner/Director at PROSPEKTIKER, Manager of the Industry Business at MONDRAGON Engineering and Services Division, Chairman of the Millennium Project Node in Spain, Member of the Board of Foresight Europe Network (FEN) and National coordinator in Spain for the PREPARE Network.

Since 1999, Ibon has led several consultancy and research projects in fields like foresight, regional sustainable development, labour & training and energy for different Governments and Corporations (Repsol, Iberdrola, Guggenheim, MONDRAGON,…). He has also advised the Committee of the Regions of the EU for the launching of a European Platform on Territorial Foresight. Since 2010, he is the Chairman of the Millennium Project in Spain and President of the European Regional Foresight College.

He is coauthor of different publications such as Latin America 2030: Delphi Survey and Scenarios (The Millennium Project), An initial assessment of territorial forward planning/foresight projects in the European Union (Committee of the Regions of the EU), and The aging Basque population. Economic and social consequences (Basque Government). He also contributes to the yearly publication State of the Future by the Millennium Project.

Ibon earned his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the University of Deusto, Spain and earned his Master’s in Strategic Management from Marquette University, Milwaukee, USA. He has been teaching strategic management and foresight at the University of Deusto and Mondragon and in many seminars at the international level.

Mara Di Berardo

Mara Di Berardo, PhD, has been collaborating with The Millennium Project, a global network of futures studies, since 2007, for which she is now Communications Director (July 2021), Co-Chair of the MP Italy Node (2017), and Communication Officer of the Foresight Europe Network Node (April 2021). She works as a consultant and trainer in the fields of futures studies and research, communication, and project management. She is co-founder of the Italian Futurists Association (2018) and consulting member of the Italian Institute for the Future (2019).

She has been collaborating with many research institutions and public bodies managing project and communication plans for European and National research projects. She has been also Research Fellow in Communication at the Institute for Applied Mathematics of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) in 2018-1020, and Technologist at the CNR Nanoscience Institute in 2020-2022.

Mara Di Berardo has a PhD in Cultures, Languages and Politics of Communication, with a thesis about structured communication for social participatory planning, and a degree in Communication Sciences, with a thesis about e-government in Public Administrations. Mara is curious and loves learning and experimenting, especially participatory methods.