Tracey Follows

Tracey Follows

Founder at Futuremade
London, United Kingdom

About me

Tracey is a professional futurist and works with clients on strategic foresight, or long term strategies for future growth. Her clients have included Telefonica, Diageo, Google, Farfetch, Conde Nast and Virgin. Her most recent work includes the future of work, AI and ethics, gender and education.

Tracey worked in marketing and innovation for over 20 years with leading technology, telco, service and retail brands, agency side (McCann, Lowe, VCCP, JWT) and client side (BT, T Mobile) also serving as Chair of the APG (Account Planning Group) UK from 2013-2015. She left advertising to retrain in Strategic Foresight at The University of Houston and later set up her own futures consultancy.

She regularly writes and speaks on Futures in the marketing press and in national media. She has spoken at UN HQ on the future of gender equality, and has delivered a TedX talk for Whitehall Women at The Foreign Office.

In 2016 she was the recipient of the Women in Marketing Special Award for Outstanding Contribution to Marketing. In 2017 Ad Age named her a Woman to Watch (Europe) and BIMA awarded her as an Agent of Change. She is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists, the World Futures Studies Federation and a Fellow of the RSA. She also sitson the Advertising Standards Authority Council in the UK.

Positions

Advisor: Chief Innovation Officer
OpenBrix
United Kingdom
June 2018 - Present (5 years 9 months)
Advisor to OpenBrix which is building a decentralised property network to connect Landlords, Estate Agents and Customers in an open, transparent way.
Futurist and Founder
Futuremade Ltd
United Kingdom
August 2017 - Present (6 years 7 months)
Grow business, design product and make decisions with the future in mind Tracey is a strategic foresight and futures professional and runs Futuremade, a Futures consultancy Over the years she has led futures and foresight projects for Diageo, Virgin, BBC, Facebook, Google...
Head of Strategy, WIRED Consulting
WIRED
United Kingdom
January 2018 - July 2018 (6 months)
Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer
The Future Laboratory
United Kingdom
February 2016 - August 2017 (1 year 6 months)
Futurist and Founder
ANYDAYNOW LTD
United Kingdom
April 2015 - January 2016 (9 months)

Anydaynow: strategic consultancy: professional foresight and future thinkers.

Chair, APG
Greenwich, United Kingdom
2014 - 2015 (1 year)
Chief Strategy Officer, Executive Partner
London , United Kingdom
2012 - 2014 (2 years)
One of four Executive Partners, leading the agency. Financial and client responsibility alongside agency strategy. Strategic leadership of the biggest agency planning team in London (50+ strategists)

Spear-headed new positioning around 'intelligence', nurtured new skills-sets and methodologies, and created a new planning team.
Invented the 'planning foresight' department.
Initiated the Austerity Index, the only quant survey in the UK to measure the effects of Austerity.
Hired in trends specialists, data and UX planners to build future 'intelligence' capabilities.
Created new integrated planning process for TV + digital + media + experiential

Planning on Canon, Premier Foods, Nestle, Puma and new business pitches
Executive Planning Director
Global
2009 - 2012 (3 years)
Promoted to managing partner and to the Board after winning £50m + worth of new biz including easyJet, O2 digital, Burtons biscuits, Very.

Strategic lead on O2, the UK’s No.1 mobile operator, and Telefonica Digital including quarterly futurology presentations to Matthew Key, CEO.

Invented the whole concept of O2 Guru TV, an O2-branded ‘how to’ YouTube channel to help people untangle mobile tech, resulting in over 30m visits and a sales uplift on handsets, and increased usage of services.

Managing, training and inspiring a 26-strong planning department
Strategy Director
London, United Kingdom
2007 - 2009 (2 years)
Lead strategist on John Lewis, J&J Baby and Innocent Smoothies.

Also the London digital representative on the worldwide digital council.

Education

Professional Certificate in Foresight

2015 (1 year)

1995 - 2000 (5 years)
Studied Silversmithing

First Class BA (Hons) in Philosophy; MSc in Technology Strategy

1989 - 1993 (4 years)

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