Henrik von Scheel

Why organisations work with Henrik von Scheel

• He is one of the named architects of Industry 4.0 as it was formalised in Germany’s high-tech strategy, so his frame of reference is the policy and standards layer most strategists only read about.
• His advisory seat on the EU AI Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM) lets him brief boards on regulation that is still being written, not regulation that has already shipped.
• He sits inside the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, whose trend material feeds the World Economic Forum, so the inputs he uses with clients are the same inputs shaping global agenda papers.
• His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption” gives clients a documented method for sequencing disruption response rather than a slide deck of trends.
• Co-authorship of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model, means he moves from boardroom narrative to operational specification inside the same engagement.

Biography highlights

• Originated the term “Fourth Industrial Revolution” in 2011 as a member of the Advisory Group to the German Federal Ministry of Education & Research, with Prof August Wilhelm Scheer and Prof Henning Kagermann.
• Co-author of Germany’s Digital Agenda (2009 to 2010), later adopted as the European Commission’s Europe Digital Agenda 2020.
• Managing Director of the Institute of Strategic Intelligence and Professor of Economics and Strategy Management.
• Author of “Strategy in the Age of Disruption: A Handbook to Anticipate Change and Make Smart Decisions” (Wiley, 2024).
• Advisory Council Member on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM Scope 1 to 3); co-author of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model.
• Recipient of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award (2019), the prize popularly described as the Nobel of knowledge sharing; named a leading authority on strategy by the Financial Times and a most influential futurist of the century by CNBC.

Biography

The phrase “Industry 4.0” was first written into a German federal policy paper in 2011, and the working group behind it had three names on it. One of them was Henrik von Scheel, then advising the Federal Ministry of Education & Research alongside August Wilhelm Scheer and Henning Kagermann. Two years later the concept was published as Germany’s high-tech strategy and became the dominant frame for industrial digitalisation across most advanced economies.

That origin story matters because most strategists discuss digital transformation from outside the room. Von Scheel works from inside it. He co-authored Germany’s Digital Agenda with Scheer in 2009 to 2010, which the European Commission adopted as the Europe Digital Agenda 2020. He sits on the advisory council for the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board, where he is contributing to the Green Deal, FIT for 55 and CBAM. He is briefing boards on rules he is helping draft.

The operational layer is just as concrete. Through the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, where he is Managing Director, he supplies trend research used by the World Economic Forum. He has co-authored 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model. This is what lets him move a conversation from megatrend to operational specification without losing the room.

His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption”, co-written with Ciprian Popa and Joshua von Scheel, sets out a method for anticipating change and sequencing decisions rather than reacting to disruption after the fact. Current demand reflects that range: law firms working through the future of legal practice, defence, banking, automotive and manufacturing leaders working through the move from automation to intelligence.

Key speaking topics

• Industry 4.0 and industrial digitalisation
• Artificial intelligence strategy and the EU AI Act
• From automation to intelligence in industrial operations
• Strategic foresight and megatrend analysis
• Future of legal practice in the age of AI
• Digital transformation execution
• Supply chain and operations reinvention
• Sustainability, ESG and energy transition

Ideal for

• Boards and CEOs in manufacturing, automotive, defence and banking setting AI, digital and Industry 4.0 strategy at group level
• Managing Partners and innovation leads in law firms working through how AI restructures legal practice and client work
• Chief Strategy Officers and transformation leads sequencing capital and operating bets under disruption
• COOs and operations leaders reinventing factories, supply chains and service operations
• Government and policy audiences shaping national digital, AI or industrial agendas

Audience outcomes

• A clear read on which megatrends are commercially actionable in the next planning cycle and which are still ten years out
• A defensible logic for sequencing AI, automation and digital investments against P&L impact
• An insider view of where EU AI and climate regulation is going before it lands
• A working method, drawn from his Wiley handbook, for making strategic decisions when the operating environment keeps shifting
• Confidence that the digital and Industry 4.0 narrative inside the organisation matches what is happening at policy and standards level