Adjiedj Bakas

Why organisations work with Adjiedj Bakas

• His analytical framework tracks six categories of structural change simultaneously – economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security – giving leadership teams a coherent map rather than a trend list. No single category is read in isolation; the interactions between them are where the real strategic insight lives.
• His “#Forwardism” thesis reframes megatrend analysis as a source of opportunity rather than a catalogue of threat. This is a deliberate intellectual stance, not a motivational gloss – it changes how an organisation positions itself in response to disruption.
• His biography is genuinely differentiating in a field dominated by Western vantage points. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas brings a Global South perspective to questions about the shifting balance of economic and cultural power that most European or American futurists cannot replicate.
• His material has been tested against the most demanding institutional audiences on the circuit: the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, Shell’s major futures conferences, and central banking and financial institutions across Africa and Asia. A Shell audience of senior executives elected him one of the top two speakers from a field of fifty.
• His books – including World Megatrends and Beyond the Crisis – have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai, and the intellectual rigour of his framework has earned consistent media recognition from CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily.

Biography highlights

• Founder of Trend Office Bakas, Amsterdam – a trendwatching practice serving multinationals, financial institutions and governments internationally
• Author of more than ten books on global megatrends, distributed across 40+ countries; titles include World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis, Megatrends Europe and #Forwardism
• Elected Trendwatcher of the Year 2009 and Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 in the Netherlands
• Covered as a leading voice on global futures by CNN, BBC, The Guardian, Times of India and China Daily
• Keynote engagements include Shell, Deloitte, Google, Microsoft, ABN AMRO, KPMG, Rabobank, Credit Suisse and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
• Course material at CEIBS (China Europe International Business School, Shanghai) and Emory University, Atlanta

Biography

Most organisations run their long-term strategy on a three-to-five year horizon. The megatrends that actually reshape industries – demographic reordering, geopolitical power shifts, energy transitions, technological discontinuities – operate on timescales of twenty years or more. Adjiedj Bakas, founder of Trend Office Bakas in Amsterdam, has spent his career helping senior leaders read those slower, more consequential signals before they arrive as operational emergencies.

His body of work – more than ten books published across 40 countries, including World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis and Megatrends Europe – develops a consistent analytical lens across six categories of structural change: economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security. His most recent work, #Forwardism, introduces the concept of “Happynomy” – the argument that the most powerful megatrends are better interpreted as sources of strategic opportunity than as threats to be mitigated.

The perspective he brings is shaped by biography as much as by research. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas has a genuinely non-Western vantage point on shifts in global economic and cultural power that most European futurists cannot replicate. His engagements span Shell, Deloitte, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, and financial institutions across Africa, Asia and Europe – audiences for whom a view of the future that goes beyond the Western horizon is not optional.

Elected Trendwatcher of the Year in the Netherlands in 2009, his work has been covered by CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily. His books have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai and Emory University in Atlanta.

Key speaking topics

• Global megatrends and structural futures
• Geopolitical power shifts and the rise of the Global South
• Demographic change and its economic consequences
• Long-cycle economic forecasting and scenario planning
• Energy and environmental transitions
• Technology and innovation futures
• Opportunity-centred strategic foresight (#Forwardism / Happynomy)

Ideal for

• C-suite and board leaders developing long-range organisational strategy
• Strategy and foresight teams in multinationals requiring a structured macro-trend framework
• Financial institutions and investment firms assessing long-term geopolitical and economic risk
• Government and public-sector organisations navigating demographic and geopolitical change

Audience outcomes

• A structured, six-category framework for mapping structural megatrends across economic, technological, demographic, environmental and geopolitical dimensions
• Greater confidence in distinguishing long-cycle structural shifts from short-term cyclical noise
• Exposure to the Global South’s increasing influence on economic and cultural direction – a perspective absent from most standard futures briefings
• A reframed strategic posture: tools for reading disruption as a source of opportunity rather than purely a risk management challenge
• A renewed and evidence-based basis for organisational optimism in conditions of uncertainty