Angela Oguntala
Most planning tools were designed for a world that no longer exists. Strategy cycles built for predictable horizons break down when disruption compounds across technology, climate, and social change simultaneously – producing false confidence rather than genuine foresight. Organisations that cannot distinguish structural change from noise will always be reacting to a future someone else shaped.
Angela Oguntala is a futurist and founding partner of Greyspace who gives senior leaders a structured methodology – Futurecasting – for reading long-horizon disruption and building strategy around what is genuinely likely, named a Future Innovator by the United Nations OICT and Ars Electronica.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Angela Oguntala
- Her Futurecasting process is a replicable leadership methodology for distinguishing structural change from cyclical noise – giving strategy teams something to use after the keynote, not just a perspective to carry home.
- She brings a practitioner’s decade-long track record: foresight and innovation advisory work with Google, IKEA, the World Economic Forum, the World Trade Organization, BCG, and Deloitte, across sectors from healthcare to luxury to financial services.
- Her cross-disciplinary background – spanning interaction design, business strategy, and foresight research – allows her to connect technology shifts, sustainability pressures, and shifting social norms in a single strategic frame that sector specialists rarely produce.
- She was named a Future Innovator by the United Nations OICT and Ars Electronica – a designation that extends her credibility beyond the speaking circuit into formal expert recognition.
- Her central argument – that the future is not predictable but can be actively shaped – moves executive audiences from defensive risk-management to purposeful strategic action.
Biography highlights
- Founding partner at Greyspace, a foresight and innovation consultancy, for over a decade
- Named Future Innovator by the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT) and Ars Electronica
- Salzburg Global Fellow for leaders challenged to shape a better world
- Advisory and keynote engagements with Google, IKEA, Microsoft, the World Economic Forum, the World Trade Organization, Heineken, BCG, and Deloitte, across healthcare, education, luxury, and financial services
- TED talk: Re-imagine the future – on how cultural narratives both inspire and constrain strategic imagination
- Featured as a futures thinking expert on NPR and Sky
Biography
The hardest thing about strategy is not analysing the present. It is imagining a future that does not yet exist – and committing resources to it before certainty arrives. Angela Oguntala built her career around exactly this problem.
As founding partner of Greyspace, a foresight and innovation consultancy, Oguntala spent a decade working across industries – from healthcare and education to luxury goods and financial services – helping leadership teams develop the disciplines to read structural change before it becomes a crisis. Her clients have included Google, IKEA, the World Economic Forum, the World Trade Organization, Heineken, BCG, and Deloitte.
Her named methodology, Futurecasting, is a structured process for mapping the forces shaping an organisation’s near and far future, and for building strategy around what is genuinely plausible rather than what feels intuitively familiar. It is not trend forecasting in the conventional sense; it is an exercise in building collective imagination at leadership level – a capability most organisations have never formally developed.
Named a Future Innovator by the United Nations OICT and Ars Electronica, and a Salzburg Global Fellow, Oguntala speaks on the TED platform and has been featured as a futures expert on NPR and Sky. Her TED talk, Re-imagine the future, addresses the cultural blindspots that prevent organisations and individuals from imagining the full range of what is genuinely possible.
Key speaking topics
- Strategic foresight and Futurecasting
- Innovation under uncertainty
- Emerging technology impacts
- Purpose-driven innovation
- Leadership and organisational foresight
- Sustainability and systemic transition
- Future of work
Ideal for
- Chief Strategy Officers and strategy leadership teams planning beyond the conventional 3–5 year horizon
- CEOs and executive boards confronting compounding disruption across technology, climate, or market structure
- Chief Innovation Officers and heads of transformation navigating uncertainty without a clear methodological framework
- Government and institutional leaders working on long-horizon policy and societal change
Audience outcomes
- A clearer distinction between structural change and cyclical noise – and an understanding of how to act on that distinction at leadership level
- Practical familiarity with the Futurecasting methodology as a replicable process for strategic decision-making under uncertainty
- A more integrated view of how emerging technologies, sustainability pressures, and shifting social expectations interact – rather than treating each as a separate workstream
- A reframed relationship with uncertainty: from something to manage defensively to something that can be navigated with intention
- Approaches to building organisations willing to experiment with genuinely new ideas rather than optimise existing ones
Talks
Equips leaders with a structured process for mapping near and far future disruptions and building strategy in the face of radical, continuous change.
Key takeaways:
- How to identify the forces and trends most likely to shape your organisation’s future context
- A working understanding of the Futurecasting process as a leadership decision-making tool
- A clearer framework for leading purposefully through uncertainty rather than reacting to it
Makes the case for why purpose-driven innovation is not a values statement but a strategic response to shifting consumer and stakeholder expectations.
Key takeaways:
- Why societal and environmental urgencies are reshaping what organisations need to build and for whom
- How to align innovation strategy with long-term sustainability without sacrificing commercial ambition
- Practical approaches to ensuring what an organisation builds contributes to desirable futures, not just near-term growth
A practical guide to making sense of simultaneous shifts in work, technology, and progress – and to generating bold new ideas in response.
Key takeaways:
- Frameworks for interpreting the major transitions affecting your organisation’s operating context
- Strategies for generating genuinely new ideas rather than optimising what already exists
- How to build a learning organisation capable of experimenting at the speed uncertainty demands
Videos
Testimonials
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| Asia Pacific | €40000 to €90000 | £35,001 - £75,000 | $50000 - $100000 |
| Europe | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Middle East & Africa | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| South America | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| United Kingdom | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |
| US East Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US West Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Virtual | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |