Lewis Dartnell
Most leadership teams cannot articulate the basic scientific systems that their business depends on. When resources tighten, supply chains fracture or new technologies arrive faster than the strategy cycle, the gap between executive intuition and physical reality becomes a serious commercial risk. Foresight at this depth is rare, and almost never delivered with clarity.
Lewis Dartnell is a Professor of Science Communication at the University of Westminster who helps organisations think from first principles about technology, resources and the long-range forces shaping their operating environment.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Lewis Dartnell
- Translates planetary-scale science into commercial foresight that leadership teams can actually use in strategy work.
- Author of The Knowledge, a Sunday Times bestseller built around a question every operator should be able to answer: which technologies in your value chain are foundational, and which are replaceable.
- Connects geology, biology and climate to the present-day shape of supply chains, geopolitics and consumer behaviour, drawing on the Origins thesis translated into thirty languages.
- Brings broadcast-grade communication craft from BBC Horizon, Stargazing Live and a main-stage TED talk, calibrated for board and executive audiences, not lecture rooms.
- One of a small number of working research scientists who can hold a 45-minute keynote at the level required by a CEO offsite without losing scientific rigour.
Biography highlights
- Professor of Science Communication, University of Westminster.
- PhD in Astrobiology, University College London. Former UK Space Agency Research Fellow at the University of Leicester.
- Author of The Knowledge, Origins, and Being Human, plus Life in the Universe and a guide to the solar system; Sunday Times bestsellers translated into more than thirty languages.
- Main-stage TED speaker (TED2015) and regular BBC presenter across Horizon, The Sky at Night and Stargazing Live.
- Bylines and contributions in The Guardian, The Times, New Scientist and The Daily Telegraph.
- Scientific consultant on HBO Max’s Station Eleven and on Brian Cox documentaries.
Biography
Modern organisations sit on top of scientific systems that almost no one in the room can explain. Energy, materials, communication networks, food chains, the climate envelope they operate within. When those systems shift, the strategic consequences arrive quickly, and the executive team often lacks the language to see them coming.
Lewis Dartnell’s work attacks that gap directly. The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch, a Sunday Times bestseller, asks which technologies a civilisation would have to recover first, and why. It is a thought experiment with a hard commercial edge. Strip away the assumptions, and what is actually foundational? A copy sits on the surface of the moon. The book has been adopted as a thinking tool in industries that depend on long-horizon decisions.
Origins extended the argument to geology, plate tectonics and climate as drivers of human history, and has been translated into thirty languages. Being Human, his most recent book, examines how human biology and psychology continue to shape political, economic and consumer behaviour. The through-line is consistent: deep scientific structure explaining surface-level outcomes that boards spend their time arguing about.
He holds a chair in science communication at the University of Westminster after research roles at University College London and the UK Space Agency programme at Leicester. His broadcast work for the BBC, his TED talk and his scientific consultancy on shows such as Station Eleven mean he speaks at a register designed for general audiences without losing the underlying rigour. For a senior leadership team trying to think clearly about technology, resources and the next twenty years, he is one of a small number of speakers who can hold both ends at once.
Key speaking topics
- Strategic foresight and first-principles thinking
- Resilience and civilisational technology
- Long-range science and the future of business
- Geopolitics, resources and climate
- Space exploration and the commercial space economy
- Astrobiology and the search for life
- Human biology and behaviour as commercial forces
- Science communication and clear thinking
Ideal for
- Board offsites and CEO leadership summits requiring scientific perspective on long-range risk
- CSOs, heads of strategy and corporate development teams running scenario work
- Innovation, R&D and technology leadership groups
- CHRO and leadership development audiences building first-principles thinking capability
Audience outcomes
- A sharper view of which technologies and resources are foundational to the business, and which are substitutable
- A grounded understanding of the planetary and biological forces shaping geopolitics, supply chains and consumer behaviour
- A working vocabulary for long-range scientific risk that senior teams can use in their own strategy conversations
- A more disciplined first-principles approach to questioning assumptions inside the organisation
- Genuine intellectual engagement from senior audiences who normally tune out of “future trends” content
Talks
A first-principles examination of the technologies, materials and knowledge that civilisation actually depends on.
Key takeaways:
- Which technologies in a value chain are foundational versus substitutable
- A framework for stripping assumptions out of strategy
- A working mental model for resilience at the system level
How geology, climate and plate tectonics continue to drive geopolitics, resources and economic geography.
Key takeaways:
- Why physical geography still determines where capital, conflict and growth concentrate
- The planetary forces that shape supply chains and resource markets
- How long-range earth science informs scenario planning
How human evolution, physiology and psychology continue to drive political, economic and consumer behaviour.
Key takeaways:
- The biological roots of present-day decision biases
- How disease, diet and cognition have shaped institutions
- What human nature implies for strategy, marketing and policy
The commercial and scientific reality of space exploration, settlement and the new space economy.
Key takeaways:
- The state of the commercial space industry and where value is forming
- What space science tells us about resource constraints on Earth
- The technologies driving the next phase of exploration
What survival narratives and cognitive science reveal about resilience and problem-solving under constraint.
Key takeaways:
- The conditions under which improvised problem-solving outperforms planning
- What psychological research says about resourcefulness
- How to build organisational habits that hold under stress