Keynote 01
Four Future Seasons
Most leaders plan for a singular future as an extension of the past, so when it does not arrive as expected the planning is rendered useless.
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750+
keynotes
8,000+
leaders and executives
50+
countries
6
continents
Dr Craig Wing, PhD · Keynote speaker, author, and futurist
Preparation hardens decisions.
Most organisations plan for tomorrow as an extrapolation from the past. This may have been true before when change was slow but not today; with rapid change everywhere. Dr Wing has spent two decades as an academic, executive, entrepreneur and practitioner to prepare to harden decisions.
PhDUniversity of Johannesburg
Penguin Random House authorFour Future Seasons, launched at number 6 in Amazon’s Hot New Releases, first print run sold out
Two provisional patentsVision systems and computer components
Adjunct facultyIndian School of Business
Why
you didn’t see it coming
How
you could have the foresight to see it
What
you can do to prepare to make better decisions today
Five
keynotes
Audiences today deserve more than just entertainment or motivation, or charisma with no depth or actionable strategies. Craig’s five primary keynotes combine an incredible mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis, commercial applicability, humour and huge amounts of energy!
Keynote 02
Boat Lock
Everyone says leadership, vision, culture and technology are what make a company great, hence most budgets are allocated to leadership offsites, values sessions and investments in the latest technology.
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Keynote 03
How to be Human in an Age of AI
People everywhere are asking which jobs AI will take, driven by technology doomers and techbros espousing the virtues of technology.
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Keynote 04
Holy Shift
A megatrends talk usually lists ten forces and leaves you no better informed than when you arrived.
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Keynote 05
Thriving in an UNSAFE World
VUCA was a phrase coined in 1987 by the US Army War College that has since become common language in the business world (in fact, some speakers still use VUCA as the next best thing!).
Explore the keynoteDon’t believe it? Craig calculated that when more than 3.46 things change, we have transitioned from “exponential” to “factorial”. Here is the working
Awards and recognition
2025Irish Tech Challenge South Africa winner, WhatTheForesight
2024CIO Today, Most Inspirational Leader
2018African Independent, Top 40 under 40
2016Selected entrepreneur, Investec delegation to Seattle
2016Expert Mavericks co-author and profiled, #1 on Amazon in three categories
2015Fellow of the African Leadership Institute (AFLI), Desmond Tutu Fellowship
2012Mail and Guardian, 200 Young South Africans
2012Destiny Man, Power of 40, Top 40 under 40
2012Africa’s Googliest Googler
2011World Economic Forum Global Shaper, inaugural member for South Africa
2011TEDx speaker, TEDxAshokaU, North Carolina
2025Irish Tech Challenge South Africa winner, WhatTheForesight
2024CIO Today, Most Inspirational Leader
2018African Independent, Top 40 under 40
2016Selected entrepreneur, Investec delegation to Seattle
2016Expert Mavericks co-author and profiled, #1 on Amazon in three categories
2015Fellow of the African Leadership Institute (AFLI), Desmond Tutu Fellowship
2012Mail and Guardian, 200 Young South Africans
2012Destiny Man, Power of 40, Top 40 under 40
2012Africa’s Googliest Googler
2011World Economic Forum Global Shaper, inaugural member for South Africa
2011TEDx speaker, TEDxAshokaU, North Carolina
Global clients
Dr Craig Wing, PhD
The how,
not the
what
The futures industry sells forecasts and predictions. Economists and trend experts extrapolate what we already know. Most leaders prefer the certainty of the presumed past, versus the unease of an unknown future; knowing how to differentiate is key.
Dr Craig Wing does not forecast. His doctorate at the University of Johannesburg produced a measuring instrument instead, WhatTheForesight, which uses sentiment and swarm analysis to score an organisation across 25 attributes to establish how prepared it is for the future, and because it was built on 759 leaders in 157 organisations across four countries over four years, the 50,000 datapoints behind it are more than an academic exercise. They make it possible to answer the question leaders actually ask, “what should we do to succeed in the future?”, using statistics and not opinions, which almost everyone has: what does the data show, and how can the future be quantified? The answer lies not in which capabilities high performers happen to share, but which ones a company cannot perform without.
Five emerge as gates: right team, investment discipline, agility, operations and governance each have to clear a minimum before high performance appears anywhere in the data, with no strength in any other attribute compensating for one that is shut, which is why leadership, vision, culture and technology, the four that absorb most of the traditional budget, are not on the list. That finding is the Boat Lock keynote, and the instrument that locates a company’s own shut gate is free to run.
Keynotes, Interviews & Videos
Building future-ready businesses
BIBAN 2024 Forum, Riyadh, 2024
Dr Craig Wing, PhD
About Craig
True innovation isn’t about thinking outside the box, it’s about thinking within multiple boxes. Craig’s diverse career trajectory has equipped him with the ability to navigate the unknown with confidence. Engineering, an MBA, six founded companies, three years inside Google and a doctorate are just a few examples of the variety of experiences allowing Craig to connect dots and bring views and research on how you can prepare for the future.
For two decades, Craig has delivered 750+ keynotes to 8,000+ global leaders and executives to guide them to understand, create and design their ideal futures through doing and not just talking through futures thinking. More on Craig
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What is Four Future Seasons?
Four Future Seasons is Dr Craig Wing’s book, published by Penguin Random House, and the framework behind his keynote of the same name. Based on a four-year PhD study, it gives leaders a way to plan for more than one future at a time through four seasons: Summer, where the data is clear; Autumn, where change is visible; Spring, the future once believed in and since forgotten; and Winter, where there is no data at all.
What did the Boat Lock research find?
Four years of data from 759 leaders in 157 organisations across South Africa, India, Thailand and Qatar show that five capabilities behave like the gates of a canal lock: right team, investment discipline, agility, operations and governance. Below a minimum on any one of them, no strength elsewhere compensates.
What is the Future Fitness Score?
The Future Fitness Score turns 25 attributes, grouped into leadership, organisation and landscape, into a single number that a board can track the way it already tracks financial health. It is measured through WhatTheForesight, and the base diagnostic is free.
Does Dr Craig Wing predict the future?
No. Philip Tetlock’s study of 82,361 forecasts from 284 experts found that experts barely outperformed informed non-specialists (Expert Political Judgment, Princeton University Press, 2005). Dr Wing’s work measures how prepared an organisation is for futures it cannot predict instead.
How do I book Dr Craig Wing?
He takes bookings for keynotes, MC and hosting, workshops and advisory work, both directly and through speaker bureaus, in person anywhere in the world or virtually from a studio. Use the enquiry form or email hello@craigwing.com.
Dr Craig Wing
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Preparation
hardens decisions.
He takes bookings for keynotes, MC and hosting, workshops and advisory work, both directly and through speaker bureaus.
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