BIOGRAPHY
Ben Hammersley is one of the most thought-provoking futurists of our time. For over 15 years, he has been sharing his practical, proactive approach to future technologies to audiences around the world, helping them be present now to be prepared for the future.
The founder and principal of Hammersley Futures, an international strategic forecasting consultancy, he guides corporations and governmental agencies to think clearly about the future. Ben Hammerseley specialises in how society reacts to technological innovation: including the future of crime and conflict, the changing nature of the workplace and the market, and the new cognitive tools needed to flourish in the coming decades.
Previously, Ben was executive editor of WIRED, the writer and presenter of the BBC’s “Cybercrimes with Ben Hammersley” (now on Netflix or Amazon Prime internationally), a war correspondent in Afghanistan, an advisor to the European Commission, a pilot and wilderness medic in the USA, the author of 5 books, and the inventor of the word “Podcast”. Ben Hammersley also regularly writes for the international media including The Financial Times.
His most recent internationally published book, Approaching The Future: 64 Things You Need to Know Now For Then (2013), is an essential guide to thriving in the 21st century.
Ben Hammersley has delivered high-impact, practice-changing speeches for countless multinational groups and corporations, weaving in not only his futurist expertise, but also his personal experiences from the fields of aviation, emergency medicine, genomic science, disaster response and war reporting.
To learn more about speaker Ben Hammersley, contact VBQ Speakers founding agent Leo von Bülow-Quirk.
BEN HAMMERSLEY: SPEAKER
Digital technology is disrupting all areas of business, politics and society – and this disruption is only going to get more intense.
An exceptionally charismatic and witty speaker, Ben helps organisations understand the key trends affecting them, and what they need to do to adapt and thrive in an age of radical change and uncertainty.
Ben Hammersley always creates bespoke presentation for events, but here are some of the key topics he is covering at the moment:
Skills for Future Leaders
We all know the world is changing. And many can give examples of the technologies or trends that are contributing to that change. But that is not the whole picture. In this topic, Ben teaches audiences about the skills, techniques, and cognitive tools that leaders need to both understand those changes, and shape their own future. Ideal for executive learning and development programmes, or thought-leader positioning customer events, these keynotes are consistently rated as life-changing, with plenty of actionable take-aways for the audience. This topic also extends well into subsequent break-outs and workshop sessions, which can be provided.
The Shape of the Post-Digital World
With so much change, so many disruptions and innovations, transforming the culture, systems, and the politics of the world we grew up in, into the world of the 2020s, people have a mental model of the world that is, if not entirely out of date, then dangerously incomplete. In this topic, Ben shows the workings and the shape of the interconnected, interdependent, networked, co-arisen modern world, and how it affects the audience’s business and lives. From youth culture in Brazil, to high-speed rail in China, Russian postmodern foreign policy to non-human corporations, weaponised memetic infections to European nationalism, solarpunks to 山寨, climate mitigation to shadow economies, Ben provides a true grounding in today, without which you cannot possibly plan for tomorrow. This is especially appreciated by C-suite audiences, and has been a repeated hit at evening events with partners and spouses.
Cognitive Risk and the Nature of Threat
We are all bringing yesterday’s war to today’s battlefield. In the modernity of 2020, we have a profound misunderstanding of the nature of geopolitical, commercial, and personal threat. It isn’t kinetics that will get us, but confusion. The post-modern asymmetric reaction to the extreme commercial and military hegemony of the West, or the quasi-Monopoly power of the large corporation is no longer one of physical violence, but of memetic infection, and purposeful, weaponised, confusion. For these audiences, leadership, and strategy, is the art of making the best decisions with the knowledge available. But making those decisions requires accurate data, clear analysis, accurate thinking, without interference. In this talk Ben details the ways that the final line of risk is the individual executive’s ability to think clearly, how this is under specific targeted attack, and how to defend against that. This topic is of deep interest to multinational top tier executives, or those being shaped into becoming so. It can also include follow-up reading, and online sessions.
Testimonials
“Ben is a star!” —- Internet Dagarna 2018