David A. Smith

David challenges, informs and engages his
clients and audiences on the key issues of the
near future, in order to stimulate ‘out-of-thebox’ thinking to help organizations embrace
new technologies and generate new visions,
strategies, products and services.

A futurologist, and Chief Executive of Global
Futures and Foresight (GFF) - a strategic
futures research organization, David’s 35-year
technology, marketing and business career
has made him recognisable as one of the
world's leading futurists and strategic thinkers.
David knows that "with each new technology
first we do things differently then we do
different things". Today there isn't time for
this two-stage change. Artificial Intelligence,
IoT, Blockchain, 3D fabrication and mass
machine generated data, amongst other
drivers, compel us to understand and engage
with them and change faster than ever before.
David helps to achieve this.
Since founding GFF, David has worked with
many of the world’s largest organisations, and
government bodies as well as academic
institutions and industry associations. His
insights have led many organizations to
embrace change and prepare innovative
strategies to renew themselves and generate
new growth.
In his career he has held technological and
senior management positions in both large
and small organizations. He has been
involved in public sector, commercial and
financial markets and has held technical,
sales, marketing and general management
positions in companies such as the UK based
DRG group and The US Unisys corporation.
Whilst at Unisys he held the position of
Strategic Marketing Director for their $2bn
global financial services business.
He has advised the UK and EU governments
on strategic research investment decisions.
His client’s number some of largest and most
prestigious firms around the world and David
is a regular international keynote speaker and
writer and a passionate believer that we are
not victims of what the future might hold if we
prepare ourselves in advance.