Luxury is often thought of as timeless—defined by centuries of craftsmanship, exclusivity, and cultural prestige. Yet in today’s fast-shifting world, even the most storied maisons cannot rely on heritage alone. Changing customer expectations, sustainability pressures, and the rise of digital lifestyles are forcing transformation. AI, once seen as incompatible with luxury’s artisanal aura, is now becoming its greatest enabler.

From LVMH’s AI “factory” to Cartier’s precision forecasting and Gucci’s immersive storytelling, luxury leaders are showing how AI can transform not only products and experiences, but also business models, operations, and profitability. The result is a new kind of luxury—one that fuses tradition with technology and demonstrates that reinvention can enhance both desirability and shareholder value.

Understanding markets in real time

Historically, luxury relied on intuition, tastemakers, and exclusivity to anticipate trends. But today, AI can detect market shifts at scale and speed. Natural language processing tracks millions of conversations across social media, forums, and fashion communities, picking up on signals of new aesthetics—whether quiet luxury, digital collectibles, or wellness-driven beauty.

  • LVMH, the world’s largest luxury group, has built a centralized AI platform in partnership with Google Cloud. It aggregates data across its 75 maisons to model demand, detect cultural signals, and refine regional strategies. Instead of waiting for seasonal sales reports, executives can now anticipate where luxury appetite is shifting in real time.

  • Richemont, home to Cartier, IWC, and Vacheron Constantin, applies AI forecasting to predict demand for high-ticket jewelry and watches. During the pandemic, Cartier used AI to avoid over $280 million in excess stock, protecting margins and brand equity.

For luxury, this is transformative: AI turns the market from a slow canvas of cultural cues into a living system that can be read in real time.

Understanding the changing consumer

Luxury is no longer defined solely by wealth. Modern buyers care about sustainability, wellness, self-expression, and digital identity. AI allows brands to build multidimensional profiles of customers that go far beyond demographics.

  • Dior uses AI from startup Kahoona to personalize web experiences, even for anonymous visitors. Conversion rates for audiences that previously ignored the brand’s digital campaigns rose significantly.

  • Sephora, owned by LVMH, deploys AI through its Virtual Artist app to analyze skin tones, offer personalized beauty recommendations, and increase shopper confidence.

  • Farfetch, the luxury marketplace, applies AI to segment high-value clients and tailor communication, incentives, and offers—maximizing lifetime value.

Generative AI even allows companies to create evolving personas that simulate how Gen Z, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, or Chinese millennials might change their agendas over time. Instead of reacting, maisons can design ahead of expectations.

Engaging audiences in new ways

Luxury has always been theatrical, built on seduction and storytelling. AI makes engagement both immersive and personalized.

  • Gucci transformed its Chengdu flagship into a digital theater: 33 LED screens display AI-generated imagery blending Renaissance Florence with Sichuan landscapes. This fusion of culture, place, and brand creates an emotionally charged experience unique to the location.

  • Christie’s x Gucci showcased generative-AI art auctions, expanding luxury into the digital and cultural avant-garde.

  • Brunello Cucinelli launched Solomei AI, an AI-driven concierge that speaks in the philosophical, humanistic tone of its founder. It guides customers not just through products, but also the brand’s values, turning technology into a custodian of authenticity.

Conversational AI assistants can now act as 24/7 digital concierges, fluent in a maison’s heritage, offering curated suggestions and cultural context. Engagement shifts from static campaigns to living conversations.

Developing and personalising products

Personalization has always been a hallmark of luxury—think bespoke tailoring, monograms, or signature fragrances. AI elevates this personalization to a new dimension.

  • L’Oréal’s ModiFace uses AI to scan skin and recommend customized skincare routines, while simulating results in real time.

  • Omi, an AI startup in LVMH’s “Maison des Startups,” creates photorealistic 3D twins of products. Guerlain used it for Shalimar perfume campaigns, reducing production time by 30% and cutting carbon footprint by 20%.

  • Generative design tools can suggest silhouettes, colors, and embellishments tailored to individual aesthetics. In the future, luxury fashion may combine AI-driven ideation with artisanal execution, producing one-of-a-kind yet sustainable pieces.

By scaling personalisation while reinforcing craftsmanship, AI ensures that exclusivity is not lost but deepened.

Reinventing business models and pricing

AI is enabling luxury to experiment with new ways of creating value beyond the sale of rare goods.

  • Dynamic Pricing: Algorithms adjust to demand, rarity, and currency fluctuations while maintaining exclusivity. Tiffany, for example, leverages AI to manage regional pricing and protect margins.

  • Membership and Subscription: LVMH is piloting loyalty and membership models enhanced by AI personalization, offering early access to collections, events, and tailored services.

  • Resale and Authenticity: Secondary markets are growing fast. Brands like Cartier and Patou use AI plus blockchain (through the Aura and Arianee consortia) to authenticate items, giving consumers confidence while capturing value from resales.

  • Sustainable Supply Chains: Genesis, another LVMH-backed startup, applies AI to vineyard soil analysis, enabling Moët Hennessy to pursue regenerative agriculture—a business model rooted in luxury terroir sustainability.

These models diversify revenue, reduce dependency on seasonal cycles, and align with shifting customer values.

Expanding channels and digital presence

Luxury distribution has expanded far beyond Parisian boutiques. AI enables maisons to maintain exclusivity across digital platforms, gaming worlds, and e-commerce.

  • Farfetch uses AI to deliver personalized journeys for each shopper, ensuring the platform feels curated, not commoditized.

  • Sales Associates in Tiffany or Dior boutiques now use AI copilots to recall a client’s history, propose personalized outreach, and enhance human interactions with digital intelligence.

  • Omnichannel Logistics: AI optimizes delivery to ensure “white-glove” precision, from climate-controlled shipments of watches to same-day personalized fragrance delivery.

The challenge has always been balancing reach with rarity. AI helps maisons expand digitally while preserving mystique.

Building authenticity

Counterfeiting is a billion-dollar problem for luxury. AI is becoming the industry’s best defense.

  • Computer vision systems can scan microscopic stitching or logos to confirm authenticity instantly.

  • Blockchain provenance, reinforced with AI, ensures every product’s story is traceable—from raw material to atelier to boutique.

  • Patou embeds AI verification at the point of manufacture to prevent fraud and protect trust.

Authenticity, once invisible, becomes a technologically guaranteed feature, further enhancing brand equity.

Serving and delivering to customers

Luxury is as much about service as products—anticipating needs before they’re voiced. AI enhances this anticipation.

  • Predictive models signal when a watch needs servicing or when a client is due for a wardrobe refresh.

  • Conversational AI assistants arrange follow-ups, VIP events, or tailored offers.

  • Some maisons are experimenting with “luxury as a service” models, where AI platforms manage wardrobes, jewelry, or art collections on behalf of clients.

Delivery, whether digital or physical, becomes part of the personalized luxury ecosystem.

Operational performance and sustainability

Behind the scenes, AI is making luxury more efficient, sustainable, and resilient.

  • Richemont applies AI to optimize supply chains, avoiding costly overproduction of materials like diamonds and gold.

  • LVMH uses AI to streamline marketing, automate logistics, and even cut emissions from photoshoots by replacing them with digital twins.

  • Robotic process automation reduces back-office costs, freeing employees for creative or client-facing work.

These efficiency gains strengthen margins, which is critical as growth slows in certain markets. They also reinforce commitments to ESG and regulatory compliance, increasingly important to investors.

Business transformation, and the impact on value creation

The real story lies in how AI is not just supporting—but reinventing—the entire luxury business model.

  • LVMH has outperformed the CAC 40 by over 25% in three years. Analysts attribute part of this to its AI-driven efficiency, personalization, and ability to scale innovations across 75 maisons. Its market cap, hovering above €400 billion, demonstrates investor confidence in its data-driven transformation.

  • Richemont, though smaller, has strengthened profitability in hard luxury by applying AI deeply in forecasting and provenance—critical to protecting its high-value products.

  • Individual maisons like Gucci, Cartier, and Brunello Cucinelli show how AI can augment storytelling, reduce waste, and build trust while staying true to heritage.

The evidence is clear: AI is no longer experimental in luxury—it is a driver of resilience, growth, and shareholder value.

Craftsmanship for a digital age

The paradox of AI in luxury is that it delivers speed, precision, and scale in an industry built on patience, rarity, and craft. Yet far from diluting luxury, it is reinforcing it.

AI helps maisons understand markets in real time, anticipate evolving customers, craft personalized products, explore new business models, and strengthen authenticity and sustainability. At the same time, it boosts efficiency and profitability, aligning shareholder value with cultural and creative relevance.

The maisons that thrive will not treat AI as a threat, nor as a cold efficiency tool. They will embrace it as a new craftsman—one capable of weaving data, imagination, and heritage into experiences as rare and desirable as the finest couture gown or the most intricate mechanical watch.

In doing so, luxury will not only adapt to the future, but actively shape it—proving that reinvention is the truest form of timelessness.

When Oatly first launched in Sweden, it was a quirky oat milk company trying to persuade consumers to ditch dairy.

Rather than preach about climate change, it made oat milk cool—partnering with baristas, turning its cartons into witty billboards, and winning over hip cafés in New York and London.

In one of the most quirky ads ever, Oatly’s CEO Toni Petersson sings “Wow, no cow!”, a song he wrote entirely by himself to explain exactly what Oatly. But it was also funny, addictive (and very cheap to make!).

Within a decade, Oatly wasn’t just a niche alternative; it helped make plant-based milk a mainstream choice, with global sales topping a billion dollars. Its success reveals a powerful truth: people don’t switch to sustainable products just because they should, they switch because they want … when it feels easy, desirable, and rewarding.

That insight is the key to accelerating the adoption of everything from electric cars to clean energy to sustainable foods.

What stops people doing the right thing?

The urgency of climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource scarcity is forcing governments, businesses, and individuals to rethink the way they live and consume. Yet despite the growing awareness, consumer adoption of sustainable products and services often lags behind intent. People may support the idea of renewable energy, plant-based diets, or electric vehicles, but translating concern into action is harder. To accelerate adoption, brands and policymakers must better understand consumer psychology, redesign incentives, and reinvent business models.

Most consumers sit in a space known as the “value-action gap”—they say sustainability matters, but in practice convenience, price, and habit dominate decisions. Research shows that around 70% of consumers express concern for climate change, but less than 20% consistently make purchase decisions based on sustainability.

Different consumer types respond differently:

  • Early adopters and eco-pioneers (often urban, educated, younger demographics) actively seek sustainable alternatives and are willing to experiment with EVs, clean energy, or new foods. They influence peers but are a relatively small segment.

  • Pragmatists are more mainstream, focused on cost, reliability, and ease. They’ll choose a green option if it is at least equal to—or better than—traditional products on these dimensions.

  • Price-sensitive segments (often lower-income households) prioritize affordability, making subsidies, rebates, and cheaper green solutions crucial for uptake.

  • Status-driven consumers respond when sustainability is reframed as aspirational or premium, as seen in the luxury EV market.

Accelerating mass adoption requires moving beyond the pioneers to win over pragmatists and price-sensitive consumers.

Nudges and incentives that work

Behavioral economics offers powerful tools for shifting choices. Some of the most effective nudges and incentives include:

  • Defaults. When consumers are automatically enrolled in green tariffs or sustainable pension funds, adoption soars. In the UK, suppliers offering renewable energy as the default plan saw much higher retention compared with opt-in models.

  • Price parity and subsidies. Uptake accelerates when sustainable choices become cheaper or equally priced. Norway’s EV revolution—where more than 80% of new cars sold are electric—is driven by generous tax exemptions, road toll discounts, and parking perks, making EVs often cheaper than petrol cars.

  • Social proof. People are more likely to adopt when they see peers doing the same. Tesla leveraged this by making EVs desirable lifestyle statements; Oatly turned oat milk into a cultural movement by aligning with baristas, cafés, and influencers.

  • Framing benefits. Linking sustainability to health, savings, or convenience is powerful. For example, promoting plant-based foods for wellbeing and taste as much as for the environment widens their appeal.

  • Access and convenience. Widespread charging networks, easy app-based switching to clean energy, and mainstream retail presence all reduce friction. India’s solar rooftops and mobile-enabled payment models show how accessibility drives adoption in emerging markets.

  • Gamification and rewards. Loyalty points, digital badges, or lower insurance premiums can encourage incremental sustainable actions. For instance, Vitality offers health and sustainability incentives linked to lifestyle choices.

Reinventing propositions and business models

There was a time when sustainability was something separate from business, and from products. Sustainability strategies, innovations and reporting was done separate from the main business activities. This just didn’t make sense. Sustainability should be core to what you do. For brands, sustainability cannot be an add-on. It must be integrated into the core proposition, creating value that appeals on multiple levels: functional, emotional, and social.

  • Electric Vehicles (EVs). Beyond climate benefits, EV brands must deliver superior driving experience, lower running costs, and status. Tesla achieved this by positioning EVs as aspirational tech, not niche eco-products. Chinese brand BYD has scaled by offering affordable, feature-rich EVs for the mass market, now expanding aggressively in Europe.

  • Clean Energy. Companies like Octopus Energy in the UK and Enel in Italy are reinventing utilities by making switching seamless, offering digital tools, transparent pricing, and bundling services like smart meters and EV charging. Their customer-centric approach builds trust and stickiness.

  • Sustainable Food. Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have reframed plant-based eating as indulgent and mainstream, collaborating with fast-food chains like Burger King and McDonald’s to reach scale. In Europe, companies like Alpro and Oatly emphasize fun, lifestyle-driven branding to move beyond eco-niches. In Asia, startups like Shiok Meats are pioneering cell-based seafood, targeting both sustainability and food security.

  • Sustainable Fashion. Brands like Patagonia and Allbirds differentiate through radical transparency, product repair schemes, and circularity models. Luxury player Stella McCartney positions sustainability as innovation and style, not compromise.

  • Sustainable Finance. Platforms like Aspiration in the U.S. and Triodos Bank in Europe help consumers align money with values, offering green accounts and carbon-tracking tools. As consumers understand that financial choices can be climate choices, adoption increases.

Strategies to accelerate adoption

10 years ago I wrote the book, People Planet Profit. I quickly recognised that the real problem was that most sustainable brands, while seeking to do the right thing, assume that most people are like them – they understand the problems, they prioritise the causes, they know what needs to happen. Most people don’t. For most people, it needs to be normal, simple, and desirable. So where should you start?

  • Mainstream the message. Talk less about sacrifice and more about positive outcomes—better health, savings, convenience, cool design.

  • Segment smartly. Use data to identify consumers most likely to adopt early, then amplify their influence through storytelling and social proof.

  • Build ecosystems. Pair products with services that remove friction—EVs with home charging and clean energy bundles; plant-based foods with recipes and influencer endorsements; financial products with carbon-tracking apps.

  • Leverage regulation. Work with governments to design subsidies, rebates, and policies that level the playing field. France’s ban on short-haul flights where trains are viable, or the EU’s “Fit for 55” package, show how policy can accelerate consumer shifts.

  • Experiment with circularity. Resale, rental, and subscription models can make sustainable options more accessible. IKEA’s furniture buy-back programs and H&M’s rental trials point to scalable new business models.

  • Invest in trust and transparency. Consumers increasingly distrust greenwashing. Brands that show clear evidence of impact—such as carbon labels or lifecycle analysis—earn loyalty.

Global examples of momentum

Walking through the shopping streets of Copenhagen or Stockholm, you realise that Scandinavia is certainly ahead of most countries in embracing sustainability as cool, desirable, and normal. But look further afield to Chinese markets, for example, and you quickly recognise that their most successful innovators are also sustainable, companies like BYD and Nio, who have shifted to sustainable solutions as the norm, and their consumers likewise.

  • Norway’s EV success shows how coordinated policy (tax breaks, infrastructure) and consumer incentives can make a radical difference.

  • China’s EV dominance demonstrates the role of industrial policy and affordability—BYD, Nio, and XPeng are reshaping both domestic and global markets.

  • Kenya’s M-KOPA Solar shows how pay-as-you-go models can democratize access to clean energy in low-income markets.

  • Singapore’s carbon tax and green finance hub illustrate how government frameworks create conditions for private innovation.

  • Plant-based fast food partnerships worldwide show how aligning with mainstream players accelerates cultural adoption.

  • Unilever’s “Sustainable Living Brands” (e.g., Dove, Hellmann’s) grow faster than the rest of its portfolio, proving sustainability can drive business performance when linked to purpose and innovation.

Faster greener better

To shift billions of people toward sustainable lifestyles, adoption must move from niche to mass, from optional to normal. This requires aligning consumer aspiration with planetary necessity. The formula is clear: make sustainable choices more attractive, affordable, and accessible than the alternatives.

Brands that succeed will not only mitigate climate risks but also unlock massive new growth. The future consumer will not simply ask, “Is this product green?” They will expect every product to be sustainable by default—and reward the brands that make that journey effortless.

Banking is one of the world’s oldest industries — and one of its most disrupted. For centuries, the strategic model was remarkably stable: hold deposits, lend prudently, earn the spread, and scale through physical branches.

Today, that architecture is fracturing. Finance is becoming embedded, invisible, and orchestrated through platforms. Trust no longer comes from marble columns but from digital reliability. And value is shifting from balance sheets to data, networks, and experiences.

The winners of tomorrow’s banking industry will not be defined by who has the biggest branch network, or even who has the best mobile app.

They will be those who pick the right strategic opportunity — the model that aligns with shifting customer behaviours, technological leverage, and regulatory space — and execute it with relentless focus.

We explore the strategic choices for the future of banking, the alternative models that are emerging, and how innovators are already showing what is possible.

Change drivers

Four fundamental forces are reshaping banking strategy:

  • Customer expectations — Finance is no longer the destination; it is a means to an end. Customers want frictionless payments in shops, instant loans in apps, personalised nudges for savings. The bank must be present in context, not demand attention as a separate chore.
  • Technology and data — Cloud, AI, APIs and tokenisation turn banking capabilities into modular, composable services. What used to require a branch and a vault can now be offered in milliseconds, embedded in any journey.
  • Platformisation of the economy — Commerce, media, transport, and healthcare are being reorganised around platforms. If finance is not embedded in those platforms, it risks irrelevance.
  • Regulation and trust — Compliance is no longer a defensive cost; it is a strategic differentiator. The institutions that can balance openness with safety, and innovation with resilience, will be the ones regulators and customers trust most.

These forces do not dictate one inevitable outcome; rather, they open strategic options.

Strategic options for the future of banking

There will not be one model of the future bank, but several. Each represents a different way of unlocking value from connections, assets, and technology.

Option 1: The Invisible Bank

  • Finance becomes invisible, embedded in other experiences.
  • Customers do not log into a banking app; they simply “pay,” “borrow,” or “save” inside whatever ecosystem they are in.
  • The bank’s role is to provide regulated infrastructure, APIs, and data services behind the scenes.

Examples:

  • Alipay in China, where payments, loyalty, and commerce are blended so tightly that finance is inseparable from daily life.
  • Jio in India, embedding payments and microloans into telecom and retail ecosystems, reaching millions of first-time users.

Strategic opportunity: Banks that own rails and compliance at scale can productise them for others. The challenge: you may become invisible, but still critical — commoditised unless you build distinctive strengths in reliability, data, or trust.

Option 2: The Ecosystem Bank

  • Instead of embedding into others’ platforms, the bank becomes the orchestrator of an ecosystem.
  • It builds a “super-app” or partner platform where customers manage multiple aspects of their lives — travel, insurance, investing, payments, shopping.

Examples:

  • Revolut, bundling FX, trading, insurance, and lifestyle into a financial super-app.
  • DBS, building ecosystem plays in property, car ownership, and SMEs — extending banking into adjacent customer journeys.

Strategic opportunity: Be the hub where others plug in. The challenge: coherence — too many services without a unifying value proposition creates clutter rather than loyalty.

Option 3: The Data-Driven Bank

  • The bank’s edge is data mastery: using AI and behavioural insights to personalise, underwrite, and guide customers.
  • Every interaction improves the model; every product is dynamically priced, personalised, and contextualised.

Examples:

  • Nubank, using engagement data to expand from a simple card into credit, savings, and investment services.
  • JPMorgan Chase, investing billions in proprietary AI platforms to power both internal efficiency and external productisation.

Strategic opportunity: Data enables better margins, lower risk, and new advisory services. The challenge: regulation, privacy, and ethics — crossing the line can destroy trust.

Option 4: The Platform-as-a-Service Bank

  • The bank stops competing for end customers and instead sells its infrastructure as a service to others.
  • This is the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) or SaaS play.

Examples:

  • Starling Bank, productising its cloud-native core (“Engine”) and selling it to other banks and fintechs.
  • ING, experimenting with modular services others can plug into.

Strategic opportunity: Scale distribution without customer acquisition cost. The challenge: balancing partner success with brand visibility — you may be critical but invisible.

Option 5: The Trusted Relationship Bank

  • A contrarian play: double down on trust, advice, and human connection.
  • Focus less on volume of digital transactions and more on high-value, complex decisions — wealth, retirement, SME growth, family protection.
  • The model is membership, loyalty, and relationship-driven.

Examples:

  • Chase, leveraging its massive U.S. distribution and brand trust to build loyalty ecosystems (e.g., Chase Sapphire’s lifestyle memberships).
  • Apple Card, which isn’t the cheapest card but creates loyalty through seamless UX, brand affinity, and integration into the Apple ecosystem.

Strategic opportunity: In a world of invisible finance, the trusted human relationship may itself become a premium product. The challenge: scaling intimacy without scaling costs.

Business model shifts required

Choosing a strategic option is not enough. Each requires a shift in business model:

  • Products → Platforms: Instead of selling loans, sell credit access via APIs; instead of selling payments, provide rails others embed.
  • Transactions → Relationships: Loyalty, subscriptions, memberships — the value is in continuity, not one-off deals.
  • Ownership → Orchestration: You don’t have to own the product (insurance, FX, mortgages) if you can orchestrate partners who provide them.
  • Balance sheet → Data + Ecosystem: Returns will increasingly come from monetising insights, distribution, and orchestration, not just spread.

Banking innovators

DBS Bank: Asia’s digital transformer

Context and Challenge: DBS, headquartered in Singapore, faced an increasingly digital-savvy population demanding real-time services and mobile-first experiences.

Strategic Response: DBS embarked on a multi-year digital transformation, blending cloud infrastructure, AI, and advanced data analytics with a focus on cultural change within the organization.

Key Initiatives:

  • AI-Powered Personalization: DBS leverages AI to analyze millions of customer interactions across digital channels, tailoring offers and advice for banking, investment, and lifestyle products.
  • Paperless Branches: Through digital documentation and e-KYC (Know Your Customer), DBS reduced branch dependency while maintaining high service standards.
  • Developer Ecosystem: Open APIs allow fintech partners to integrate with DBS services, creating a vibrant ecosystem.

Impact:

  • DBS’s mobile app adoption exceeded 80% of its customer base, with transaction volumes growing faster than traditional channels.
  • The bank has consistently been ranked the “World’s Best Digital Bank,” reflecting both customer experience and operational efficiency.

Strategic Insight: DBS demonstrates how integrating technology, culture, and ecosystem thinking can turn a traditional bank into a digital-first, platform-oriented organization.

ING: data-driven innovation in Europe

  • Context and Challenge: ING, a Dutch multinational, sought to differentiate in competitive European markets while responding to regulatory pressures and the rise of fintechs.
  • Strategic Response: ING embraced predictive analytics, AI-driven insights, and agile methodologies to improve customer engagement and operational efficiency.

Key Initiatives:

  • AI for Credit and Risk Assessment: Using machine learning models to assess SME and retail credit, enabling faster and more accurate decisions.
  • Agile Product Development: Digital teams iteratively deliver new features for mobile banking, ensuring rapid customer feedback loops.
  • Sustainability-Focused Products: ING uses AI to help clients understand ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) impact in investment portfolios.

Impact:

  • Reduced loan approval times by up to 50%, increasing SME satisfaction and adoption.
  • Enhanced cross-selling effectiveness through predictive personalization.

Strategic Insight: ING illustrates how data-driven operations and agile development can transform both customer experience and risk management, balancing growth with regulatory compliance.

Ping An: The Chinese super-app bank

  • Context and Challenge: Ping An operates in China, one of the world’s most digitally advanced financial markets. Facing competition from tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent, Ping An needed to position itself as both a bank and a lifestyle platform.
  • Strategic Response: Ping An became a financial super-app, integrating insurance, banking, health, and investment services into a single ecosystem.

Key Initiatives:

  • AI and Big Data: Real-time credit scoring, fraud detection, and personalized insurance recommendations.
  • Health + Finance Integration: AI-powered telemedicine and wellness monitoring linked to insurance products.
  • Open APIs for Partners: Ping An integrates external services, expanding ecosystem reach.

Impact:

  • Over 200 million active users engage with Ping An’s ecosystem monthly.
  • Cross-selling and ecosystem stickiness have significantly increased revenue per customer.

Strategic Insight: Ping An shows the potential of ecosystem banking, where AI and data create a seamless, sticky, and holistic customer experience.

N26: Disruptive digital banking

  • Context and Challenge: N26, a German fintech challenger, aimed to capture digitally-native millennials across Europe by offering a fully mobile-first banking experience.
  • Strategic Response: N26 eliminated traditional branch networks, leveraging cloud banking, AI, and real-time analytics to deliver a simple, fast, and transparent service.

Key Initiatives:

  • Real-Time Insights: AI-powered notifications and analytics help users track spending, save, and manage subscriptions.
  • Seamless Onboarding: Digital KYC and instant account opening remove friction.
  • Marketplace Integration: Partnerships with fintechs provide insurance, investment, and travel services in-app.

Impact:

  • Rapid growth to millions of European customers, with high app engagement and retention.
  • Significant reduction in operational costs compared to traditional banks.

Strategic Insight: N26 demonstrates how digital-native design, AI-driven personalization, and platform thinking can disrupt traditional banking, particularly for younger demographics.

Revolut: Banking as a lifestyle platform

  • Context and Challenge: Revolut entered the UK market as a fintech challenger offering low-cost international payments and currency exchange, targeting travelers and young professionals.
  • Strategic Response: Revolut expanded beyond payments into a full-service banking and lifestyle app, leveraging AI for both operational efficiency and customer engagement.

Key Initiatives:

  • Personal Finance Insights: AI analyzes spending patterns, offering budgeting advice and financial recommendations.
  • Embedded Wealth Products: Users can invest in stocks, crypto, and commodities directly from the app.
  • Cross-Border Payments: AI optimizes currency conversions and fraud detection.

Impact:

  • Revolut now serves over 25 million customers globally.
  • Strong engagement metrics and high digital adoption have allowed rapid monetization via premium subscriptions and transaction fees.

Strategic Insight: Revolut exemplifies embedded finance and lifestyle banking, where data and AI convert transactional banking into a daily, value-added platform.

Chime: US neobank with social focus

  • Context and Challenge: Chime aimed to reach underserved US customers with simple, fee-free banking, while delivering transparency and financial wellness.
  • Strategic Response: Chime’s digital-first approach uses AI to automate budgeting, savings, and alerts, making banking proactive rather than reactive.

Key Initiatives:

  • Automated Savings: AI rounds up transactions and predicts optimal savings amounts.
  • Fraud Prevention: Machine learning detects anomalies and prevents unauthorized activity in real time.
  • Engagement via Notifications: Personalized alerts encourage financial responsibility and retention.

Impact:

  • Millions of US customers signed up rapidly, particularly younger users.
  • High engagement and strong loyalty metrics have enabled Chime to compete with established US banks.

Strategic Insight: Chime shows how simplicity, transparency, and proactive AI-driven insights can build trust and loyalty in highly competitive markets.

Engaging the future customer 

If finance is becoming invisible, how do you create loyalty? The future of customer engagement in banking rests on four levers:

  • Membership and community — Treat customers as members, with benefits, status, and belonging (Chase Sapphire, Revolut Metal).
  • Lifecycle integration — Support not just transactions but whole life stages: starting a business, buying a home, raising a family.
  • Experiential value — Finance embedded in music, travel, shopping — not as cost but as enabler (Apple Wallet, DBS travel services).
  • Data-driven nudges — Personalised, proactive guidance that helps customers make better decisions without friction.

Choosing your future

The future of banking is not predetermined by technology. AI, cloud and APIs are enablers, not strategies. The real question for every institution is: Which opportunity will you pursue?

  • Will you be the invisible enabler, powering ecosystems from the back?
  • The ecosystem orchestrator, building a super-app of your own?
  • The data-driven guide, personalising every interaction?
  • The platform provider, selling your stack to others?
  • Or the trusted relationship bank, creating intimacy and loyalty in a commoditised world?

The future winners will be those who make a deliberate choice, align their business model and culture to it, and execute relentlessly. Banking’s next era is less about banks and more about connections — but it is strategy, not technology alone, that will decide who thrives.

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In a world defined by relentless change and rising complexity, a new breed of businesses is emerging—ambitious, restless, and unapologetically visionary.

These companies are addicted to possibility, obsessed with the edges of tomorrow, and committed to turning what’s possible into what’s next. They don’t just chase trends—they shape the future, pioneering radical innovations that reinvent markets, solve global challenges, and unlock extraordinary value.

Moonshot thinking—once the realm of sci-fi dreamers and NASA engineers—is now the strategic DNA of the most disruptive and admired companies. Alphabet’s X (formerly Google X), Tesla, OpenAI, SpaceX, DeepMind, Moderna, and ambitious upstarts like Anduril, Neuralink, and Twelve are bold exemplars of this mindset.

These businesses are defined by their drive to achieve 10x improvements over 10% gains. They ask “Why not?” instead of “What if?”, and challenge the limits of what’s considered feasible—whether by launching reusable rockets, eradicating disease, creating human-AI symbiosis, or designing carbon-negative fuels.

A unique leadership journey

The Global AMP is an executive program that goes beyond text books, MBAs and conventional practice. It becomes a stretching immersion into the next world of business, starting in the future, then evolving to today. In particular it focuses on transformation – the radically reinvention of business, and of yourself as a leader. What got you here is unlikely to take you further. It requires disruption, imagination and change. In fact business transformation is probably the superpower of today’s most successful leaders.

  • How will the markets of the future, be shaped by the best innovators of today?
  • What are the best ways to imagine your future markets, and plot your strategies from the future back?
  • How do you engage your people, your board, your investors, and other stakeholders?
  • What are the critical assets, capabilities and resources that will be most important in the transformation?

Each year, for the last 7 years, we have brought together 24-30 business leaders from around the world – different countries, different sectors, different backgrounds. But with an aspiration to lead the future of their organisations. Some are from large corporates, some from start-ups. Everyone is stepping up, to think different, to create and deliver innovation, to lead.

Building your new toolkit

Here are some of the most influential and emerging ideas in business, each reflecting the complex, fast-changing, and interconnected business landscape. These ideas go beyond traditional models to embrace uncertainty, systemic thinking, and value creation across new dimensions:

1. Ambidextrous Organizations

Key Idea: Winning firms are both efficient and innovative—exploiting existing capabilities while exploring new opportunities.
Thinkers: Charles O’Reilly & Michael Tushman
Application: IBM structuring separate units to run legacy systems vs. cloud/AI innovation; Amazon Web Services run autonomously from core retail.
Strategic Impact: Provides a model for structural balance, managing today’s business (exploit) while building the future (explore), and a double portfolio to optimise the two approaches.

2. Strategic Foresight

Key Idea: Strategy is no longer just based on forecasts, but on cultivating multiple future scenarios and building resilience, optionality, and adaptability.
Thinkers: Pierre Wack (Shell), Amy Webb (Future Today Institute)
Application: Shell’s scenario planning since the 1970s; LEGO’s Futures Lab building new play concepts.
Strategic Impact: Embeds uncertainty and weak signal detection into strategic planning.

3. Extreme Options

Key Idea: Balance between two extremes—hyper-conservative and hyper-risk-taking—to remain resilient in volatile environments.
Thinkers: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Application: Amazon betting big on Alexa and AWS while optimizing retail margins; asset managers combining safe bonds with speculative crypto.
Strategic Impact: Helps organizations survive shocks while capturing upside from high-risk innovations.

4. Dynamic Capabilities 

Key Idea: Competitive advantage lies not in static assets, but in a company’s ability to adapt, reconfigure, and innovate repeatedly in response to fast-changing environments.
Thinkers: David Teece, Gary Pisano
Application: Apple’s ability to transition from computers to music, phones, and services; Amazon continuously adapting its logistics and cloud strategy.
Strategic Impact: Shifts the focus of strategy from long-term planning to continuous renewal, learning, and responsiveness.

5. Ecosystem Building

Key Idea: Value creation happens within interdependent systems of organizations that co-evolve—success depends on aligning with partners, not just beating competitors.
Thinkers: Ron Adner (The Wide Lens), James Moore
Application: Tesla’s ecosystem of electric cars, charging infrastructure, energy storage, and solar tech.
Strategic Impact: Encourages companies to think systemically, innovate with others, and solve coordination challenges that affect adoption.

6. Ethical Foresight

Key Idea: Business strategy must include ethical foresight, not just profits—asking, “What kind of future are we enabling or preventing?”
Thinkers: Amartya Sen, Rebecca Henderson
Application: Microsoft refusing to sell facial recognition to law enforcement; Patagonia suing the US government over environmental policy.
Strategic Impact: Anchors strategy in values and systems thinking, especially amid rising stakeholder scrutiny.

7. Exponential Growth

Key Idea: Many technologies evolve on exponential curves—winning companies anticipate these curves, disrupt themselves, and scale rapidly.
Thinkers: Ray Kurzweil, Salim Ismail (Exponential Organizations)
Application: SpaceX’s 10x cost reduction in launches; OpenAI’s pursuit of general intelligence.
Strategic Impact: Encourages moonshot thinking, agile scaling, and bold bets—especially in tech-heavy industries.

8. Intangible Assets 

Key Idea: The drivers of value today are mostly intangible—brands, data, IP, culture, trust—and require new methods to develop and manage.
Thinkers: Jonathan Haskel & Stian Westlake (Capitalism without Capital), Baruch Lev
Application: Apple’s brand ecosystem; Google’s AI algorithms; Salesforce’s customer success culture.
Strategic Impact: Reframes strategic advantage around invisible capabilities—and calls for better ways to measure value creation.

9. Strategic AI

Key Idea: Strategy is increasingly co-designed with intelligent systems—for pattern detection, simulations, and complex decision-making.
Thinkers: Rita McGrath, BCG Henderson Institute
Application: McKinsey using AI to analyze M&A patterns; Ocado leveraging AI for warehouse optimization.
Strategic Impact: Enhances human judgment with scalable, data-driven insights and scenario modeling.

10. Platform Strategies

Key Idea: Rather than controlling value chains, firms create value by enabling exchanges between users, producers, and partners through platforms.
Thinkers: Geoffrey Parker, Marshall Van Alstyne, Sangeet Paul Choudary
Application: Amazon Marketplace, Google Ads, Airbnb, and TikTok all succeed by leveraging two-sided (or multi-sided) networks.
Strategic Impact: Prioritizes network effects, user experience, and ecosystem orchestration over traditional supply chain control.

11. Polarity Management

Key Idea: Strategic tensions (e.g., scale vs. intimacy, speed vs. stability) are not problems to solve but polarities to manage dynamically.
Thinkers: Barry Johnson
Application: Netflix managing centralization of platform with decentralization of content creation.
Strategic Impact: Moves leaders beyond binary trade-offs to dynamic balance.

12. Purposeful Business 

Key Idea: Companies with a clear and authentic purpose outperform over the long term, gaining trust, talent, and resilience.
Thinkers: Paul Polman, Rebecca Henderson (Reimagining Capitalism)
Application: Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan; Patagonia’s mission “We’re in business to save our home planet.”
Strategic Impact: Aligns strategy with values, attracts stakeholders, and drives differentiation in crowded markets.

13. Regenerative Business

Key Idea: Move beyond sustainability and circularity to become net-positive—restoring and regenerating natural, social, and economic systems.
Thinkers: John Elkington, Carol Sanford
Application: Interface and Patagonia embedding regeneration into core strategy—not just reducing harm but creating system-level value.
Strategic Impact: Encourages long-termism, stakeholder capitalism, and a shift from extractive to generative business models.

14. Strategic Narratives

Key Idea: Strategy is not just logic—it’s storytelling that aligns people around vision, values, and purpose to drive collective action.
Thinkers: Steve Denning, Simon Sinek
Application: Microsoft’s “empower every person” purpose under Satya Nadella; Airbnb’s “belong anywhere” narrative.
Strategic Impact: Builds emotional commitment, brand resonance, and internal alignment.

The Global AMP program is for hungry business leaders, typically aged 35-50 years old, currently working 1-2 levels below the C-suite, who are ready to create a better future – for their business, and themselves.

Each year the group of 24-30 participants come from across the world, and across sectors – from Argentina and Algeria, Belgium and Brazil, Canada and Colombia, Germany and Guatemala, Jordan and Japan, Nigeria and Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain, UAE and USA – construction and chemicals, energy and education, finance and fashion, pharmaceuticals and payments, telecoms and tech.

“So honored to be part of this program, and having gone through this learning journey with such a courageous, talented and inspiring group of leaders – now friends – from all over the world. It gave us a unique space to step out of our comfort zones, think about the future, transform our businesses and ourselves. Here’s to our futures!” Alexandra Miranda Bao, COO, Citi, Costa Rica.

“An amazing experience with an amazing group of friends, together we have completed a fantastic learning journey, by graduating last week from one of the best executive programs, the Global AMP in Madrid after presenting the gamechanger projects, showcasing disruptive models to reshape the business world in many industries. our new resolution is to embark ourselves and our organizations on a constant transformational journey by leading from the future.”  Omar Korshid, Technical Director, Heidelberg Cement, Egypt.

Perform and transform, exploit and explore, great gamechanger projects and amazing last week in Madrid. The best, the amazing people and good friends met along the program. Finally the Global Advance Management Program is over but a brilliant future is ahead of us.” Manuel Gariddo Gellado, Corporate Sales Director, GRI Renewables, Spain.

Business transformation is at the centre of the program – creating a blueprint for their future business, that seizes then opportunities of change, that reinvents externally and internally, exploits now and explores next, and has the potential to create a step change in value creation.

We could, of course, simply explore this in a series of topical modules, with theoretical frameworks and inspiring case studies. But we wanted to do more: to prepare participants for the future, explore new market spaces, innovative strategies and business models, address inevitable shocks and disruptions, and perhaps most importantly to work as an effective C-level team.

The Transform! business simulation is challenging and demanding, interactive and fun, and itself transformational.

Let’s imagine the future of the automotive industry – or mobility, as you could reframe it. In 4-5  teams, they appoint their CEOs, CFOs, and more. How will their team outthink the others? Who will develop the most effective business models? How will they manage strategy, start-ups, finance, acquisitions, boards, people, and more?

Business transformation, of course, is typically a multi-year journey. To reinvent the business, to double or maybe triple its market value. So how can you simulate this? We created a hybrid journey, starting face to face, then moving online, and back together. Years became weeks. Demanding fast decisions, and fast learning. How to create a P&L, brief analysts, acquire a business, address the unions, invest in a new technology, right now?

Having explored future megatrends, emerging technologies, new approaches to strategy, and innovative business models, with expert faculty, the Transform! simulation put it all into action. Fast, furious and fun!

Which company could transform itself, capture the new markets, and create $60 billion market cap first?

With coaching and collaboration, the teams found their ways to survive and thrive in a future world, which could be theirs in reality very soon. The conceptual ideas of previous months learning modules became real and relevant. They explored the different roles of leadership, and also learnt much about themselves.

As the 6 month learning journey came to a close the simulation was seen as a pivotal moment in how participants saw the future, and their potential in it. Their minds were opened to new possibilities, they were shaken out of their comfort zones, they appreciated what it takes to create and lead transformation. And they grew incredibly bonded as a team.

However this program is not just about theory or simulation, it’s about the real world, your real business, and your future.

The Gamechanger Projects are individual project work that run through the 6 month duration of the program, with coaching and support, applying all the best ideas practically to your own potential future. How do you see the future of your industry? How would you take your business beyond its current strategy, maybe beyond the minds of its current leaders? What is your practical blueprint for vision and transformation that you can take back to your business (or new business) and use it as a confident platform to start making your future happen.

Some of this year’s Gamechanger projects included:

In the Netherlands, the national Dutch Lottery has become increasingly concerned about gambling addiction. As a responsible gaming platform, the project seeks to shift towards skills-based games that attract new audiences, demand more expertise, and are also more profitable. This  will be based around a Skills Arena, a new gaming environment to engage the best gamers.

Aramark, based in USA, is one of the world’s leading facilities management companies offering services from catering to cleaning to the world’s offices, malls, schools, hospitals and more. Technology, and in particular AI, creates the opportunity to radically reinvent the business – enhancing humanity, anticipating customer needs, and transforming user experiences. In this way the business can transform its role from cost-driven service provider to added-value enabler.

Digital technologies have dehumanised crafts. With a background in the craftsmanship of luxury brands, this Open Crafts from Spain project seeks to create a modern School of Crafts – from artisans to architects, designers and dressmakers – how to create a renaissance in crafts through a platform that combines education and training, with inspiration and practices, and a new marketplace.

South Africa‘s leading bank, Standard Bank, care about much more than just money. It’s purpose is to transform African society, including though enabling Africa’s energy transition. The project specifically focuses on creating new opportunities for small businesses to adopt clean energy through new funding and payment models, and linking to other services too.

Peru‘s leading machinery supplier Grupo Maquinarias has a fundamental challenge in reinventing strategy, particularly in a family business. Cheap imported brands have disrupted the market, and decimated margins. This project is about reimagining the future of mobility and devices, creating a platform for suppliers and customers, with subscription based rentals.

Sleep is a luxury for any parent with new babies. Swedish business Nurtured Sleep is a start-up born from sleepless nights, initially as a coaching service to new parents. However sleep technologies have proliferated, demanding an ecosystem that brings together all the best science, devices, support and analytics. It becomes the Strava of sleep, doubling your sleep, and dramatically improving parenthood.

Join us next year!

 

 

Books have always been more than words on a page. They are vessels of knowledge, stories, and imagination — cultural markers that have shaped societies for centuries. Yet in an age of artificial intelligence, streaming platforms, and digital ecosystems, the book is being reimagined in profound ways.

The future of books is not just about format — over recent years, about print to e-book to audiobook, but potentially much more — and about how creation, delivery, and engagement are being reinvented. The book is evolving from a static object into a living, adaptive, and interconnected experience.

A new creative canvas

The first wave of digital transformation in publishing was about format. The e-book made texts portable, searchable, and convenient. Audiobooks brought literature into our commutes and workouts. But these were incremental steps — they digitised the book, but did not fundamentally change its essence.

The next wave, enabled by AI and new media, is reshaping what a book can be. Text will no longer be static. Books may update in real time, incorporating new research, live data, or contemporary examples. They may adapt to the reader, offering simplified explanations for a novice, deeper analysis for an expert, or even tailoring cultural references for different markets. Instead of one-size-fits-all, we will see personalised editions, dynamically generated while preserving the author’s voice.

Books are also becoming multimodal. Words will increasingly be woven with interactive graphics, video, simulations, or immersive audio layers. Fiction can become explorable worlds in augmented or virtual reality, while nonfiction may offer dynamic visualisations or AI-generated case studies. The book becomes less of a finished artifact and more of a creative canvas — one that can expand, evolve, and respond.

My experience as an author

I started writing books 20 years ago. My first book, Marketing Genius, was a bestseller in 35 languages. I remember piles of books everywhere I went, signing copies in bookstores and more. My publisher, John Wiley, loved it, because it sold many thousands of copies, with profitable margins.

20 years later, my latest book Business Recoded, is hardly ever seen as a physical item. Instead it’s a video, a workshop, a conference, a toolkit, and much more. For Wiley, this looked less successful, it did fairly well, but nothing like the old days. For me, it was far more effective, and the core of my working life.

As an author, I have now become the orchestrator of an ecosystem. Creating, or often co-creating, a canvas for many more people to engage across multiple formats. I’d love the publisher to play a key part in this, but they seem wedded to their old mindsets and business models, and are reluctant to engage.

So how did we get here?

Books are now dynamic ecosystems

A single book today rarely stands alone. The most successful publishing projects are parts of wider ecosystems: a business book connected to a podcast series, a novel that spawns a Netflix show, a self-help title extended into workshops and online communities.

Digital technologies amplify this. Publishing platforms are becoming gateways into broader experiences. A reader might finish a chapter and be invited into a discussion forum, a virtual event, or an interactive workshop. Authors and publishers are no longer only distributors of texts — they are orchestrators of communities.

Consider how Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy novels have grown into role-playing games, fan-funded spin-offs, and multimillion-dollar crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter. Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming was not just a book but a multi-channel project: a stadium tour, a Netflix documentary, and an online movement.

In Asia, Japanese publishers like Kadokawa have pioneered “media mix” strategies, where a single story becomes a manga, an anime, a light novel, a game, and merchandise. The book is not the end point — it is the seed of a transmedia ecosystem.

New business models

This shift is also reshaping the economics of publishing.

  • Subscriptions and platforms: Services like Scribd, Audible, and Kindle Unlimited are the “Spotify for books.” In China, apps like China Literature or iQiyi allow serialized fiction to be read chapter by chapter, monetized by micro-payments. AI-powered recommendation engines keep readers hooked, turning books into endless, evolving entertainment.
  • On-demand and real-time publishing: Print-on-demand (used by Amazon’s KDP, IngramSpark, or Lulu) already reduces waste and inventory costs. The next frontier is real-time updating — textbooks that reflect the latest research, business books that refresh examples automatically. Pearson and Elsevier are already experimenting with digital textbooks as subscription services rather than static editions.
  • Atomic content: Books may be decomposed into modules — chapters, frameworks, or stories — that can be licensed, remixed, or sold individually. This is already common in education publishing, where platforms like VitalSource or Kortext allow universities to assemble customised textbooks.
  • Ecosystem revenues: Increasingly, the book itself is the entry ticket, not the profit engine. Authors build revenue around extensions: live events, consulting, courses, merchandise, and brand partnerships. Think of the way Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks feed into TV shows, restaurants, and product lines. The book is a node in a larger commercial web.

The disruption of AI 

Artificial intelligence is perhaps the most radical force reshaping books.

For authors, AI is both assistant and co-author. Tools like Sudowrite, Jasper, and Claude help brainstorm plot lines, suggest alternative phrasings, or generate first drafts. Translation is being revolutionised: DeepL and Google Translate allow instant multi-language editions, opening global markets overnight. AI also enables “style transfer,” allowing texts to be adapted into new tones or registers for different audiences.

For readers, AI opens entirely new possibilities. Imagine reading a history book with an embedded AI companion: ask it questions, get contextual explanations, or explore counter-arguments. AI could quiz students, highlight patterns, or generate personalised case studies. Each reader’s book becomes an interactive dialogue rather than a one-way transmission.

In education, companies like Kortext in the UK and Byju’s in India are embedding AI tutors directly into digital textbooks. In nonfiction, startups like Inkitt or Wattpad use AI analytics to predict which stories will resonate with readers, reshaping acquisition decisions.

The most innovative publishers

Around the world, publishers are experimenting with innovative business and publishing models:

  • Penguin Random House (global): Still the largest trade publisher, PRH has invested in audio, multimedia adaptations, and global rights partnerships. Its Storyglass studio develops podcasts based on book IP, while its children’s division builds interactive apps.
  • Hachette Livre (France): Pioneering in hybrid models, Hachette has invested in immersive nonfiction experiences and partnered with start-ups to embed multimedia in textbooks.
  • HarperCollins (US/UK): Experimenting with AI-enabled translations, HarperCollins India has focused on rapid digital editions and regional language growth.
  • China Literature (Tencent): A digital-first publisher with over 200 million monthly users, monetising serialized fiction through micro-payments, licensing stories into TV dramas and games. It shows how books can be the seed of entertainment universes.
  • Wattpad (Canada): Now owned by Naver (Korea), Wattpad built a platform for social reading where communities help shape stories. Its “Wattpad Studios” arm turns the most popular stories into published books, films, or TV series — a bottom-up model of publishing.
  • Elsevier & Pearson (Netherlands/UK): Reinventing education publishing through digital subscriptions, real-time updates, and learning analytics. Pearson Plus offers all its textbooks as a Netflix-style bundle, changing the revenue model from ownership to access.
  • Shueisha (Japan): Publisher of Shonen Jump, Shueisha pioneered transmedia storytelling, where manga series expand into anime, movies, games, and global franchises like Naruto or One Piece.

These cases show that the most innovative publishers are no longer thinking in terms of a book as a single product. They are thinking in terms of IP ecosystems, community platforms, and services.

Changing roles in publishing

As books evolve, so too do the roles of the players who create, produce, and distribute them.

  • The author: From solitary writer to ecosystem orchestrator. They are expected to maintain social presence, host events, interact with communities, and sometimes co-create with fans. Their authority rests not only in writing but in sustaining engagement.
  • The publisher: From printer/distributor to multi-channel brand manager. Publishers act like venture studios for intellectual property — testing, scaling, and monetising stories across books, films, podcasts, and courses.
  • The printer: Physical books remain, but focus shifts toward quality, collectability, and personalisation. Short-run print, special editions, and print-on-demand replace mass overproduction. Printers become agile service providers.
  • The bookseller: Surviving bookstores reinvent as cultural hubs. Many independents now host author talks, workshops, reading groups, even cafés and coworking spaces. Chains like Waterstones in the UK emphasise community events and curated experiences. In Japan, Tsutaya Books reinvented itself as a lifestyle destination where books, coffee, art, and design merge.
  • The reader: From passive consumer to active participant. Readers shape storylines (as on Wattpad), join fan communities, support authors directly through Patreon or Substack, and expect interactive and immersive experiences.

What’s the future of books?

This table summarises how roles, processes, business models and technology shift as publishing moves from a product-centred model to an ecosystem and AI-driven model.

Traditional Publishing Ecosystem Future Publishing Ecosystem
Author Sole creator; writes manuscript, limited direct audience interaction; reliant on advance and royalty model. Ecosystem orchestrator; co-creates with AI and communities; builds IP across formats and revenue streams; continuous engagement.
Publisher Gatekeeper and financier; handles editing, production, distribution, rights. Focus on single products (books). IP studio & platform operator; manages multi-format rights, data, communities, and partnerships (audio, video, courses, events). Acts like a VC/accelerator for projects.
Editor Manuscript editor focused on craft and line-editing. Strategic editor and product manager: shapes transmedia arcs, audience segmentation, and monetisation design.
Printer Mass production; economy of scale; inventory-heavy. On-demand and short-run production; high-quality special editions and bespoke personalization. Printers as agile service partners.
Retailer Bookstores and chains focused on point-of-sale transactions; discoverability via displays and reviews. Community hubs & experience venues; hybrid retail (events, cafés, subscriptions); integrated online/offline discovery.
Reader Passive consumer buying a finished product. Active participant: co-creator, community member, subscriber, and data contributor; expects interactive, personalised experiences.
Format Print, e-book, audiobook as discrete products. Multimodal, dynamic formats—living text, audio companions, AR/VR experiences, interactive data, modular chapters.
Distribution Channel-based (retail, wholesalers, libraries); rights negotiated per territory/format. Platform-first distribution; direct-to-reader channels, API-driven syndication, global instant localization and micro-payments.
Business Model Unit sales, advances + royalties, library copies. Subscriptions, micro-payments, licensing of modular content, ecosystem revenue (events, courses, consulting), revenue-sharing partnerships.
Product Lifecycle Static editions with periodic new printings/editions. Continuous update model eg real-time corrections, living editions, iterative content releases and serialisation.
Creation Tools Word processors, manual research, human-only workflows. AI-assisted research, drafting, localisation, and style adaptation; analytics-driven editorial decisions.
Marketing Frontlist marketing, media reviews, author tours, bookstore placement. Data-driven personalised discovery, platform algorithms, community seeding, creator partnerships, serialised funnels.
Licensing Rights managed by publishers and agents; often complex territory-by-territory deals. Rights treated as modular IP: cross-platform licensing, tokenised ownership possibilities, dynamic rights marketplaces.
Quality Editorial gatekeeping ensures quality; curated lists and awards guide discovery. Hybrid curation: editorial selection + algorithmic recommendation; community validation and micro-influencers.
Education Textbooks and academic works republished in new editions; long publishing cycles. Adaptive learning platforms, cloud-textbooks with analytics, personalised curricula, pay-as-you-go chapter access.
Analytics Limited sales data; publisher-centric reporting. Rich, real-time reader analytics: engagement, learning outcomes, A/B tests, and monetisation signals used to iterate products.
Community Author signings, mailing lists, occasional reader clubs. Ongoing communities: forums, Patreon/Substack models, live events, co-creation spaces, fan-driven content.
Regulation Traditional copyright enforcement and publisher liability. New challenges: AI provenance, synthetic text provenance, licensing of AI-trained models, ethical curation.
Ecosystem Printers, distributors, retailers, literary agents. Also includes tech platforms (AI, AR/VR), learning platforms, studios (TV/film), game companies, brands, and infrastructure partners.

.

Books are not dying. They are multiplying into new forms. The physical book will remain as a cultural artifact — treasured, collected, and gifted. At the same time, digital and AI-driven formats will explode the possibilities of what a book can be: a living document, a personalised tutor, a community platform, a gateway into immersive experiences.

The future of books is hybrid. Part artifact, part ecosystem. Part static text, part dynamic conversation. The challenge for authors, publishers, and readers alike is to embrace this expanded horizon.

The book has always been about the transmission of ideas across time and space. That mission remains. But the means of doing so — the ways we write, publish, share, and experience books — is undergoing a profound reinvention. And like all great stories, the future of the book will be written collaboratively.

Peter Fisk will again be hosting and speaking at the Future Book Forum on 12-13 November 2025 at the Canon Experience Center, in Munich, Germany. Bringing together publishers and partners from across the world, this year’s forum will focus on ecosystems.

He may stride onto conference stages in a £7,000 leather jacket and bring traffic to a standstill in Taipei, prompting Mark Zuckerberg to joke that he is “the Taylor Swift of tech.”

Yet the mythology around Jensen Huang misses the far more interesting truth: NVIDIA’s rise is not a story of glamour, but of grit. It is the story of an immigrant who arrived in America with little, discovered computers through late-night gaming sessions, and built one of the most valuable companies in history from a fast-food table in Sunnyvale.

Huang’s background is central to NVIDIA’s character. Born in Taiwan, raised partly in Thailand, and later sent to the United States as a teenager, he grew up navigating uncertainty. At Stanford he was an engineering student obsessed with graphics, simulations and video games—an unusual passion at a time when computing was still dominated by spreadsheets and mainframes. In 1993, at a Wendy’s on El Camino Real, he met Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. Over burgers and napkins they sketched a simple but audacious idea: to build hardware powerful enough to make graphics—and eventually computation itself—come alive.

It would take more than thirty years for that idea to mature into a company now valued above $4.5 trillion. Along the way NVIDIA nearly ran out of money, nearly collapsed during the dot-com crash, and was dismissed for years as a niche specialist making toys for gamers. But Huang had a worldview shaped not by comfort but by vulnerability. His now-famous mantra—“we are always 30 days from going out of business”—is less paranoia than a disciplined refusal to become complacent. That mindset gave NVIDIA the courage to bet nearly $10 billion on CUDA, a programming environment that nobody wanted and few believed in. Wall Street punished the company. Analysts openly mocked the strategy. Yet Huang pushed through the humiliation, insisting that general-purpose GPU computing would one day become essential.

Intel had more PhDs, more capital and more prestige. But it was trapped by its own legacy architectures. NVIDIA, built on outsider mentality and immigrant resilience, was not. CUDA became the gateway not just to better graphics but to modern artificial intelligence. And that is how NVIDIA now frames itself—not as a chip company, but as the “engine of AI,” a platform for the next industrial revolution. In this positioning lies another lesson: the refusal to let the past define the future.

The texture of Huang’s leadership remains distinctive. He reads more than a hundred employee emails each morning. He keeps sixty direct reports—an organisational structure most management theorists would consider impossible. He avoids one-to-one meetings because he wants ideas unfiltered, not softened on their journey up the hierarchy. Engineers speak of late-night replies arriving at weekends, often short, precise and typed with a glass of whisky beside him. In a world thick with hierarchy, Huawei has created the anti-hierarchy: leadership as direct signal detection.

And then there is Satya Nadella—another immigrant, another outsider in his own way, but a man whose leadership philosophy took shape through a completely different path. Nadella was not a founder; he rose through Microsoft during its most lumbering years, working across cloud, enterprise software and research. Where Huang’s leadership is fuelled by vigilant paranoia, Nadella’s is grounded in trust, humility and what he calls a “growth mindset.” The son of an Indian civil servant, educated in Hyderabad, he entered Microsoft in 1992 with little fanfare. But he possessed something the company desperately needed: the ability to listen, learn, empower and redirect an ageing giant toward a new frontier.

Nadella delegated more than three-quarters of Microsoft’s commercial machinery, freeing himself to focus on culture, cloud architecture, data infrastructure and long-term opportunity. His genius is orchestration rather than intensity—building a system so strong and so distributed that no single leader needs to sit at the centre of every decision. Under his watch Microsoft rediscovered curiosity, collaboration and moral seriousness. Azure blossomed. The company regained its technical edge. And today Microsoft, too, sits in the three-to-five-trillion-dollar stratosphere.

The contrast between the two men is striking. Huang, the founder-immigrant, operating with a hunter’s paranoia, immersing himself in the granular details of engineering and organisational flow. Nadella, the immigrant-insider, shaping culture through empowerment, trust and distributed leadership. Both approaches work. Both have reshaped the modern technological landscape. But they succeed for opposite reasons.

Leadership is often presented as a universal formula, a set of best practices waiting to be copied. NVIDIA and Microsoft reveal something more interesting: great leadership is not imitation but alignment. It aligns the leader’s temperament with the organisation’s stage of maturity, with the context of competition, and with the demands of the era. For NVIDIA, that meant a founder who still behaves like a scrappy outsider, even at $4.5 trillion. For Microsoft, it meant a cultural architect who could coax a sleeping giant into a new age.

The question, then, is not which leader is “better,” but which operating model matches your wiring—and which the moment requires. In an age of accelerating change, geopolitical tension and technological upheaval, success belongs not to those who copy, but to those who design themselves.

Walking into the Château de la Muette, the former Parisian residence of the Baron Henri de Rothschild, but now the headquarters of the OECD, I could feel the inertia. A temple to international policy, a haven for multinational interns. And a self-serving home to intellectual inaction.

For the last three years, I have been bringing together some of the senior leaders from many different international organisations – to help them rethink their purpose and direction, and how they as leaders can reinvent these institutions, and drive innovative actions for a different future.

International organisations were conceived in moments of post-war rebuilding and global optimism. Here are some of the bets known:

  • United Nations (UN) – peace, security, development, human rights.

  • World Trade Organization (WTO) – rules of global trade.

  • World Health Organization (WHO) – global health.

  • International Labour Organization (ILO) – labour rights and standards.

  • World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – IP rights and innovation.

  • UNESCO – education, science, and culture.

  • UNICEF – children’s rights and humanitarian aid.

  • International Monetary Fund (IMF) – monetary stability, lending, economic policy.

  • World Bank Group (IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA) – development financing and poverty reduction.

  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – economic policy, data, and best practices.

  • Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) – Latin America and the Caribbean.

  • Asian Development Bank (ADB) – Asia-Pacific.

  • African Development Bank (AfDB) – Africa.

  • European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) – transition economies of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Southern and Eastern Mediterranean.

  • Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) – development financing in member countries.

  • New Development Bank (NDB, or BRICS Bank) – founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

  • Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – infrastructure in Asia.

Their missions—peace, prosperity, development, and cooperation—were grounded in the assumption that globalisation would deepen, nations would collaborate, and shared challenges could be met through collective action.

But the world of the 2020s looks very different. Instead of convergence, we see fragmentation: trade blocs fracturing, great-power competition intensifying, regional conflicts spilling over borders, and nations prioritising short-term sovereignty over shared long-term solutions. Added to this are climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, widening inequality, migration pressures, cyber insecurity, and the disruptive march of new technologies like AI and biotechnology.

This creates a paradox. On the one hand, global challenges require stronger collaboration than ever. On the other hand, the political legitimacy and effectiveness of international organisations are under strain. To remain relevant—and indeed to fulfil their founding missions—such organisations must reinvent themselves.

Challenges of a changing world

1. Polarisation and nationalism.
Rising populism and political nationalism have made countries less willing to cede sovereignty or submit to international rules. The UN Security Council has become paralysed on key issues because of great-power rivalries. IMF reform to give more voice to emerging economies has stalled.

2. Legitimacy crisis.
Many international organisations are seen as elitist, slow-moving, or dominated by powerful states. Developing nations often argue that the governance of the IMF, World Bank, or OECD reflects outdated economic balances. Citizens in both North and South often see international bodies as “remote bureaucracies” detached from real impact.

3. Desk-bound inertia.
Despite their technical expertise, many organisations are trapped in a culture of reports, declarations, and frameworks. Policy papers pile up, but practical outcomes are scarce. The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), though visionary, risk becoming a checklist rather than a driver of tangible innovation.

4. Complexity of challenges.
Today’s crises are systemic, crossing borders and silos. Climate change interacts with migration; pandemics with supply chains; cybercrime with terrorism. Traditional organisational structures—sectoral, hierarchical, and nation-based—are ill-equipped to deal with such entangled realities.

Opportunities to innovate with impact

Yet within this turbulence lies opportunity. International organisations still command convening power, technical knowledge, financial resources, and global legitimacy that few other institutions can match. Reinvention would mean harnessing these assets differently—less as top-down authorities and more as enablers of collaborative, bottom-up action.

Some key opportunities:

  • From policy to platforms. Moving from publishing recommendations to building practical platforms where nations, entrepreneurs, and communities can co-create solutions.

  • From state-centric to multi-stakeholder. Broadening engagement beyond governments to include businesses, NGOs, cities, universities, and innovators.

  • From bureaucracy to agility. Adopting innovation mindsets, iterative experiments, and digital-first operations.

  • From guardians of order to catalysts of change. Seeing themselves less as defenders of the status quo, and more as laboratories for new forms of governance, finance, and collaboration.

Pathways to transformation

1. Addressing the SDGs in practical, innovative ways

The 17 SDGs provide a shared blueprint—but their implementation remains patchy. International organisations can reframe their role not as monitors of progress, but as enablers of scalable innovation. For example:

  • Climate action (SDG 13). The UN or ADB could incubate “climate venture studios” that partner with entrepreneurs to scale carbon capture, clean mobility, or regenerative agriculture.

  • Education (SDG 4). The OECD could create a global EdTech accelerator, linking policymakers with startups delivering AI-enabled personalised learning to underserved communities.

  • Health (SDG 3). IDB could support a cross-border digital health passport system, enabling continuity of care for migrants and refugees.

The principle is not more reports, but more pilots, prototypes, and proof points—building innovation portfolios across the SDGs.

2. Empowering entrepreneurs and local innovators

Economic growth and job creation are increasingly driven by entrepreneurs and small enterprises rather than state-led megaprojects. International organisations can reinvent their support models by:

  • Creating innovation sandboxes. IMF and World Bank could collaborate with regulators to create safe spaces for fintech, green finance, and inclusive banking to be tested across borders.

  • Financing ecosystems, not just projects. Instead of top-down loans, provide catalytic capital for venture funds, incubators, and networks that empower local startups.

  • Bridging knowledge gaps. OECD could democratise access to its world-class data and analysis, offering open APIs that entrepreneurs in Lagos or Lima can build on.

By becoming champions of entrepreneurship, these organisations align with the future of growth—distributed, digital, and bottom-up.

3. Building platforms for collective responses

International organisations are uniquely placed to create platforms for collaboration—shared infrastructures where governments, companies, and citizens can coordinate.

  • Digital platforms. Imagine a UN-backed climate risk marketplace where insurers, cities, and communities exchange data and solutions in real time.

  • Supply chain resilience hubs. ADB could convene Asia-Pacific economies and firms into regional platforms mapping supply chain risks and alternative sourcing.

  • Conflict mediation networks. UN could establish “peace tech” platforms where grassroots mediators, journalists, and civil society share early-warning data and conflict-resolution tools.

In an era of digital ecosystems, being a platform architect may be the most impactful role for global bodies.

4. Fostering understanding and collaboration

At their best, international organisations are “interpreters of complexity.” Yet in an age of misinformation, mistrust, and polarisation, their communication must be reinvented.

  • Radical transparency. Simplifying complex economic or climate data into visual, open dashboards accessible to all citizens, not just policymakers.

  • Narratives of shared progress. Shifting language from technocratic jargon to human stories—how an IMF-supported digital currency reform helps a mother send remittances, or how an IDB green bond finances a community forest.

  • Facilitating dialogues. Moving from grand annual conferences to ongoing, participatory online forums that connect mayors, scientists, activists, and entrepreneurs.

5. New mindsets and cultures

Perhaps the deepest reinvention is cultural. Most international organisations are still hierarchical, diplomatic, and risk-averse. Reinvention requires a new DNA:

  • Experimentation over perfection. Launching pilot projects quickly, learning, and scaling what works.

  • Collaboration over competition. Breaking silos between UN agencies or between IMF and regional development banks.

  • Diversity of voices. Ensuring young leaders, women, indigenous peoples, and entrepreneurs are not just consulted but integrated into decision-making.

  • Purpose-driven identity. Reconnecting to founding missions—peace, development, cooperation—but expressed in contemporary challenges like AI ethics or planetary health.

6. Reinventing business models and governance

Finally, international organisations must rethink their own structures. Many still rely on rigid voting systems and funding formulas from the mid-20th century. Options for reinvention include:

  • Polycentric governance. Creating flexible coalitions of willing actors within larger organisations—“mini-laterals” that move faster while still linked to global frameworks.

  • Outcome-based financing. Linking budgets not to inputs (how much spent) but to measurable outcomes (how many children educated, how much carbon reduced).

  • Crowdsourced legitimacy. Allowing citizens to engage directly, for example through participatory budgeting of development funds or citizen assemblies on global issues.

  • Partnership-driven models. Opening their doors to co-investment and co-creation with private sector, philanthropy, and civil society.

Such changes would not only improve effectiveness but rebuild legitimacy and trust.

Lessons from IO innovations

Some international organisations are already experimenting:

  • World Health Organization (WHO). During COVID-19, WHO partnered with tech firms to counter misinformation, moving beyond traditional medical guidance.

  • IDB Lab. The innovation arm of the IDB has begun acting like a venture investor, seeding startups tackling climate, inclusion, and digitalisation across Latin America.

  • OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation. A small but promising initiative that prototypes new governance methods and policy experiments.

  • UNDP Accelerator Labs. With over 90 labs worldwide, they use grassroots experimentation to tackle issues from plastic waste to renewable energy.

These show that reinvention is possible—but needs to be scaled and mainstreamed.

The IO reinvention imperative

In an age of fragmenting globalisation, climate emergency, and political polarisation, international organisations stand at a crossroads. They can either fade into irrelevance—ossified bureaucracies remembered for lofty declarations—or they can reinvent themselves as catalysts of practical action, inclusive collaboration, and transformative innovation.

The path forward is not easy. It demands humility from institutions long used to authority, flexibility in structures designed for stability, and courage to experiment when legitimacy is fragile. But the rewards are immense: renewed trust, real-world impact, and a chance to make global cooperation meaningful again.

In practical terms, reinvention means:

  • Shifting from policy inertia to practical action.

  • Moving from state-centric diplomacy to multi-stakeholder ecosystems.

  • Transforming from bureaucratic hierarchies to agile innovation cultures.

  • Redesigning from outdated governance models to polycentric, participatory, and outcome-based ones.

The world still needs global cooperation. Indeed, it needs it more than ever. But cooperation must look different: dynamic, inclusive, entrepreneurial, and adaptive. Reinvented international organisations could become the platforms where humanity confronts its crises together and designs its shared future.

A year ago I was sitting in the Stade de France, in Paris. The sun blazed hot, and I was in my seat a good two hours before competition began. The crowd buzzed with anticipation. Tonight it was the 1500m final, the blue ribbon athletics events of the Summer Olympics.

As a Brit, I was rooting for Josh Kerr, but he was up against a stacked field – including the Norwegian champion Jakob Ingebrigstsen, and Americans Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse.

But imagine, a year later … and instead of elite athletes taking to the track for the Olympic 1500m final, it’s a different kind of gladiator.

These are eight of the world’s most dynamic business leaders—visionaries, technologists, empire builders—preparing to race not just for gold, but for global influence. Welcome to the Business Olympics, where CEOs and founders test their leadership like athletes test their bodies: through preparation, precision, resilience and heart.

The 1500m is a perfect metaphor. It demands both speed and stamina, tactics and nerve. And in this race, the competitors aren’t running for medals—they’re racing toward the future.

The Line-Up: 8 of the world’s best leaders

The Olympics brings together the best from around the world. Who will take victory on the day, in one race that can define a lifetime?

I’ve been a great admirer of Satya Nadella over the last decade, but Sam Altman seems to be shaking up the world of AI. Australia’s superstar Melanie Perkins is also one of the new generation of leaders. And then there are people like Lei Jun, the magician of Shanghai, the Steve Jobs of today’s technology world.

1. Satya Nadella (Microsoft)
The reigning champion of transformation. Calm, composed, and relentlessly human in his approach, Nadella has turned Microsoft into an innovation powerhouse—balancing cloud, AI, and a growth mindset culture with elegance.

2. Sam Altman (OpenAI)
The bold strategist and startup tactician. Altman runs with wild intensity, combining futurist vision with the pacing of someone who knows every twist in the track. But will he peak too soon?

3. Melanie Perkins (Canva)
Creative and confident, Perkins enters the race with disruptive energy. She doesn’t follow the old rules—she rewrites them, designing intuitive solutions at scale. Underestimate her at your peril.

4. Mary Barra (GM)
A veteran of tough terrain. Barra runs with the steady power of someone who has rebuilt an industrial giant for a post-petrol world. Electrified, resilient, and still accelerating.

5. Tobi Lütke (Shopify)
Quiet and composed, Lütke is a long-distance strategist. He focuses on empowering others—building platforms, not empires. His race is subtle, but don’t mistake that for weakness.

6. Lisa Su (AMD)
Focused, formidable, and fiercely competitive. Su has redefined performance, outpacing competitors with relentless precision. Her strength lies in mastering complexity while staying calm under pressure.

7. Jessica Tan (Ping An)
The hybrid leader—half technologist, half reformer. Tan blends speed with intelligence, innovating within legacy systems. She races with data, AI, and purpose in perfect stride.

8. Lei Jun (Xiaomi)
The master of efficiency and explosive growth. Jun runs light and fast, executing at scale while staying close to consumers. He’s hungry, unpredictable, and ready to break away.

Race Tactics: Innovation vs Endurance

The 1500m isn’t a sprint or a marathon—it’s the most psychological race on the track. These leaders must balance pace with positioning, intuition with preparation. The parallels with business are uncanny.

  • Early surge: Altman breaks early, pushing the pace with an aggressive move—just like his moonshot approach to AI. But the field doesn’t panic.

  • Smart control: Nadella and Su hold steady, conserving energy while tracking every move. It’s classic systems thinking: don’t chase, just stay sharp.

  • Positioning: Perkins slips into third, light on her feet, watching the chaos unfold ahead. She knows when to strike.

  • Acceleration from the middle: Tan and Jun exchange places, each using a different playbook—Tan with precision, Jun with hustle.

  • Unexpected move: With 400m to go, Barra powers up. She’s playing the long game, but she knows exactly when to shift gears.

Who’s your money on? It has the endurance, the courage, and the inspiration to step up when it matters most? Altman looks spent. Nadella is relaxed, a slight smile. Su focused. Perkins looks cool.

The Final Lap: Pressure Makes Performance

Now the race hits boiling point. There’s no hiding. This is where leaders show what they’re really made of. Not in earnings reports or speeches—but in resilience, grit, and instinct.

  • Nadella stays calm, calculating the perfect moment to launch. His stride lengthens.

  • Su is on his shoulder, surgical and focused, ready to match him move for move.

  • Perkins finds another gear—creative thinking becomes pure momentum.

  • Barra grits her teeth, driven by purpose and pressure-tested leadership.

  • Tan surges too—quietly powerful, elegantly efficient.

Neck and neck. The final drive. The Microsoft leader has created $3 trillion in shareholder value growth over the last 10, so analysts clearly have confidence in his ability to deliver.

The Podium: Who takes the glory?

Gold: Satya Nadella
A masterclass in composed leadership. He wins through timing, empathy, and a relentless ability to align innovation with culture and clarity.

Silver:  Lisa Su
Unflinching and technically brilliant. Su doesn’t just race—she engineers a performance. A true operator who has led AMD into the future with grace and grit.

Bronze: Melanie Perkins
Youthful, bold, and unstoppable. Perkins proves that imagination and accessibility can change the game. She earns her medal with elegance and courage.

Close behind:

  • Jessica Tan – sharp, steady, and incredibly strategic. Her time is coming.

  • Tobi Lütke – consistent, humble, but perhaps a little too modest in a noisy race.

  • Mary Barra – the comeback queen, just shy of the medals but hugely respected.

  • Sam Altman – brilliant but burned too much energy too early.

  • Lei Jun – fast and fierce, but the final lap exposed his lack of endurance.

What a great race.  Maybe the result was not such a surprise. Nadella, has after all, created over $3 trillion of value growth during his 10 years as CEO of Microsoft. His focus on growth mindset, of relentless innovation, and bringing the tech business back to global leadership is admired universally. I know he can play cricket, I’m not sure how far he can run?

So what can business leaders learn from Olympic athletes?

Of course, business leaders typically have different physical talents to the world’s top Olympic athletes. But maybe, in their pursuit of high performance, to be the best in the world, they share some common traits:

  • Discipline fuels creativity: Athletes don’t just train for fun—they train to win. High-performance leaders create space for innovation by mastering fundamentals.

  • It’s a team sport: Behind every elite athlete is a team—coaches, trainers, analysts. Behind every great CEO is a culture, a board, and a customer community.

  • You can’t peak every day: Smart leaders know when to push and when to recover. Resilience comes not from always going full pace, but knowing when to hold back.

  • Success is a long race: In the 1500m, as in business, it’s not about one burst of brilliance. It’s about knowing the track, adapting mid-race, and executing at the right moment.

  • Character is the final advantage: Champions are forged in adversity. The winners here didn’t just have good strategies—they had courage, humility, and the will to lead others.

This was one race. But the track is always open. New competitors rise. Technologies shift. Conditions change. The leaders who train, evolve, and inspire will always be in contention. Because in the end, high performance is not just about being the fastest—it’s about knowing why you’re running, and bringing others with you.

Each month The Brand Doctor, business expert Peter Fisk, takes a global brand that has lost its way, and considers how it could reinvent itself. If it’s your brand, do you have the courage to change? If not, what would you do, and how could you apply these ideas for reinvention to your own business?

Philip Morris International

PMI is a company of contradictions. It is the largest publicly listed international tobacco company, with 2024 revenues of around $35 billion, and market cap of $250 billion.

For over a century, PMI has made billions selling products universally recognised as harmful. Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Benson and Hedges, and other iconic brands are woven into the social fabric of countless nations, a shorthand for glamour, rebellion, and ritualised indulgence.

Yet, the world has changed. Smoking rates are declining in developed markets, regulations are tightening, and public health narratives are increasingly uncompromising.

PMI’s declared goal of a “smoke-free future” is ambitious, even necessary—but it raises questions few executives dare to ask: can a tobacco company truly reinvent itself as a health and wellness organisation? Can it persuade its loyal consumers to follow it on that journey?

Smoke-free future

Jacek Olczak, CEO of PMI, has articulated a clear vision for the company’s future: to transition from a traditional tobacco company to a health and wellness enterprise. This transformation is encapsulated in PMI’s commitment to achieving a “smoke-free future,” aiming to replace cigarettes with scientifically substantiated, reduced-risk alternatives.

Since his appointment as CEO in May 2021, Olczak has consistently emphasised PMI’s commitment to transitioning away from traditional cigarettes and focusing on smoke-free alternatives. He has emphasised that PMI is not merely diversifying its product portfolio but is fundamentally reimagining its business model. The acquisition of Vectura, a UK-based inhaler business, underscores this shift towards health-oriented products. By investing in inhalation technologies and respiratory therapies, PMI seeks to leverage its expertise in nicotine delivery systems to address broader health concerns.

PMI aims to generate more than two-thirds of its revenue from smoke-free products by 2030 and continues to reduce its combustible cigarette shipment volume.

However, this strategic pivot is not without its complexities. The challenge lies in reconciling the company’s legacy as a leading tobacco producer with its aspirations in the health sector. The Marlboro brand, synonymous with smoking, presents a particular hurdle. While PMI has introduced IQOS, a heated tobacco product, and other smoke-free alternatives, the question remains: can these products, and the brands associated with them, be redefined in the public’s perception as health-conscious choices?

Current progress … 41% smoke-free

As of mid 2025, PMI reported that approximately 41% of its total global net revenues were derived from smoke-free products. This marks a significant increase from previous years, reflecting the company’s successful expansion into alternative nicotine products. Notably, in 25 markets, smoke-free products now account for more than 50% of total net revenues, indicating strong consumer adoption in these regions.

IQOS, PMI’s flagship heated tobacco product, continues to drive growth in the smoke-free segment. By the end of 2023, IQOS had approximately 28.6 million users, with an estimated 73% having switched from traditional cigarettes. This user base is expected to have grown further in 2024 and 2025, contributing significantly to the company’s revenue.

In the first quarter of 2025, smoke-free products accounted for 44% of PMI’s total gross profit. This indicates not only strong revenue growth but also improved profitability in the smoke-free segment. The company’s ability to achieve higher margins in this area is a positive sign for the sustainability of its transformation strategy.

Brand evolution … from Marlboro to wellness

Reimagining brands

The Marlboro brand, with its deep-rooted association with smoking, presents both an opportunity and a challenge in PMI’s transformation. While the brand’s recognition and loyalty among consumers are undeniable, its legacy may hinder its repositioning in the health and wellness sector.

One potential strategy is to introduce sub-brands or product lines under the Marlboro umbrella that are explicitly aligned with health and wellness. For instance, PMI could develop nicotine-free inhalers or wellness-focused products under the Marlboro brand, thereby leveraging its existing consumer base while signaling a shift towards healthier alternatives.

Alternatively, PMI could consider retiring the Marlboro brand in certain markets and launching new brands that are more congruent with the company’s health-oriented vision. This approach would allow for a clean break from the past but may risk alienating existing customers who identify with the Marlboro brand.

Evolving with consumers

Maintaining the loyalty of existing consumers during this transition is crucial. PMI must ensure that new products not only meet the health and wellness criteria but also resonate with the lifestyle and identity of its current customer base. This could involve offering products that replicate the sensory experience of smoking, such as nicotine-free inhalers that mimic the hand-to-mouth action, or creating wellness experiences that align with the social aspects of smoking.

Additionally, PMI could implement loyalty programs that reward consumers for transitioning to smoke-free products, thereby incentivizing the shift and reinforcing brand loyalty.

Strategic options for the future of PMI

The challenge is not merely to stop selling cigarettes, but to decide what to sell instead — and, more importantly, what role it wants to play in people’s lives. Having built its empire on habit and desire, PMI must now build one on health and hope. Its transformation could unfold along three broad, but profoundly different, strategic trajectories.

Option 1. The Nicotine Science Company … Owning the Transition

The first path is evolutionary: to remain within the nicotine ecosystem but reformulate it as a legitimate, controlled, and increasingly medicalised category. Here, PMI becomes the science company of inhalation — moving from combustion to clean aerosol delivery, from dependency to harm reduction, from mass addiction to precision pharmacology. This is the world of IQOS, Zyn, and the acquisition of Vectura, the British maker of respiratory therapies.

In this scenario, PMI’s credibility depends on evidence. It must build trust through clinical trials, transparent data, and partnerships with healthcare systems. The brand would shift from swagger to science — from cowboy cool to clinical competence. The Marlboro Man gives way to the laboratory coat. PMI could evolve into something resembling a cross between AstraZeneca and Dyson: a research-driven company engineering controlled inhalation for health, focus, or relaxation.

The advantage is continuity: PMI already understands the biology of nicotine and the psychology of ritual. But the danger is moral dissonance. Can a company that made billions from lung disease credibly claim to cure it? Investors might applaud the margins; society may not applaud the motive. Its success would depend on radical transparency, humility, and perhaps new brands free from the taint of tobacco.

The challenge for Philip Morris International is not merely to stop selling cigarettes, but to decide what to sell instead — and, more importantly, what role it wants to play in people’s lives. Having built its empire on habit and desire, PMI must now build one on health and hope. Its transformation could unfold along three broad, but profoundly different, strategic trajectories.

Option 2. The Lifestyle Energy Company … Owning the Moment

A more audacious option is to leave nicotine behind entirely and reinvent PMI as a consumer vitality company: selling focus, calm, pleasure, and recovery — not as chemicals, but as experiences. Think of it as “owning the moment” rather than the molecule. PMI could pivot from the science of addiction to the design of wellbeing: creating a portfolio of lifestyle products that meet the same emotional needs as cigarettes once did — ritual, release, and reward — but through healthier forms.

Imagine Marlboro reborn as an energy and recovery brand — drinks, teas, or natural stimulants positioned around clarity and control, not chaos and compulsion. Or IQOS reinterpreted as a personal wellness device — a “digital inhaler” for mindfulness, aromatherapy, or performance breathing. The idea is not to moralise away the cigarette, but to reimagine its essence: that fleeting pause, the sensory focus, the social connection — delivered in ways that heal rather than harm.

The risk, of course, is credibility. Can a nicotine company become a wellbeing icon? It might, if it embraces design, psychology, and culture as fluently as it once mastered chemistry. The lesson from brewers who created alcohol-free beers, or confectioners who made protein snacks, is that reinvention succeeds when it enhances — not denies — human pleasure. PMI could yet become a brand of modern calm: sophisticated, sensory, and sustainable.

Option 3. The Human Sustainability Company … Owning the Purpose

The boldest path is to transcend nicotine, energy, and consumer goods altogether — and reinvent PMI as a human sustainability company. This is not about selling products at all, but about enabling people to live longer, breathe better, and experience wellbeing as a right, not a purchase. It would mean harnessing PMI’s scientific, logistical, and commercial muscle to pioneer clean air, respiratory diagnostics, or preventative health technologies.

The company’s future purpose could be nothing less than to undo the harm of its past — to become a net contributor to global health. It could fund urban air quality initiatives, develop home purification systems, or commercialise respiratory monitoring platforms. Its Vectura and OtiTopic acquisitions give it a credible start in respiratory technology; its global supply chain could deliver access to health solutions at scale.

The advantage of this vision is moral clarity: it positions PMI not as a repentant smoker, but as an active reformer. It could become the corporate equivalent of the ex-addict who now mentors others — credible precisely because of its history. The disadvantage is strategic dislocation: it would require abandoning most of its existing brands and customer base, and building a new identity almost from scratch. But then again, great reinventions rarely come from comfort zones.

Which to choose? … continuity, credibility, and connection

Each path offers different value to shareholders — and a different story to society. The nicotine-science route promises margins and defensibility, but risks moral backlash. The lifestyle-energy route taps into culture and consumer engagement, but tests credibility. The human-sustainability route wins reputation and purpose, but demands reinvention at an almost existential scale.

In truth, PMI’s future may blend all three. It could continue its nicotine-science journey in the short term, evolve toward lifestyle vitality as a medium-term play, and ultimately redefine itself as a sustainability-driven wellness conglomerate. The secret will be coherence — ensuring that each step feels like evolution, not opportunism; progress, not public relations.

The company that once sold escape must now sell endurance. It must move from habit to health, from addiction to agency. And if it succeeds, PMI could offer not just a smoke-free future, but a lesson in corporate redemption: that even the darkest legacies can breathe new life — if they are willing to change what they mean to the world.

Reinventing brands … from addiction to aspiration

If the technology of PMI’s reinvention lies in IQOS and inhalable science, the psychology lies in its brands. Marlboro, Parliament, and L&M remain among the most recognisable consumer names on Earth — shorthand for freedom, rebellion, and the cool detachment of twentieth-century modernity. Yet they also carry the stigma of death, addiction, and manipulation. The central brand question is therefore existential: can a company so defined by its past ever detoxify its identity?

There are two strategic routes available. The first is evolution: to reinterpret existing brands for a new era, just as Dunhill transformed from cigarettes into luxury fashion and leather goods, and Davidoff evolved into a lifestyle marque spanning fragrances, watches, and spirits. Those brands carried the elegance and poise of the smoker’s ritual into broader realms of pleasure and sophistication. Marlboro, with its deep emotional equity, could in theory follow a similar path — re-imagined not as a tobacco brand but as a symbol of personal freedom, relaxation, or social vitality. In a world that values mindfulness and balance over hedonism, the “Marlboro Moment” could evolve from lighting a cigarette to taking a breath — of clean air, of calm, of focus.

The second route is reinvention: to start afresh with new names, audiences, and propositions. This path might be more credible to regulators and new consumers, particularly younger generations who associate legacy tobacco brands with manipulation and harm. PMI has already hinted at this with its VEEV and Zyn labels — names that sound more like wellness tech than vice. A future PMI might manage a portfolio more akin to Unilever or L’Oréal: a stable of purpose-driven brands across wellbeing, mental focus, respiratory health, and lifestyle performance. In that context, the PMI name itself might fade into the background, serving as a holding company for a constellation of new identities that express vitality rather than dependence.

Ultimately, brand evolution will determine whether PMI’s transformation feels authentic or opportunistic. Consumers are not naïve; they can accept change, but not hypocrisy. The challenge is to preserve emotional connection while re-anchoring meaning. To move from the freedom to smoke towards the freedom to live well. Some legacy brands may make that leap; others may need to be retired gracefully. The courage will lie not only in technological innovation, but in brand reinvention — in building trust, desire, and relevance for a generation that has never known the Marlboro Man.

Lessons from parallel markets

There is precedent for such radical change. Across consumer markets, established players have learned to turn existential threats into engines of renewal. The non-alcoholic beverage industry, for instance, has grown from niche abstinence to mainstream aspiration, as companies like Heineken, Guinness, and Diageo redefined their purpose from selling alcohol to selling social experiences — from intoxication to inclusion. By investing in flavour innovation, lifestyle marketing, and wellness credentials, they created a new growth curve that complemented, rather than replaced, their heritage brands.

Likewise, the food industry’s pivot to meat-free proteins shows how a legacy sector can reimagine its contribution to health and sustainability. Nestlé’s Garden Gourmet and Unilever’s The Vegetarian Butcher have leveraged deep R&D capabilities and consumer trust to enter markets once dismissed as fringe. These companies prove that disruption can be harnessed rather than feared — that existing consumer bases can be guided towards new habits if the experience feels authentic and the benefit personal.

Fashion offers another parallel. Luxury houses once built on exclusivity and excess — from Stella McCartney to Gucci — are now repositioning sustainability as the new status symbol. Circular design, resale platforms, and regenerative materials have turned environmental responsibility into a creative and commercial opportunity. The most successful transformations have not disowned their origins; they have reinterpreted them.

For PMI, these examples are instructive. The company cannot erase its history, but it can rewrite its meaning. Just as the brewers sold “moderation,” the food giants sold “better choices,” and the fashion leaders sold “sustainable beauty,” PMI could sell wellbeing and empowerment through nicotine innovation, clean inhalation, or respiratory health. Its challenge is not to abandon consumers, but to take them on a journey — to convert habit into health, ritual into responsibility. Investors will judge not just the scale of this ambition, but its sincerity.

Investor perspectives

For investors, Philip Morris International’s reinvention is both a story of conviction and contradiction. Markets admire its audacity: to pivot one of the world’s most notorious cigarette makers towards a future in which its own past becomes obsolete. The numbers, too, lend credibility. In mid-2025, around 41 per cent of PMI’s global revenues were derived from smoke-free products — primarily IQOS and Zyn — a figure expected to surpass the 50 per cent mark by 2026. Analysts at Stifel and Barclays praise the firm’s operational discipline and consistent earnings growth, noting that the company has “delivered on the smoke-free promise more convincingly than any rival.” PMI’s share price has risen steadily as investors reward the company for higher margins in reduced-risk products, strong cash flow, and a clear strategic direction.

Yet beneath the enthusiasm sits an unmistakable tension. Around 60 per cent of revenues still depend on combustible cigarettes, meaning the transformation is incomplete and exposed to the decline of traditional tobacco. Fitch recently revised PMI’s outlook to Negative, citing high leverage and execution risk. Regulators remain unpredictable, and the company’s reputation — a cigarette giant reborn as a wellness brand — invites scepticism. Some analysts fear the valuation already reflects much of the good news; others believe the pivot could take longer and cost more than expected. The consensus, in other words, is cautiously optimistic: PMI is praised for being bold, but it must now prove it can be both smoke-free and sustainably profitable.

Still, investors recognise that few companies in any sector attempt a metamorphosis of such magnitude — one that demands not only new technologies but new moral legitimacy. If PMI succeeds, it will not just have changed its products; it will have changed its social contract.

Choosing a better future

Philip Morris International stands at a pivotal juncture in its history. The company’s commitment to a smoke-free future is commendable, but the path to achieving this vision is fraught with challenges. The Marlboro brand, while iconic, may not seamlessly transition into the health and wellness sector without careful rebranding and strategic alignment.

To successfully navigate this transformation, PMI must prioritize consumer education, transparent communication, and innovative product development. By understanding and addressing the needs and concerns of its existing customer base, PMI can foster loyalty and facilitate a smoother transition to smoke-free alternatives.

Ultimately, PMI’s success in becoming a health and wellness company will depend on its ability to authentically align its products and brand with the values and expectations of today’s health-conscious consumers. This requires a bold vision, unwavering commitment, and a willingness to challenge the status quo.

More from Peter Fisk

In a world defined by relentless change and rising complexity, a new breed of businesses is emerging—ambitious, restless, and unapologetically visionary.

These are the Future Junkies—companies addicted to possibility, obsessed with the edges of tomorrow, and committed to turning what’s possible into what’s next. They don’t just chase trends—they shape the future, pioneering radical innovations that reinvent markets, solve global challenges, and unlock extraordinary value.

Moonshot thinking—once the realm of sci-fi dreamers and NASA engineers—is now the strategic DNA of the most disruptive and admired companies. Alphabet’s X (formerly Google X), Tesla, OpenAI, SpaceX, DeepMind, Moderna, and ambitious upstarts like Anduril, Neuralink, and Twelve are bold exemplars of this mindset.

These businesses are defined by their drive to achieve 10x improvements over 10% gains. They ask “Why not?” instead of “What if?”, and challenge the limits of what’s considered feasible—whether by launching reusable rockets, eradicating disease, creating human-AI symbiosis, or designing carbon-negative fuels.

Anatomy of a “Future Junkie”

1. Purpose-driven, possibility-fuelled: At the heart of a moonshot business lies an audacious purpose—a conviction that business can, and must, solve humanity’s greatest challenges. From reversing climate change to decoding the brain, these companies fuse commercial ambition with mission-driven resolve. For example, DeepMind’s stated goal is to “solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else.” It’s not simply about building AI; it’s about unlocking a better future for all.

2. Embracing tech intelligence and convergence: Future Junkies thrive at the intersection of exponential technologies. They don’t just use AI or robotics or biotech in isolation—they combine them to unlock nonlinear breakthroughs. Tesla merges batteries, software, and machine learning to redefine transport. Moderna fused genomics, nanotech, and cloud computing to accelerate vaccine development during the COVID-19 pandemic. And companies like Commonwealth Fusion Systems are betting on fusion energy by blending superconductors, quantum simulations, and advanced manufacturing.

3. Designing for disruption, powered by relentless reinvention: These companies aren’t looking to compete within existing frameworks—they aim to destroy and reframe them. They ask, “If we started from scratch, how would we design this system today?” Stripe reinvented online payments by creating infrastructure for the internet economy. Neuralink seeks to rewire the human brain to interface directly with machines. Future Junkies don’t improve—they revolutionize.

Cultures that stretch reality

The culture within these moonshot organizations is unlike traditional companies. It is deliberately engineered to foster imagination, experimentation, and fearless execution.

Curiosity over conformity: Moonshot companies are led by polymaths, futurists, and mavericks. They actively seek out iconoclasts who ask different questions, often valuing science fiction and philosophy as much as engineering and economics. At X, failure is not punished—it’s celebrated, so long as it’s in pursuit of learning. By embracing failure as a learning tool, they remove the fear that stifles innovation in legacy firms.

Speed as a strategy: These companies move fast not just to be first, but to collapse time-to-impact. Speed accelerates learning, iterates feedback loops, and forces prioritization. SpaceX’s rapid launch failures enabled it to outpace entrenched aerospace competitors. Future Junkies embrace minimum viable products, parallel experimentation, and agile structures that privilege movement over perfection.

Ambidextrous structures: They often build “dual-speed” organisations—balancing core operations with moonshot explorations. Alphabet’s core business of ads and search fuels long-term bets via X, CapitalG, and GV. Similarly, Amazon built AWS and Alexa while still refining its retail model. This duality allows exploration without destabilizing execution.

Why the best leaders are Future Junkies

We live in a world of relentless acceleration. Every day brings fresh disruption, new breakthroughs, and rising uncertainty. Technologies evolve exponentially. Markets shift in moments. Social and environmental challenges grow more complex and urgent. In this high-velocity world, the old playbooks no longer work. Yesterday’s logic breaks under tomorrow’s pressure.

Enter the Future Junkie: a new breed of business leader obsessed with what comes next. Future Junkies aren’t content to merely adapt to change; they crave it. They are restless, curious, and deeply committed to crafting better futures. They are not defined by their industry, geography, or age, but by their mindset. They see opportunity in challenge, imagination in ambiguity, and purpose in uncertainty.

This book explores the ideas, strategies, and leadership practices of Future Junkies across the world. It’s a guide for anyone who wants to stop reacting to change and start shaping it. You’ll meet bold entrepreneurs, visionary CEOs, and pioneering innovators—people like Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, Melanie Perkins, Lei Jun, and Jessica Jackley—who are rewriting the rules of business. And you’ll explore tools and frameworks to help you build your own futurecrafting discipline.

Future Junkies are not reckless optimists. They are rigorous visionaries. They don’t just dream—they build. They transform ideas into experiments, and experiments into progress. They challenge convention, embrace ambiguity, and mobilise communities. And they never stop asking: what’s next?

This is not just a book about trends. It’s about transformation. It’s about designing businesses, cultures, and strategies for the future—on purpose. Because in an age of uncertainty, the greatest risk is to do nothing.

Welcome to the movement. Welcome to the age of the Future Junkie.

Always what’s next

Future Junkies see the world differently. While most leaders focus on optimising the present, they are already building what comes after. This mindset—what we might call strategic impatience—fuels their actions. The horizon is not a distant place; it is a current project.

Why do they think this way? Because they know that stability is an illusion. The businesses that dominated the last century—built on scale, control, and efficiency—are being displaced by those driven by ideas, ecosystems, and adaptability. In this context, the ability to see, shape, and seize the future is the ultimate competitive edge.

Consider Elon Musk, perhaps the most high-profile Future Junkie. His companies aren’t built to maintain the status quo; they exist to bend the arc of possibility. Tesla didn’t just build electric cars—it redefined the automotive sector. SpaceX didn’t just launch rockets—it made space travel a public-private ambition. Musk’s obsession with the future isn’t an eccentric trait; it’s a strategic advantage.

But you don’t have to be Musk to think this way. Jessica Jackley saw a broken financial system and created Kiva, enabling peer-to-peer microloans that reimagined access to capital for underserved communities. Lei Jun built Xiaomi not as a hardware company, but as an ecosystem of digital experiences, combining affordability with community-driven innovation. Satya Nadella turned Microsoft from a product-centric behemoth into a purpose-led platform company focused on cloud, AI, and empowering others.

What these leaders share is an ability to see cracks in the present and design businesses that can grow through and beyond them.

Future Junkies are not content with best practices. They pursue next practices. They don’t just scale what works; they explore what could work better. This doesn’t mean they ignore reality—it means they redefine it.

They ask different questions:

  • What is the change no one sees coming?

  • How might we reinvent this from the ground up?

  • Who else could we create this future with?

  • What would make this 10x better, not just 10%?

They also operate across time horizons. They manage the present while experimenting with the future. They set bold visions but iterate quickly. They are system thinkers and story builders. And they are deeply driven by purpose: not just what they want to achieve, but why it matters.

Future Junkies share three key traits:

  • Curiosity – They actively seek emerging signals, question assumptions, and explore the unknown. They are information omnivores, constantly scanning for what’s next in technology, design, society, and culture.

  • Imagination – They don’t simply accept the future—they create it. They visualise what could be, and then work backward to make it possible. They blend storytelling with strategic insight to generate momentum.

  • Courage – They make bold moves. They are not afraid to invest in moonshots, challenge orthodoxy, or commit to paths with uncertain outcomes. They understand that progress demands risk.

This is your invitation to shift your lens. Don’t just ask, “How do we compete today?” Ask, “What future do we want to lead?” Because the best way to predict the future is no longer to forecast it. It’s to build it.

Leaders with a future mindset

Sam Altman thrives on long bets. Whether through Y Combinator, OpenAI, or Worldcoin, his work revolves around scaling what others don’t yet understand. His drive? To make sure the future of AI is a collective good. He pushes boundaries while deeply engaging with ethics, society, and policy. Yet at the same time, he recognises that commercial organisations can do this best, sustained innovation requires serious investment, and demands the best talent, but can ultimately create value for all stakeholders, including the progress of society. Altman believes leadership is responsibility at scale — a future junkie with deep moral inquiry and bold execution.

Jessica Jackley didn’t start with money — she started with stories. After witnessing the economic challenges of Ugandan entrepreneurs, she reimagined finance as a tool for dignity. That idea became Kiva, a peer-to-peer microlending platform that turned charity into collaboration. Jackley’s boldness came from a deep belief: that ordinary people could fuel extraordinary impact. She made finance personal and emotional, blending social justice, tech, and storytelling. Kiva wasn’t built to disrupt banking; it was built to restore humanity to capital. Jackley proves that future junkies don’t always chase the latest tech — they build new paradigms that reshape human relationships.

Jensen Huang’s future obsession began with gaming but exploded into AI. At Nvidia he reimagined graphics chips as general-purpose processors for deep learning, a gamble that made it the most valuable chipmaker in the world. Huang is both visionary and grounded — he sees 10 years ahead, then builds it piece by piece. He invests in ecosystems, not just products, and runs the company like a lab: bold hypotheses, fast iteration, relentless feedback. He leads with an engineer’s mind and a philosopher’s soul — constantly asking how can this solve bigger problems?

Melanie Perkins started with a frustration — how hard it was for students to design simple yearbooks — and turned it into a multi-billion-dollar vision. Driven by the idea that creativity should be accessible to everyone, she relentlessly simplified design and built Canva into a global visual storytelling platform. Her boldness is quiet but fierce — rooted in purpose, trust in her team, and a commitment to long-term impact. With each product, she asks: How does this empower people? Perkins is a future junkie with humility — showing that visionary leadership doesn’t require loudness, just clarity and resolve.

Lei Jun built Xiaomi not just as a smartphone company, but as a fast-moving innovation ecosystem. Inspired by Steve Jobs, he fused bold design, open feedback loops, and community co-creation. What makes Lei a future junkie is his obsession with speed, simplicity, and scale — releasing new products in weeks, gathering real-time user input, and launching ecosystem businesses from air purifiers to electric cars. His “Internet thinking” approach disrupted the hardware world by treating everything as software — iterative, responsive, and user-driven. Driven by a belief in accessible innovation for all, he made cutting-edge tech radically affordable and scaled Xiaomi into a global tech powerhouse in under a decade.

Future Junkies as business leaders share some common traits:

  • A personal spark … Frustration, curiosity, loss, or ambition triggers a bigger vision
  • Systems thinking … They see connections others don’t — across industries, ideas, and time
  • Bold simplicity … They make complex things usable, human, and scalable
  • Purpose-led ambition … Their ideas are tied to solving real problems, not just making money
  • Future-back mindset … They start with what’s possible, then build the path toward it
  • Action-oriented culture … They foster environments that move fast, test ideas, and evolve constantly

Funding the future

Moonshots are expensive, risky, and often unprofitable for years. But Future Junkies are backed by patient capital and bold investors who understand that asymmetric returns lie in outsized ambition. Venture capital is now complemented by venture studios, corporate incubators, sovereign wealth funds, and mission-driven capitalists.

Jeff Bezos invested billions into Blue Origin with a 100-year vision. Sam Altman raised the OpenAI Startup Fund to build AGI-ready businesses. Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures backs science-heavy companies with decade-long timelines. This kind of capital understands that real value isn’t always immediate, but compounding.

Moreover, some companies develop self-funding loops—where today’s products generate cash to fund tomorrow’s bets. Apple’s dominance in devices allows investment in spatial computing and health diagnostics. Elon Musk’s approach is to build vertically integrated ecosystems that compound capability across ventures—from solar energy to AI-driven robots.

Accelerating progress

The most compelling moonshots aren’t just profitable—they’re regenerative. They solve systemic problems with business solutions. Climeworks is capturing carbon directly from the air. Twelve is turning CO₂ into jet fuel. Planet Labs is using satellite imagery to track deforestation, crop yields, and disaster response. These businesses embody what John Elkington calls “Green Swans”—innovations that deliver exponential positive impact.

Moonshot businesses also have the potential to tackle societal inequities. Zipline is transforming medical delivery in remote regions using autonomous drones. Khan Academy, Coursera, and OpenAI are redefining access to world-class education. These efforts not only open new markets but foster resilience, health, and empowerment on a global scale.

Risks and realism

Yet the road to the future is fraught with danger. Not every moonshot lands. Many explode on the launchpad—financially, ethically, or reputationally. Theranos promised too much, too fast, with too little scrutiny. WeWork imploded under the weight of its own hype.

Moonshot companies walk a fine line between bold and blind. They must navigate regulatory uncertainty, societal backlash, technical failure, and ethical ambiguity. Responsible future builders integrate ethics, equity, and transparency into their design from day one—because building the future requires more than speed; it requires trust.

Future Junkies in action

So who are visionary companies—and the leaders behind them—who demonstrate the energy, ambition, and imagination of a Future Junkie mindset? They stretch the edges of possibility and redefine what business can be:

1. BioNTech (Germany)

Leaders: Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci
Moonshot Activity: mRNA vaccines for cancer and infectious disease
Why It Matters: In partnership with Pfizer, BioNTech developed one of the first COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA. Now they’re targeting personalized cancer therapies.

2. Climeworks (Switzerland)

Leaders: Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher
Moonshot Activity: Direct Air Capture (DAC) of CO₂
Why It Matters: Climeworks has built the world’s first commercial DAC plant, removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it underground—turning climate change into a solvable challenge.

3. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (USA)

Leader: Bob Mumgaard
Moonshot Activity: Commercial nuclear fusion energy
Why It Matters: CFS, a spinoff from MIT, is racing to make fusion viable by 2030 using high-temperature superconductors—potentially delivering limitless clean energy.

4. DeepMind (UK)

Leader: Demis Hassabis
Moonshot Activity: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), health breakthroughs
Why It Matters: DeepMind’s AlphaFold solved protein folding—considered one of biology’s grandest challenges—with profound implications for medicine and drug discovery. Its broader goal is to solve intelligence and use it for global good.

5. Graphcore (UK)

Leader: Nigel Toon
Moonshot Activity: AI-specific processing units
Why It Matters: Graphcore’s IPUs (Intelligence Processing Units) are designed for next-gen AI workloads, making AI faster, more efficient, and scalable.

6. Liquid Death (USA)

Leader: Mike Cessario
Moonshot Activity: Reinventing water as a countercultural brand
Why It Matters: A surprising example—Liquid Death turned canned water into a $1B brand by wrapping sustainability in bold, punk rock branding, reshaping consumer behavior.

7. NotCo (Chile)

Leader: Matias Muchnick
Moonshot Activity: AI-designed plant-based foods
Why It Matters: NotCo uses a proprietary AI platform (“Giuseppe”) to replicate animal products with plants, revolutionizing food sustainability and expanding into the US and Europe.

8. OpenAI (USA)

Leaders: Sam Altman
Moonshot Activity: Artificial General Intelligence for humanity’s benefit
Why It Matters: OpenAI is building large language models (like ChatGPT) to enhance productivity, creativity, and global access to intelligence—while navigating ethics and safety in AI.

9. Ping An Tech (China)

Leader: Jessica Tan (Co-CEO of Ping An Group)
Moonshot Activity: AI-driven health, finance, and smart city services
Why It Matters: Ping An uses AI, blockchain, and big data to transform insurance, telemedicine, and fintech in China—making services faster and more inclusive.

10. Reliance Jio (India)

Leader: Mukesh Ambani
Moonshot Activity: National digital infrastructure and super-app ambitions
Why It Matters: Jio redefined connectivity in India by offering ultra-cheap mobile data, catalyzing digital inclusion for over a billion people. Its super-app ambitions (JioMart, JioHealth, JioFinance) aim to dominate the digital ecosystem.

11. Rivian (USA)

Leader: RJ Scaringe
Moonshot Activity: Electrifying adventure vehicles and commercial fleets
Why It Matters: Rivian is building electric trucks and vans (including a deal with Amazon), aiming to green transportation beyond cities.

12. Tokamak Energ (UK)

Leader: Chris Kelsall
Moonshot Activity: Compact nuclear fusion reactors
Why It Matters: Another frontrunner in fusion energy, Tokamak Energy is using spherical reactor design to accelerate the clean energy transition.

13. Twelve (USA)

Leader: Nicholas Flanders
Moonshot Activity: Transforming CO₂ into industrial materials and jet fuel
Why It Matters: Twelve’s technology converts carbon dioxide into critical chemicals and fuels, enabling a fossil-free future and circular carbon economy.

14. X (Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory, USA)

Leader: Astro Teller
Moonshot Activity: Radical solutions to global challenges—from internet balloons (Project Loon) to AI agriculture and autonomous robots
Why It Matters: X is Alphabet’s in-house innovation lab for building “10x” improvements in key areas like energy, transportation, and connectivity.

15. Zipline (USA/Rwanda)

Leaders: Keller Rinaudo Cliffton
Moonshot Activity: Drone delivery of medicine and essential supplies
Why It Matters: Zipline’s autonomous drones have transformed logistics in hard-to-reach regions, particularly in Rwanda and Ghana, showing how technology can leapfrog infrastructure gaps in global health.

Lessons for every business

You don’t have to be SpaceX or DeepMind to think like a Future Junkie. Every business can stretch its ambition and act with greater intent.

  • Adopt a 10x mindset: Set bold goals that force new thinking. Ask what it would take to improve your core offering by an order of magnitude—not incrementally.

  • Create a portfolio of futures: Balance near-term optimization with long-term exploration. Dedicate resources to “what’s next” even as you manage “what’s now.”

  • Build future-capable teams: Hire people who are curious, experimental, and interdisciplinary. Develop a culture that encourages bold questions and fast learning.

  • Partner for progress: Many moonshots are ecosystem plays. Collaborate with startups, universities, public agencies, and impact investors to amplify your reach.

  • Align purpose with profit: The most sustainable moonshots address real-world problems—climate, health, equity, energy. These challenges are not only moral imperatives but massive market opportunities.

Future crafting

To be a Future Junkie is to commit to a kind of beautiful madness – a willingness to bet on breakthroughs, to sprint into uncertainty, and to create what doesn’t yet exist.

But there is method in this madness: future crafting. Future-oriented companies believe the world’s biggest problems are also the world’s biggest business opportunities. They embrace new  technologies as their tools, and new agendas, like sustainability or geopolitical shifts, as their pathways. It is an approach that has process and discipline – balances risk and reward, delivers for today and tomorrow – and clearly delivers superior value creation, and impact.

Future Crafting is a strategic and creative mindset that combines bold ambition with grounded execution, imagination with intention, and innovation with purpose. It is about building better futures, not just better profits.

  • Stretching ambition built on imagination and purpose
  • Practical strategies built on vision and foresight
  • Radical innovations built on new possibilities and experimentation
  • Inspiring brands built on culture and communities
  • Vibrant organisations built on talent and creativity
  • Accelerated performance built on long-term value and impact

At its core, Future Crafting starts with stretching ambition. It invites leaders to look beyond incremental improvements and short-term wins, to ask: “What if?” and “What’s next?” It’s powered by imagination—the ability to see future possibilities that don’t yet exist—and guided by purpose, a deeper understanding of why the organisation exists and who it serves. Purpose ensures that progress isn’t just fast, but meaningful. It’s the compass in a landscape where the map is constantly being redrawn.

But imagination without action is fantasy. That’s why Future Crafting requires practical strategy rooted in foresight. It embraces long-term thinking, scenario planning, and emerging trends to design resilient paths forward. It aligns vision with capabilities, and foresight with focus, enabling organisations to move from insight to innovation. Strategic experimentation becomes central—not gambling, but learning through pilots, prototypes, and creative exploration.

Innovation in this context is expansive. It’s not just about new products or technologies, but new possibilities—new business models, services, experiences, and ecosystems. Future Crafting welcomes experimentation as a habit, not a project. It celebrates curiosity, diversity of thought, and the courage to challenge conventions. Crucially, it doesn’t wait for the future to arrive—it builds it, test by test, idea by idea.

Brands play a powerful role in this vision. In the age of Future Crafting, brands are no longer just marketing tools—they are cultural platforms. They are built on values, stories, and communities, and they shape identity and belonging. Future-crafted brands don’t just sell; they connect, convene, and catalyse. They create movements and meaning, embedding themselves in people’s lives and aspirations.

Organisations, too, are reimagined. Future Crafting requires organisations that are designed for agility, creativity, and collaboration. These are human-centred enterprises where talent is empowered, diverse perspectives are welcomed, and innovation flows across boundaries. Organisational design becomes more fluid and adaptive. Leadership becomes more inclusive and visionary. Culture becomes the invisible architecture that drives performance.

Finally, performance itself is redefined. Instead of chasing short-term gains or shareholder returns alone, Future Crafting aims for long-term value and societal impact. It aligns growth with sustainability, profit with purpose, and innovation with inclusion. It asks not just “How much did we make?” but “What did we change? What did we improve?” Future Crafting is the bridge between what is and what could be.

In short, Future Crafting is not a blueprint but a belief system—a way of seeing the future as something we can shape. It’s an invitation to build boldly, act wisely, and lead with imagination and integrity.

In summary, we are at the edge of a new era – where AI designs new drugs, carbon becomes fuel, and the human brain is no longer biologically constrained. The companies that win will not be those who adapt to the future, but those who create it.

The Future Junkies are already there. Are you one of them?