Next is Now … why every business leader must become a futurist, and act on it today
January 28, 2026 at Milan, Italy
When next becomes now
For decades, leadership was about managing what you could see. Markets moved slowly. Industries were stable. Strategy was a plan, execution was the challenge, and the future could safely be left to forecasts, five-year cycles, and specialist teams.
That era is over.
Today, the future arrives early and unevenly. It breaks into the present through technology, geopolitics, climate, culture, and changing expectations. It disrupts supply chains before it disrupts markets. It reshapes consumer behaviour before leaders have time to debate it. It challenges assumptions that once felt unshakeable.
In this environment, long-term thinking is no longer a luxury. It is a prerequisite for relevance.
The most successful companies are not those that predict the future most accurately, but those that change how leadership, strategy, and organisation work in the face of uncertainty. They embed foresight into decisions about where to invest, how to grow, how to measure success, and how to mobilise people.
This article explores how that shift is happening—and what it demands of leaders today.
Why every leader must become a futurist
The defining challenge of modern leadership is not complexity, but velocity and interconnectedness. Change compounds. Shifts in one domain ripple rapidly across others. Technology, regulation, social norms, and economics now evolve together.
As a result, “business as usual” is no longer enough. Companies can be profitable today and strategically irrelevant tomorrow. Past success increasingly becomes a liability if it hardens into assumption.
The leaders who thrive are those who recognise a simple truth: every decision is a bet on the future.
This requires a fundamental shift in mindset.
- From treating the future as something distant and abstract
To recognising it as an active force shaping today’s performance - From seeing uncertainty as a risk to be minimised
To using uncertainty as a source of insight and advantage - From delegating long-term thinking to specialists
To making foresight a core leadership responsibility
Becoming a futurist does not mean predicting what will happen. It means asking better questions, earlier—about which assumptions may fail, which signals matter, and which capabilities will still be valuable in a decade.
How foresight reshapes strategy and decision-making
From planning to positioning
Traditional strategy assumes a relatively stable environment. It produces plans, targets, and milestones. In contrast, future-ready strategy is about positioning for multiple plausible futures.
Procter & Gamble offers a powerful illustration. P&G has increasingly shifted from broad diversification towards focused leadership in categories aligned with long-term human needs—health, hygiene, care, and convenience. This is not accidental. It is the result of decades of foresight into how households, demographics, and expectations evolve.
Strategic choices at P&G are stress-tested against long-term trends, not just short-term performance. Leaders ask: will this brand, capability, or category still matter ten years from now? Capital flows accordingly.
The shift is clear:
- From annual strategic planning
To continuous portfolio shaping - From optimising current markets
To building relevance for future ones
From capital efficiency to strategic optionality
In a world of uncertainty, the goal of investment is not only efficiency, but optionality—the ability to adapt as conditions change.
Dyson exemplifies this shift. Dyson’s leaders have consistently invested far ahead of market demand, particularly in engineering capabilities that could underpin multiple future businesses. Many of these investments had no immediate commercial application.
This required leaders to rethink how success is measured. Instead of short-term ROI alone, value is also assessed in terms of learning, capability, and future potential. Exploration is protected from the gravitational pull of today’s profit engines.
The shift here is profound:
- From investing only where returns are visible
To investing in capabilities that create future choice
Innovation: from incremental improvement to future platforms
Without foresight, innovation drifts towards incrementalism. Teams optimise what exists because it is safer and easier to justify. Foresight changes the frame.
L’Oréal’s ability to remain culturally relevant in a fast-moving beauty market is rooted in its long-term exploration of identity, technology, sustainability, and personalisation. Foresight informs which innovation platforms matter—long before they become mainstream.
As a result, innovation is not just about launching new products, but about building systems of advantage: data capabilities, scientific expertise, digital engagement, and ethical leadership.
This demands a shift in how leaders view innovation:
- From isolated projects
To long-term platforms - From speed to market
To endurance of relevance
Organisation: from control to orchestration
Perhaps the hardest change is organisational. Foresight cannot be owned by a single team. It must be shared across the business.
Xiaomi illustrates how this works at scale. Rather than defining itself narrowly as a hardware manufacturer, Xiaomi’s leaders envisioned a future shaped by interconnected devices and services. This foresight led to an ecosystem strategy that spans products, platforms, partners, and communities.
To make this work, Xiaomi had to change how it organised. Hierarchies flattened. Small teams were empowered. External innovators were invited in. Leaders shifted from controlling outcomes to orchestrating ecosystems.
The shift is stark:
- From siloed functions
To cross-functional sense-making - From internal focus
To ecosystem thinking
What this means for leaders
Across P&G, Dyson, L’Oréal, and Xiaomi, foresight has driven a consistent set of leadership shifts.
Leaders move:
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From certainty to curiosity
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From defending the past to designing the future
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From performance alone to performance plus preparedness
They ask different questions. They sponsor exploration. They protect long-term investment. And they model future-focused thinking themselves.
Most importantly, they create permission—for teams to challenge assumptions, explore weak signals, and imagine alternatives.
Leadership as stewardship of tomorrow
The future is no longer something leaders can wait for. It is already shaping markets, organisations, and societies.
The most effective leaders accept this reality and act on it. They embed foresight into strategy, capital allocation, innovation, risk management, and talent decisions. They change how their organisations think, not just what they do.
The shift is not from execution to vision, but from execution alone to execution informed by foresight.
In a world of relentless change, the greatest competitive advantage is not prediction, scale, or even speed. It is the ability to lead before certainty arrives.
The future is no longer optional.
Leadership now means shaping it.