Jan Berger is Founder and CEO of the Think Tank Themis Foresight.
It was his desire to give corporate leaders the ability to secure their business for a long time through an understanding of possible futures and design options that motivated him to found his own business in corporate foresight. Before that Jan was CEO of the Leipzig-based futurist institute 2b AHEAD. His professional career has taken him through publishing, real estate and the fintech industry. Today he is author and co-author of numerous futures studies and trend analyses and a sought-after sparring partner for corporate executives.
Jan Berger Speaking Topics
- Europe’s economy in a new, different world. (What do “decoupling” and the Ukraine war mean for European companies)
- Bits & Atoms: The Fifth Industrial Revolution (Climate Crisis as Growth Engine)
- What if colleague AI can’t behave? (ethical AI for companies)
- Future skills – What skills will employees and HR need in the future?
Graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in history, he lived and worked on four continents. He lives with his wife and two children either in Berlin or on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.
His keynotes address topics in the interplay between technology, society and the business models that result from them.
Jan feels at home in different industries – whether in trade, finance, mobility, ICT, health or food. His keynotes utilize Themis Foresight research results that arise in scientific work – mostly in projects with clients of his thinktank. In contrast to futurists, who usually paint rosy pictures of the future without having to bear the responsibility of their prognoses, Jan’s aim is to bring validated knowledge to his audience and to discuss the opportunities and risks that social and technological changes will effect on corporate business models.
“An innovation is not good until you make money with it.”
Next to discussing possible future business models, Jan’s keynotes dive into the question of how work, organization and management principles will change and what the ethical foundations of new models may look like. According to legend, the Greek goddess Themis who became namesake of Jan’s institute, was known to use her sword to separate fact from fiction. It is in this vein that Jan, who is a proponent for applying modern technologies in business and society, questions urban myths about Artificial Intelligence, generational characteristics or “New Work” models.
Still years later, clients who have witnessed Jan Berger on stage speak fondly of the power of the pictures Jan paints and the impulses they took home for their business.