Thomas Druyen works as a scientist, author, speaker, manager and publicist. He is a full university professor in the fields of age and generation sociology, future psychology, wealth psychology, health management and family business. He has maintained a media presence for more than 20 years.
Druyen has also contributed his knowledge to other cultural change institutions. For example, he was vice-president of the International Club of Budapest, board member of the Swiss Peter Ustinov Foundation or Head of Communications of the Helmut Horten Foundation. In 2019 and 2020, he also led a project of the Chinese Confucius Family in Europe to improve understanding between Chinese and European family businesses.
Thomas Druyen lecture topic
- Learning from the Future. The new laws of change
- The new order of life: Radical Change in everyday’s Life
- War of hypocrisy – A plea for common sense
- Psychology of the Future – On Dealing with Permanent Uncertainty
- The challenges of the future: What do robotics, digitalization and other future topics do to our psyche?
- The future of intelligence: All artificial, or what?
- Modern change management – making change competence learnable
Since 1990, Professor Druyen has been researching the topic of demographic change and the relationship between the generations. His publications “Olympus of Life – the New Image of Ageing” or “Goldkinder – the World of Wealth” have been popular pleas for a better dialogue between the generations. He was also president of the foundation of the same name for over fifteen years.
Since 2015, he has headed the Institute for Future Psychology and Future Management (IZZ) which he founded at the Sigmund Freud Private University in Vienna. Here the focus is on the psychological effects of digitalisation, artificial intelligence and robotics on our living and social conditions. Basically, the present day is characterised by a general excessive demand which increasingly gives rise to feelings of stress and powerlessness. The psychology of the future is concerned with the possibilities of reacting to this with foresight, and of designing and training a future navigation.
In his view, we are experiencing the greatest and most rapid change in human history and now it is a question of building up sustainable attitudes, a new culture of error and preventive competences in order not to be overrun by virtual technology. His fundamental study and his appeal for new thinking was published in 2018 by Springer Verlag: “The ultimative challenge – On the Germans’ Capacity for Change.”
Thomas Druyen is also CEO and President of the opta data Zukunfts-Stiftung gGmbH (odZ). The odZ is a future model, a scout and coach for systematic change in the digital age and for mental transformation in the healthcare sector.
The foundation’s intention is the scientific, experimental and pragmatic creation of foundations for humane, professional, digital and service-oriented life support and future navigation of service providers in the healthcare sector. In times of exponential and constant change, there is a need for continuous learning processes and the mental ability to synchronise new options, see through complexity and cooperate proactively in growing teams.
The object and purpose of the Future Foundation is the promotion of science and research, the popular education and vocational training, including student aid, aid for schoolchildren and trainees, as well as the promotion of public health and public health care.
In a first study, Prof. Thomas Druyen and his team are researching the attitudes of the baby boomer generation to the issue of care. It becomes clear that the care situation in Germany is extremely repressed and that society is heading for a comprehensive care crisis.
Prof. Thomas Druyen is also considered one of the most renowned wealth researchers in Europe. The Institute for Wealthibility© and Wealth Psychology, which he founded in 2006 – also at the Sigmund Freud Private University in Vienna – is unique to date. In more than two decades, he has conducted interviews with wealthy people all over the world. studies, publications and media contributions are an expression of this intensive work. With the creation and establishment of the “Vermögenskultur” (Wealthibility), he has created a new and sustainable wealth perspective. This work has led to him being appointed to numerous supervisory and advisory boards, and advises in the areas of wealth architecture, succession, mediation and philanthropy.
Since 2020, all this experience and 19 books have flowed into his Visiting Professorship in Wealth Psychology and transgenerational wealth management at the Witten Institute for Family Business/ University of Witten/Herdecke. Here, one focus is on the integration of young and information technology-influenced talents in family entrepreneurial transformation.