A Global Leader in Strategic Foresight

About Techistential

Based in San Francisco, Techistential is the global leader in Foresight Strategy & Futures Intelligence, and the advisory arm of the pioneering Disruptive Futures Institute.

Founded by visionary futurist Roger Spitz, Techistential advises global leadership teams, entrepreneurs, boards, investors, and policymakers on anticipatory governance, systems innovation, resilience, and driving sustainable value creation:

  • Anticipatory Practices: Corporate & Strategic Foresight

  • Futurist-in-Residence: Ongoing Capabilities Development

  • Sustainable Futures: Climate Foresight & Sustainable Value Creation

  • Transformative Change: Complexity, Systems & Virtuous Tipping Points

  • Anticipatory Governance: Board, Leadership & Investor Foresight Practice

  • Grand Strategy: Geopolitics, Global Disorder & Strategic Resilience

  • Technology Foresight: Emerging Technologies, Design Fiction & Systems Innovation

  • Techistentialism: Artificial Intelligence, Ethical & Existential Foresight

Techistential’s renowned Board, Governance & Sustainability foresight practice works with anticipatory leaders and their organizations worldwide to capitalize on disruption as a springboard to creating value.

With decades of experience leading investment banking and venture capital, our preeminent foresight practice now advises CEOs, boards, and investors on evaluating strategy under uncertainty, anticipating disruptions, and driving sustainable value.

Leveraging the Disruptive Futures Institute’s proprietary frameworks and methodologies, adopted globally, Techistential helps clients anticipate the next-order impacts of accelerating change and rethink leadership and decision-making for the complex, unpredictable 21st century.

Roger Spitz Sustainable Futures Board Retreat Talk @ LuxCS Rainforest Summit (Blumenau, Brazil). Leading Futurist Keynote Speaker

Don’t have a dedicated in-house foresight function?

With the award-winning Disruptive Futures Institute, we specialize in helping organizations build strategic foresight capabilities. We empower you to integrate futures intelligence into everyday decision-making. In today’s rapidly evolving world, mastering the art of futures thinking is an imperative.

Our Futurist-in-Residence model supports your teams in building the futures skills and foresight capacity needed to drive and sustain change.

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Increasing Cost of Business as Usual

A graph titled 'The Increasing Cost of Business as Usual' shows the relationship between uncertainty and the extent of unknown variables from the 1900s to beyond 2030. The y-axis ranges from constancy & certainty at the bottom to uncertainty at the top, and the x-axis shows the extent of unknown variables from the 1900s to beyond 2030. The graph indicates that as uncertainty and unknown variables increase over time, costs also rise. Key points include the low certainty in the 1900s and 2000s, and the sharp increase after 2010 into the 2030s. The text highlights that the cost is rising due to an inverse relationship between predictability and uncertainty, with unknown variables making outcomes not predictable, unless the parameters are known and stable.

It’s no secret that we all make assumptions about the world around us. What’s changing is the rising cost of relying on those wrong assumptions.

With time, all assumptions magnify and amplify; wrong assumptions cascade and blow up.

As ‘rare’ becomes less rare, strategic foresight enables better preparation for future eventualities, fostering both resilience to shocks and the ability to shape new opportunities.

The surprise we experience from disruption is inversely tied to our anticipatory thinking, willingness to question, and preparedness.

Sustainable Futures Practice

Techistential’s dedicated Sustainable Futures Practice provides foresight-driven advice on systemic change including the global energy transition, which is creating paradigm shifts in value and business models.

The DFI Nature & Climate Academy is our flagship center for sustainable futures, focusing on climate foresight, decarbonization strategies, and the energy transition.

Disruptive Futures Institute

As Techistential’s sister organization, the Disruptive Futures Institute pioneers futures intelligence, offering strategic foresight, practitioner research, and education to empower you to shape your futures in our unpredictable world.

Named one of the Top 50 Thought Leading Companies in Innovation by Thinkers360 and founded by globally renowned futurist Roger Spitz, the award-winning Disruptive Futures Institute provides thought leadership, executive education, and strategy advice globally through four integrated pillars:

Graphic with a warning sign, a question mark, and an exclamation mark inside a yellow triangle pointing to the right.

Futures Intelligence & Capabilities: We help you develop and scale futures skills, foresight capabilities, and anticipatory practices through executive education, workshops, and research based on the Disruptive Futures Institute’s methodology. In addition to insightful talks, courses, and masterclasses, our Futurist-in-Residence model provides ongoing support for capabilities development.

Molecular structure diagram with gray and purple atoms connected by gray bonds on a black background.

Strategic Foresight Advisory - Techistential: A global leader in strategic foresight, we advise leadership teams, boards, investors, and policymakers on anticipatory governance, systems innovation, resilience, and sustainable value creation. Enriched by continuously updated real-world case studies, our proprietary frameworks power our cutting-edge learning programs.

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DFI Nature & Climate Academy: Our flagship education center for sustainable futures, focusing on climate foresight, decarbonization strategies, and the energy transition.

Stylized illustration of a brain connected to a cluster of blue dots, representing the connection between neuroscience and data or technology.

Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence: Research and education on AI’s impacts, governance, and ethics, exploring the future of artificial intelligence and decision-making in our technological world.

An infographic titled 'Four Pillars, One Purpose' showing four core areas of the Disruptive Futures Institute, with a focus on education and advising. The first pillar is Disruptive Futures Institute's education programs developing future skills through talks, courses, workshops, and masterclasses. The second pillar covers the DFI Nature & Climate Academy focusing on sustainable futures, climate foresight, energy transition, and decarbonization. The third pillar is the Techistentical Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence, addressing AI research, policy, governance, and ethics. The fourth pillar is Techistential, advising decision-makers, boards, and investors on anticipatory leadership, sustainable value creation, and resilience.

DFI Geopolitics Center

The DFI Geopolitics Center for Grand Strategy equips CEOs, boards, policymakers, and investors to operationalize Anticipatory Governance. The Center provides the Strategic Agility to navigate metaruptions, build Antifragility, and gain Anticipatory Advantage in a fracturing world.

This specialized foresight practice focuses on Global Disorder and the convergence of the “Three Gs” - Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, and Geotechnology:

  • Systemic Risk & Global Disorder: Navigating the erosion of consensus and fragmentation of order.

  • The Three Gs: Decoding the collision of geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geotechnological forces.

  • Grand Strategy: Applying non-linear, asymmetric strategies to thrive in unpredictability.

  • Geofinance: Managing capital flows, systemic shocks, and the geopolitics of finance.

  • Info-Ruption & Epistemic Security: Protecting information integrity and decision-making agency in the age of AI.

Grand Strategy for a Decoupled World

The DFI Geopolitics Center applies Roger Spitz’s AAA Framework (Antifragile, Anticipatory, Agile) to the futures of Geopolitics & Global Order.

We are redefining governance dynamics for an era of systemic disruption.

Strategic Imperatives: Special Edition Keynotes

The DFI Geopolitics Center for Grand Strategy focus areas are also available as deep-dive Keynotes & Masterclasses for leadership forums:

  • The “INSTABILITY” Special Edition - The Futures of Geopolitics, Global Disorder & Grand Strategy: A critical keynote series operationalizing anticipatory governance amidst power shifts and fragmentation for leadership teams, global boards, and policymakers.

  • The “UNCERTAINTY” Special Edition - The Future of Predictability, Risk & Finance: A timely keynote series decoding the future of geofinance, risk, investments, and insurance for global financial stages and boardrooms.

VISIT SPEAKING HUB

Our Publications

We’ve helped hundreds of organizations worldwide navigate disruption through keynote talks, workshops, masterclasses, and tailored executive education programs. Now, our unique expertise is available in a series of acclaimed publications designed to empower leaders in unpredictable times:

Cover of a four-volume collection called 'The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption,' featuring books on navigating disruption and strategic management.
Award-Winning Disrupt With Impact Bestseller 2025

“Exceptionally well written, organized and presented… an extraordinary and recommended addition to reading lists.” — Midwest Book Review

Systemic disruption is reshaping industries and redistributing trillions of dollars, creating vast opportunities for those who can adapt. Yet, anyone who clings to business as usual risks significant value destruction.

Grounded in cutting-edge research, proprietary methodologies, and actionable insights, our publications provide more than just buzzwords. We reject outdated playbooks and give you a new, future-ready operating system to help you thrive in unpredictable times.

Both The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption and Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World are now included in numerous bibliographies for executive and academic programs. Case studies based on our frameworks have been developed and published in leading journals

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