Magnus Lindkvist is a renowned futurist and an expert on present and future trends.
Magnus has made a career out of fusing the measurability and tangibility of the business world with the imaginative storytelling of Hollywood. He founded his company in 2005 to help companies make sense (and money) out of the future. Earlier in his career, Magnus worked as a brand strategist at Differ and as a planner director and management group member at brand strategy agency Grow.
In 2008, he created the world's first academically accredited course in Trendspotting and Future Thinking at Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, and in 2009, he won the coveted "Business Speaker of the Year" award in Sweden.
With his talks and books, Magnus challenges our entire way of thinking about and looking towards the future. "Business is all about focus. But with focus comes myopia and to conquer that, I come in to shake things up. To be invited as an external speaker or adviser is to have a license to interfere and interrupt," Magnus says.
Most people are so busy – we call it "busy-ness" after all – that they don't have time to think beyond the next fiscal quarter. Short-term remuneration systems contribute to a kind of thinking that is chronically short-term. When the need for renewal finally arrives – when you see the competitors approaching in the rear-view mirror – it is already too late. There are no gears left for acceleration.
"What I do is intellectual acupuncture", says Magnus. "I use little needles to prevent inertia and induce a rush of blood to the head. Sometimes the effects are immediate. Sometimes they kick in after a little while." Magnus's intellectual acupuncture needles are made up of a journalist's relentless curiosity, the rock-solid knowledge of an economist and the thirst of an unrelieved rock star to mesmerise an audience. The combination of these three have made him one of the world's most sought after speakers on trends and future-thinking.
