Tracey Follows, MSc
Tracey Follows, MSc is Founder and Creative Director of the consultancy, Futuremade, and is in Forbes’ list of the top 50 female futurists in the world.
She is Visiting Professor of Digital Futures and Identity at Staffordshire University and has been a regular Contributor at Forbes writing about the future of technology, society, and digital identity.
She has a monthly column in Management Today and writes a regular column for Compass, the quarterly magazine of the Association of Professional Futurists. Tracey is also the host of The Future of You podcast, where she invites renowned academics, authors, and innovators to discuss the future of identity in a digital world. She is also the author of the Letter on Liberty: Defending the Digital Self.
At Futuremade, a strategic foresight and futures consultancy, Tracey is working with global brands and businesses to help them spot trends, develop foresight, and comprehensively prepare for what comes next.
Her clients have included Coca-Cola, Tesco, PZ Cussons, Snapchat, Google, Diageo, Sky, Lego, Farfetch, Conde Nast, Cosette, Rentokil, BT, Federation of Awarding Bodies, the IAB, Women’s Business Council, and Virgin.
Tracey is the author of the book The Future of You: Can Your Identity Survive 21st-Century Technology? published in 2021. In the book, Tracey talks about how our personal freedoms and potential will be transformed over the coming decades. From health passports, biohacking, and relationships with machines, to mind clones, digital voting, and virtual legacies beyond the grave, we need to understand these vital issues today so that we might design the future of our identity tomorrow.
“This fascinating book explores the way that emerging technologies such as AI might affect the nature of personal identity and personhood. It paints an intriguing, thought-provoking, and occasionally disturbing picture.” —Michael Wooldridge
She has spoken at UN HQ, keynoted at events such as Financial Times Tech Live, Nobel Visions in Moscow, and Think With Google, speaking alongside Silicon Valley CEOs at the FT’s Global Boardroom and alongside UK Parliamentarians at Think Digital Identity, delivering her TEDx at the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office. She has recently returned from speaking at Baillie Gifford’s Forum for the Long Term.
As a go-to futurist for media she has appeared on BBC Business Matters, Radio 4, Talk Radio, LBC, TimesRadio, GBNews, and on the Megyn Kelly show in the US. She has appeared in FT, Guardian, and the Daily Mail. She has written for and speaks at The Academy of Ideas and is a regular judge on Debating Matters, the national debating competition.
She was Ad age ‘Woman to Watch’ 2017, the Women in Marketing Winner for Outstanding Contribution to Marketing in 2016, and was the Inaugural Creative Strategy Jury President at Cannes Lions 2019, as well as Jury President for Innovation and Creative Data at Eurobest 2018.
She is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists, the World Futures Studies Federation, a Fellow of the RSA, and an Associate Fellow of the World Academy of Art & Science.
Tracey earned her First Class Honors Bachelor’s Degree of Arts in Philosophy and Master of Science Degree in Technical Change and Industrial Strategy from the University of Manchester in 1993. In 2015, she earned her Professional Certificate in Foresight at the University of Houston.
She started her career as Account Director at Cogent Elliot after graduation. She continued as T-Mobile’s International Advertising Manager in 2000 and as Head of Consumer Communication at BT Group in 2005.
In 2007, Tracey became lead strategist at John Lewis, J&J Baby, and the London digital representative on the worldwide digital council as the Strategy Director at Lowe. During the next three years, she was Executive Planning Director at VCCP where she was promoted to Managing Partner after winning £50m+ worth of new business including from easyJet, O2 digital, Burtons biscuits, and Very.
Between 2012 and 2014, Tracey was Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Partner at J. Walter Thompson Worldwide, leading the agency where she helped create the “planning foresight” department.
In 2015, Tracey founded Anydaynow, which later became Futuremade, and became Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at The Future Laboratory in 2016.
She was Chair of the APG between 2013–2015, sat on the Advisory Board of DotEveryone, and has been listed by Business Cloud as a Trailblazing Woman in Tech. She was also on the Board of the Advertising Standards Authority for four years until 2021.
Listen to Virtually You w/ Tracey Follows, Dreaming Possible Futures: Identity, Neurotechnology & Sovereignty of The Self, and Can Your Identity Survive 21st-Century Technology?
Watch Tracey Follows talks to Nikolas Badminton about the polymorphic code of the self…
Read Avatars, AI, and Authentication, with Tracey Follows, ‘People are no longer constrained by pre-digital parameters’, and Blurring the Boundaries of Our Identity.
Listen to Future Stalker and The Future of Digital Identity With Tracey Follows.
Visit her LinkedIn profile and her homepage. Follow her on Forbes, Instagram, AdForum, and Twitter.
