An Interview With Ford's Futurist Sheryl Connelly

Sheryl Connelly is the head of Ford's Global Trends and Futuring Division, where she separates trend from fad and helps the automaker determine what global changes will influence the market in years to come.

Join us to learn Sheryl's insights on how demographics, technology, the environment, and other global issues have shaped today's market, what these trends could mean for our future, and how one company is responding.

A full transcript follows the video.

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Brendan: Hi, folks, I'm Brendan Byrnes and I'm joined today by Sheryl Connelly. Sheryl's the head of Ford's Global Trends and Futuring Division. First of all, thanks so much for your time.

Sheryl: My pleasure.

Brendan: It sounds like a very interesting job. Could you, first, just very quickly describe your job and what, exactly, you do for Ford?

Sheryl: Sure. Informally, I'm often referred to as Ford's "In-House Futurist," which is a bit of a misnomer, because I am the person that spends most of their time reminding people that no one can predict the future.

What I try to do is help give input to strategic discussions. What are the assumptions that are built into our plans? What happens if the assumptions that we have are wrong?

To challenge those things, I look at trends -- global trends -- through the lens of social, technological, economic, environmental, and political arenas, because while we'll never be able to predict the future, we know those are the five things that will shape the landscape.

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An Interview With Ford's Futurist Sheryl Connelly