Stephen McGrail
Consultant
Stephen McGrail is an applied futures thinking expert who leads the application of specialist strategic foresight tools to enhance clients’ strategy development. He is passionate about assisting clients to respond effectively to complex issues and the changing context, through robust research and more strategic and imaginative futures thinking. Stephen was recently chosen by the City of Melbourne as one of the “Future Melbourne Leaders” (for its recent innovative city planning process) and he has worked on a range of projects that enabled clients to effectively address sustainability issues and big-picture policy issues (e.g. climate change).
He recently led a climate change scenarios process for BHP Billiton that informed senior executive thinking on ‘Managing risks and seizing opportunities in a carbon constrained world’ and business unit risk assessment. Stephen also designed and co-facilitated a recent community visioning exercise in Gladstone, Queensland. The sectors he has consulted to include minerals and manufacturing, natural resources (e.g. forestry), energy, construction and the built environment, and banking.
Stephen’s approach integrates strategic foresight, a detailed understanding of participatory processes and research methodologies, his background in creative and trend analysis roles, and knowledge of sustainable development issues and emerging trends. His views are regularly published in The Age business opinion page.
Stephen is also a regularly engaged speaker and thought leader. Recently he MC’d the two-day “FutureLab” youth engagement event conducted as part of the City of Melbourne’s “Future Melbourne” project, and gave the opening address at the 2006 AusForesight conference held at Swinburne University. Stephen is also a regular guest lecturer for Swinburne University’s Master of Business, for the ‘International Trends in Business’ unit.
Prior to joining Futureye Stephen worked in strategic brand planning and cultural trends research roles for J. Walter Thompson (JWT), Radar Trend Distillery and as a freelance writer. He was awarded a European internship by JWT for his trend identification and analysis work and Stephen was also the recipient of the 2002 International Advertising Association travelling scholarship.
Skills
- Strategic futures analysis and engagement exercises – including scenario development, creative visioning exercises, and longer-term futures analysis
- Workshop design and facilitation
- Practical application of foresight tools
- Sustainable development research and policy analysis
- Communication – including sustainability report development
Experience
Over the past four years Stephen has worked on a wide variety of Futureye projects. Although these have bee across most of Futureye’s services, his work has focused on Futures Planning and Analysis. Stephen has:
- Successfully pioneered new methods for strategic futures analysis and engagement exercises, including integrating stakeholder and actor analysis and scenario development into one accelerated process to quickly create robust climate change scenarios for BHP Billiton. This work has also involved the design and project management of a community visioning process in Gladstone, and conducting futures analysis for business and policy issues (e.g. Gladstone Industry Leadership Group; Department of Infrastructure – Public Transport Division, Victoria)
- Designed and facilitated a three day conference for 2050 “a national not-for-profit organisation that represents the young future leaders of the built environment that are working towards a sustainable future”
- Applied cutting-edge workshop and conversational processes to client issues – such as the use of World Café processes (Melbourne City Council, Sustainable Living Foundation), actor/stakeholder role plays in future scenario development and analysis (Department of Primary Industries, Victoria; the Hay Group), and ‘open space’ technology (Whyalla City Council).
- Pioneered the practical application of innovative foresight tools to stimulate more effective strategic thinking and planning, such as ‘wild card’ identification and analysis’ (BHP Billiton, OneSteel Whyalla Steelworks), environmental scanning (BHP Billiton), systems thinking and modelling (Gladstone Industry Leadership Group), and futures workshops (BHP Billiton’s Sustainable Development and Community Relations team; Department of Primary Industries, Victoria).
- Led sustainable development research and policy analysis, such as a review of the ‘Social Value of Public Transport’ (Department of Infrastructure – Public Transport Division, Victoria) via literature review and stakeholder interviews, and the assessment of corporate best-practices on climate change and water (BHP Billiton).
- Writing sustainable development reports (OneSteel Whyalla Steelworks, Zinifex Limited, Oxiana), and strategic advice (AngloCoal Australia). Stephen also co-developed Futureye’s sustainability report ranking framework and applied it to provide detailed feedback on company reports (Leighton Contractors, Oxiana)
- Advising local councils on long-term city and regional planning (Melbourne City Council’s ‘Future Melbourne’ project, Whyalla City Council), through highly successful community-based planning processes.
- Researching and co-authoring Katherine Teh-White’s keynote address on the topic “How does social responsibility impact consumer spending?” for the Society for Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP) Australia 2005 Symposium.
Qualifications
- Master of Science (Strategic Foresight), Swinburne University
- MA History & Philosophy of Science, Melbourne University (current studies)
- Bachelor of Business (Marketing), Monash University
- Diploma of Creative Advertising and Copywriting, Australian College of Journalism