_ Who We Are
We are experienced researchers, consultants, and educators
Sabina Birgen
SVP New Business
Strategy
Having been on the client-side for much of her career, Sabina brings strong marketing, sales, operations, and EX/CX background to her role. She understands the challenges organizations face firsthand. She is passionate about changing perceptions around what good insight and foresight is, how to make sense of them so they are impactful both in the now and the future. (Short + Long)
In her prior life, Sabina was an original key member of Idea Couture, a leading global innovation firm where she held a pivotal global role. Preceding Idea Couture, she held a key role for a global WPP innovation firm and a director’s role for a major hospitality and tourism company. Finally, she was integral in the start-up for a new charter in the virtual banking sector.
Clients include P&G, PepsiCo, Mattel, VF Corp, Cisco, Diageo, AT&T, Whirlpool, Ford, E & J Gallo, Nestle, Cox Comm, Constellation, GSK, Starbucks, RBC, FedEx, Safeway, Tyson, Cox Communications, Citi Group, Campbell's, Del Monte, Cisco, Scotiabank, Humana, Tyson, AARP, AstraZeneca, J&J, TD Bank, AT&T and Liberty to name a few.
Today, Sabina enjoys her role in connecting people and organizations with solid solutions that are reflective of people, their voices, and their needs. She also enjoys a role with a HOT disruptive start-up food brand and loves to travel with her husband and kids.
Dr. Paul Hartley
CEO, Insights Director
ANTHROPOLOGY, ETHNOMUSICOLOGY, FORESIGHT
Once a gigging classical clarinetist, Paul ran away from his orchestra to become a consulting anthropologist and foresight practitioner.
Previously co-Head of Global Insights, Head of Human Futures and Technology and Sr. Resident Anthropologist at the global innovation firm Idea Couture, he has provided his expertise to help an extensive list of clients, including Spotify, KONE, Nikon, Research In Motion, Samsung, HTC, Whirlpool, UCB, Eli Lilly, AbbVie, RBC Royal Bank, CitiBank, GAP, Ford Motors, American Express, Smart Tech and others.
With expertise in Science and Technology Studies (STS), ethnography, applied anthropology, and semiotics, Paul developed an applied methodology that combines anthropological and foresight perspectives and methods to explore the transformation of culture, society, and technology. He has a passion for true immersive participant observation and has presented his work in academic journals, popular magazines, and international conferences.
Awarded a Fulbright-IIE fellowship in 2010 to conduct the research for his doctoral dissertation in ethnomusicology, Paul studied the social impact of new media and technologies in the Turkish film industry in Istanbul, Turkey. He continues to expand on this work and examine the true role of technology in creative, human endeavours. He can occasionally be heard in film soundtracks.
Mathew Lincez
EVP Commercial Operations, Foresight Director
FORESIGHT, INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Mat specializes in applying design research and strategic foresight methods to long-term planning, investment and innovation challenges. Over the past 17 years he’s acquired a diversity of Global - cross industry experience - helping senior leaders, organizations, and brands anticipate the impacts of change and prepare for sustainable growth and transformation.
Complimenting this work, Mat has led the application of experience design and strategic foresight methods within the venture, technology transfer and commercialization space. Partnering with founders and inventors to develop forward thinking use cases, scenarios, and road-maps that communicate the long term innovation potential of a core technology, process, or proposition at the earliest possible stages.
Mat frequently participates as a guest lecturer, visiting professor, and instructor at a number of leading institutions including: OCADU, KAOSPILOT, CEDIM, the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and the Ross School of Management at the University of Michigan.
Hye Young Kim
Service Design Lead
CULTURAL DESIGN, SERVICE DESIGN, DESIGN RESEARCH
Hye Young is the owner and managing director of PSSD lab in Seoul, Korea, and the co-founder of the cultural experience company onedayseoul. She teaches cultural and service design at the Underwood International College at Yonsei University and works with a wide range of clients as a service designer and cultural liaison.
She is a Ph.D student studying cultural design at Kookmin University and holds a Masters Degree in Product Service System Design from Politecnico di Milano.
Before returning to Korea, she worked on several projects as a service designer at Carrefour Group in Paris.
Marizanne Knoesen
Foresight Researcher, Foresight
FORESIGHT, STRATEGY
Marizanne has been making sense of social, business, and technological phenomena since 2012. She has consulted for clients on four continents in diverse industries such as beauty, home appliances, mining, engineering, and automotive.
She particularly enjoys working at the intersections of foresight, design research, and innovation. An avid scenario writer, Marizanne has written 100+ scenarios that flag potential opportunities and/or challenges for those wanting to explore possible futures.
She is an alumna of the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa where she studied Economics, Decision Science and Knowledge Management, and Political Science.
When she’s not pondering the next 5-10 years, she’s probably trying something new like a 10-day silent meditation or walking unnecessarily far to taste the best croissant in the world.
Dr. Daniel Mai
Associate Director, Insights
ORGANIZATIONAL ETHNOGRAPHY, ANTHROPOLOGY
Daniel is a trained business anthropologist and innovation consultant who is passionate about exploring the socio-cultural dynamics between people, technologies, and brands. His PhD research and dissertation was conducted in collaboration with AUDI AG where he helped the German company to understand their own culture and identity.
Daniel previously worked as an innovation consultant and human insights specialist for ReD Associates and Idea Couture, digging deep into the needs, challenges, and desires of various stakeholder groups in the healthcare sector, automotive, and other industries.
When not busy in innovation consulting, Daniel and his jazz combo stir up the Berlin music scene. Daniel is the author of "Organizational Cultures of Remembrance" and holds a PhD in Organizational Culture Studies and Ethnography from Justus-Liebig-University in Germany.
Dr. Ashley Metz
Management Lead, Assistant Professor at Tilburg University
ORGANIZATION STUDIES, FORESIGHT, STRATEGY
Ashley Metz is an Assistant Professor of Organization Studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Her research is at the intersection of organizations and society. One stream of work investigates how organizations and fields with impact goals organize, with a focus on how and what they value and the role of power in that process. She specializes in qualitative methods that aim to help uncover processes, meaning and rich, contextualized insights. She also conducts research on strategic foresight, and has studied change and learning in healthcare organizations.
Prior to her academic career, Ashley worked in the concept and strategy team and product marketing strategy at HERE, previously of Nokia, served as Chair and Nokia representative for the citizen focus action cluster in the European Commission Smart Cities and Communities programme, which worked on inclusiveness and sustainability in cities. Previously, she conducted research for the UNDP and European Venture Philanthropy Association and co-founded a technology education nonprofit.
She studied literature and writing at Northwestern University (BA), received an MBA from IESE Business School and defended her PhD at the Hertie School of Governance, therefore combining humanities and social sciences with an applied and rigorous understanding of business and organizing.
Karl Schroeder
Sr. Foresight Specialist
FORESIGHT, SCIENCE FICION
Karl Schroeder is an award-winning author and foresight researcher whose ten novels have been translated into a dozen languages. His Master’s degree is in Strategic Foresight and Innovation. As a futurist, he pioneered a new mode of writing that blends fiction and rigorous futures research. His early short novels Crisis in Zefra (2005) and Crisis in Urlia (2011) are innovative ‘scenario fictions’ commissioned by the Canadian army as study and research tools. This and his numerous short commissions have helped legitimize narrative as an analytical and reporting tool. SF
Victoria Scrubb
Researcher, Research Manager, Insights
ANTHROPOLOGY, HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
Victoria is an interdisciplinary researcher, scholar, and thinker who had her academic start in Life Science before finding her affinity for ethnography in Anthropology and its application in Human Geography. She has a practiced hand in co-coordinating and running research projects across numerous disciplines in addition to spending time in the field in Asia, Africa and Europe. As a researcher and research manager she has helped some of the world's biggest companies on some wicked problems.
Victoria jumped to corporate research from the academic world where she immersed herself in the commercial perspectives of research. She is passionate about people and understanding the complexity of the world we have built around us.
She has a Bachelor of Science from McMaster University, a Honours Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the University of Toronto and a Masters of Science (with Distinction) in Human Geography and Urban Studies from the London School of Economics. She hopes to round out her degrees with a PhD in Human Behaviour & Design.
Dr. Maya Shapiro
Associate Director, Insights
ANTHROPOLOGY, EXPERIENCE DESIGN, PSYCHOLOGY
Maya is an applied anthropologist, innovation consultant and educator who is usually be found wondering about the reasons behind what people do, say or feel.
Maya has worked as an innovation consultant and service designer, developing a specialization in designing, conducting and analyzing social research. She produces and delivers human insights that speak directly to the business needs of clients across industries, from financial services, to healthcare. Alongside her project work, she has built robust research practices, helping colleagues and clients understand what ethnographic work is, isn’t, and might be.
Throughout her Masters and PhD, Maya trained extensively in political and medical anthropology. She is currently pursuing another Masters in counselling psychology and is continually interested in issues of aging, brain and mental health and cultural experiences of death and dying.
Maya lives in Toronto with her partner and two (absolutely gorgeous) children.
Dr. Vurain Tabvuma
Quantitative Lead, Associate Professor Saint Mary’s University
BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS, QUANTITATIVE PRACTICES
Vurain Tabvuma was born and raised in Zimbabwe. He got his undergraduate degree from Africa University. In his mid-twenties he headed to the UK where he obtained a Master's Degree (with Distinction) and a PhD from Brunel University under a fully funded scholarship.
He has worked at Bournemouth University and the University of Surrey in the UK as a Lecturer and a Senior Lecturer in HRM/OB. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Vurain's research focuses on intrinsic motivation, public service motivation, pro-social motivation, job satisfaction, organizational change and adaptation. His research has been published in refereed international journals such as Human Resource Management, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration: Research and Theory, and Kyklos.
Vurain is the proud father of two lovely boys.
Dr. Morgan Gerard
Sr. Advisor, Anthropologist
ANTHROPOLOGY, INNOVATION
Collaborating with thoughtful, forward thinking organizations to help them develop better ways of being in the world, Morgan works with leaders in the public and private sectors to develop more socially and financially sustainable tomorrows. That means applying ethnographic research, human-centric design, design thinking, and resilience to his work. Before the establishment of the Human Futures Studio, he served as Chief Resident Anthropologist of Idea Couture, Canada’s first innovation agency, where he spent 10 years cracking big, hairy strategic innovation challenges for global clients such as Burberry, PepsiCo, Diageo, BMO, Kraft, HTC, UCB and AbbVie as well as building a team of anthropologists and foresight strategists. A student of ritual and transformation, Morgan holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Toronto.