Futurist Speaker
I’ve been telling stories of tomorrow since I was old enough to talk. Now I do it for audiences around the world.
Could your audience be next?
I can promise it will be an original talk, tailored to your community. I won’t tell them about the future. I’ll tell them about their future.
I might shock them along the way. They might feel some fear. But they’ll come away hopeful. And with things they can use.
Practical tips for a better tomorrow.
Put me on your stage, set, or just in front of my webcam, and I’ll strive to spark everyone’s imagination.
If my name sounds familiar…
Your audience might know me already. Since 2006, I’ve been appearing on TV or radio a couple of times each week.
You might have seen me explaining next-generation tech on BBC Breakfast, Newsround, World Business Report or Sky News. Or maybe telling celebrities about the future on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch, the Saturday Show, Jon Richardson’s Ultimate Worrier or Phil Spencer’s Home Hero. Over in Germany, you may have caught me showing off my futuristic pizza to Galileo, the country’s leading science show.
If you’re more of a listener than a watcher, my voice might be familiar from 5live, Radio 4, TalkRadio and many other national and local stations where I’ve had both regular and occasional slots. In total, I think I’ve been on air more than 2,000 times. And I’m a regular podcast guest too, if that’s your thing.
In print and online, I get asked for my views a lot too. On my clippings page you will find links to some of my most recent broadcast appearances, as well as articles from The Guardian, The Sun, The Mirror, the Evening Standard, Entrepreneur Magazine and more.
“Having external insight certainly added a huge amount of value
and provided a great platform for our sessions and from the questions in the room, the audience were clearly very engaged too.”
Ian Stuart, CEO, HSBC UK
Futurist Speaker:
Biography
“Tom Cheesewright is the Applied Futurist, helping people and organisations around the world to see the future more clearly, share their vision, and respond with innovation. Tom will help you and your audience to connect tomorrow’s world to today’s experience, and make sense of what’s happening next, and why.
Tom is a frequent presence in the media, his face, voice, and unusual name recognisable from weekly appearances on TV and radio including BBC Breakfast, Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch, 5live, Radio 4, and TalkRadio, and in The Guardian, The Times, and The Evening Standard.
Tom’s first book, High Frequency Change, was published in 2019 by LID Publishing and shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2020 in the ‘Leadership for the Future’ category.
Tom’s second book, Future-Proof Your Business, was published as part of the Penguin Business Experts series in Summer 2020. It was a recommended read from the Financial Times.”
What do you get when you book me?
I am an experienced speaker with an audience of my own and I am happy to work with you to help you promote your event. This can include pre-event videos, PR campaigns, contributed articles, social media promotion and more.
PR and media
With experience of thousands of media interviews for broadcast, print and digital – including acting as a spokesperson for major brand campaigns – I am happy to do joint interviews with other speakers or event spokespeople, or speak direct to the media in advance of or at the event to help you with promotion.
Pre-event video
I’m an experienced broadcaster and very comfortable in interview or direct to camera formats. I can work with you to produce promotional videos for my keynote and the conference to be shared in email campaigns or via social media.
Contributed articles
I can provide a taster of my upcoming keynote in a blog post or article for you to share via your promotional channels, or share a write-up of the full talk to be distributed after the event as a follow-up.
If you’re interested in my writing, you can purchase copies of my books, ‘High Frequency Change‘ and ‘Futureproof Your Business‘ to share with delegates as part of a goody bag, giveaway, or competition prize.
Promotion on social media
I will use my social media presence to amplify your campaigns and point people towards booking pages. I have over 15,000 followers on Twitter and around 6,000 contacts on LinkedIn with a high proportion of business and thought leaders.
Hosting & interviewing
I am most commonly asked to keynote but I am also happy to chair panels or interview other speakers on stage, while I am at the event.
Remote Speaking and Training
If your event, launch, strategy session or training has been cancelled or postponed, or if you now have a distributed workforce, why not do things digitally? I can deliver talks and training remotely, using a variety of tools. With 15 years of broadcasting experience, I’m as used to speaking to a camera or a microphone as I am to a room full of people.
My experiences of transferring live events to streaming sessions have been really positive: great turnout and great engagement.
If you would like to organise a digital talk or training, just get in touch.
I am equipped to deliver talks and training remotely:
- Fast fibre connection with plenty of upstream bandwidth
- High definition camera
- High quality microphone
I am experienced with most of the major online conference and streaming platforms, including:
Here are my tips for making a success of streamed speaking and training events:
- Keep the length down if possible. Short, sharp hits of under 30 minutes seem to work well.
- If you want to run something longer, make sure the agenda is really clear and has a mixture of information and interaction. I aim for 10 minutes of interaction for every 20 minutes of information.
- Make sure the agenda is laid out up front and that people know what is going to be asked of them from an interaction perspective. Will it be questions or polls? What is the feedback channel? When and how should they interact?
- Make sure your speaker is prepared for the feedback channel. It can be disconcerting seeing in text what is usually in the audience’s heads! How should they respond to what they see? Should they interrupt the flow of their talk to respond or group responses at the end of their talk?
- Make sure the speaker has the right equipment. A good microphone, and a high definition camera make all the difference. If they can, ensure their connection to their router is wired, not wireless. And that their broadband package provides good bandwidth both upstream (for the video feed from their house) and down. Lots of home broadband has a fast connection to the home but poor speeds out from it.
- Do a rehearsal. Of course it will always be different on the day, but try to get as close as possible to the live event. Check audio and video, bandwidth, slides, and any poll or chat functionality you plan to use.
Case Study: Kent County Council
I worked with Kent County Council to deliver a leadership session via interactive live stream when the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of a planned event at short notice. The live stream engaged more people than were expected to attend the physical event, and the feedback was incredible. Read the full case study here.
What topics can I cover?
I write every talk specifically for the audience I will be speaking to. Using my own Intersections methodology, I identify the trends and pressures, threats and opportunities that are relevant to your sector. Using this approach, I have addressed every topic from supermarkets to superyachts. Whatever your niche, I believe I can offer insight and value to your audience.
Nonetheless, there are some broad topics that have proven particularly popular over the years, leading me to build up a deeper knowledge base and client set. Some of these are listed below.
Future City
I have written and spoken extensively about tomorrow’s places, where we live and work, and how we travel. Topics include:
- Smart cities
- Future of public transport
- Future energy
- The future car
- Future home
- Future of retail
Future of Humanity
What will it mean to be human in the future? I’ve covered various aspects of this subject, including
- Bionics and human augmentation
- The future of work
- Education, learning and skills
- Culture and media
- The future of sport
- The future of food
Future Business
How will business be affected by this age of High Frequency Change? I address multiple aspects of future business in my work:
- Future of finance
- Future of retail
- Future banking
- The future of money
- Building a future-ready organisation
- Future of recruitment
Future OF WORK
I have written and spoken extensively about the future of work: who will do it, where, and in what industries. Key aspects include:
- The rise of the robots
- Critical skills for tomorrow
- The freelance nation
- Making hybrid work for everyone
- Tomorrow’s workplace
- The future workforce
Future of FOOD
What will eat in the future? This is a topic that captures the imagination of people of all ages. Key topics include:
- Insects and alternative proteins
- Beyond veganism
- Future farming methods
- Drinks culture
- Next-gen snacks
- Growing crops in space
Get In Touch
I am available for speaking opportunities, media campaigns, content creation and consultancy.
For information on rates and availability, please get in touch by filling out the form. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
