Susan Cox-Smith

Susan is a Partner and Director, Experience at Changeist helping global organisations manage complex futures through the power of research, sense-making, strategy and engagement. Drawing on over twenty years experience as a writer, designer, creative director, interactive producer, and researcher Susan seeks to enrich public engagement with possible futures.

Across multiple engagements for Changeist, she has consulted on futures projects for ADCB, AXA, BBC R&D, Comcast, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, National Lottery Fund UK, Nesta, and several Silicon Valley tech companies. She has contributed to trend research and scenario development looking at the futures of personal transport, health and wellness, entertainment, arts and culture, and emergency response practices. In 2020, she led the design and delivery of a public workshop platform exploring feminist futures in a post-Covid world for the International Women’s Development Agency.

Susan also oversees the design of and co-leads Changeist’s capacity building workshops, and the development of related instructional materials, developing futuring skills in leaders from organisations ranging from Microsoft to Netflix, Wells Fargo and NASA JPL. She was the contributing editor on "How to Future: Leading and Sense-making in an Age of Hyperchange," published by Kogan Page Inspire in September 2020.

She has presented and facilitated strategic foresight, design futures, and scenario planning workshops at A/D/O in Brooklyn, Sibos in Geneva, ThingsCon Amsterdam and at UXLondon. She has co-facilitated How to Future courses at the Dubai Future Academy, and organizations in the US, UK, Abu Dhabi and Malta as well as online globally. Susan has also provided research, story consulting, narrative development, storyboarding and scriptwriting for exhibitions and future immersive concepts for international clients.

Susan is a graduate of the Miami Ad School at Portfolio Center in Atlanta, and has a post-graduate certification in art history and appraisal studies from New York University. She has also worked in digital curriculum development, and supported the University of Leiden’s respected online learning lab courses, as a consultant, community coordinator and mentor.