Our Team
The Futures Strategy Group’s people have a wide variety of backgrounds, skill sets and training, and two decades’ experience combining them for creative outcomes for our clients. We bring deep analytical rigor and business acumen, broad political, financial, marketing and strategy expertise, and an organizational culture of innovation to bear on our clients’ most pressing issues.
Charles W. Thomas, Principal
Charles W. (Tom) Thomas has been involved in scenario planning since shortly after his days as a Soviet Studies and International Relations graduate student and teacher. He has worked in both public and private sectors, is responsible for many of the groundbreaking features of the FSG approach to scenario planning, and he combines in-depth knowledge, creativity, and communications skills.
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Charles Perrottet, Principal
Charles Perrottet has decades of experience in mergers and acquisitions, finance, and advising senior management in industries as diverse as toys, banking, airlines, and snow-blowers (in fact, he thought up the famous Toro "Sno-Risk" program). He has graduate degrees from both the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and the London School of Economics.
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Peter Kennedy, Principal
Peter Kennedy began as Latin American analyst for Business International (later absorbed into the Economist Group), where he worked in the same office as a young man named Barack Obama. Peter has consulted for many multinational clients, from global insurance companies to auto manufacturers to the Panama Canal Authority. His academic training is in Economics, Public Policy, and Global Affairs.
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Patrick Marren, Principal
Patrick Marren has two decades' experience consulting to dozens of world-leading organizations on futures issues and strategy. He has a regular column in the Journal of Business Strategy, in which he writes, perhaps unsurprisingly, on business and strategy. He has a Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago with a specialization in finance.
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Kevin McDermott, Associate
Kevin McDermott is a frequent collaborator with the Futures Strategy Group in its scenario-planning work for corporate and government clients. He is the founder of Collective Intelligence (CI), a New York strategic-communications and change-management firm whose clients have included Booz & Co., Innosight, A.T. Kearney, Korn-Ferry International, and McKinsey & Co.
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Jack Clarke, Associate
Dr. John L. Clarke (Jack) is an Associate of the Futures Strategy Group and a contributor to FSG strategy and security engagements. He is also Professor of Defense Management and Strategic Studies and Director of the Program on Civil Security at the Marshall Center in Garmisch, Germany.
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Gerard Smith, Associate
Gerard Smith is an Associate with the Futures Strategy Group, following more than 30 years as a brand and marketing strategist with experience in advertising, branding and global marketing. He has an extensive background in creating solutions to strategic marketing challenges for many of the world’s best known companies.
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Mark Safford, Associate
Mark Safford joined the Futures Strategy Group as an Associate in 2005, after a distinguished career in the federal government. Mark was a senior consultant on FSG’s interagency global affairs engagement known as Project Horizon, in which he played a leading role in developing scenarios, facilitating workshops, and synthesizing the results.
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Cathy Johnson, Associate
Cathy Johnson is a freelance researcher and editor who provides research, administrative, and production support to the Futures Strategy Group. Cathy has worked with the founding principals of FSG since the mid-1980s, when they were at The Futures Group, Inc., and later at Deloitte and FSG.
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Robert Avila, Associate
Robert Avila is an economist working with the Futures Strategy Group on scenario planning for corporate and government clients. Robert has advised companies on strategy and market environment issues for well over twenty years.
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Francis Ruotolo, Senior Advisor
Frank Ruotolo rekindled his association with FSG partners in 2012, after a decade leading a West Coast technology start-up. Frank began his career in retail, where he rose to senior leadership positions at Sears, Lord & Taylor and Macy’s. He later served as president of The Futures Group, the predecessor organization to FSG.
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