Sheryl Connelly has been serving as the in-house Futurist for Ford Motor Company for almost a decade. In this role, she tracks global consumer trends to aide in the discussion of long-term planning and strategy across the entire company, including design, product development and corporate strategy. Prior to joining the trends team, Connelly spent eight years of her 18-year career with Ford in a variety of field positions in Marketing, Sales and Service roles. Before working for Ford, she practiced law.

In addition to a Juris Doctorate, she holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s in business administration. She teaches design research at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. Connelly has been a guest lecturer at Massachusetts Institute for Technology, University of Michigan and Wharton School of Business and a featured speaker at TED Global. Her strategic viewpoints have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Financial Times and BBC, and she has been profiled in Automotive News, Forbes and Edmunds. Fast Company magazine named her the 24th Most Creative Person in Business in 2013.

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/people/sheryl-connelly.html

Sheryl spoke about how the longer, 3-year cycle from a concept to a product, process of Ford’s business creates a need for a futurist at the company in order to observe and interpret trends to act upon. One important trend she mentioned was the increasing technology of the car, with the Sync system out now and much more coming, and that being a reason that Ford is becoming such a strong voice at the Consumer Electronics Show. She also talked about how scenario planning in futurism happens, which is when futurists write multiple stories that are effectively predictions for possible futures that can be used to plan responses.