User:Riel Miller

Riel Miller is a specialist in long-run strategic thinking and the design of advanced foresight processes. For over twenty-five years he has assisted senior decision makers to assess and direct the potential for socio-economic transformation in both the private and public sectors.

His extensive publications address a range of issues, from futures methodology and the design of scenario processes for strategic decision making to the future of money, education, the internet, the knowledge society, the public sector, etc.. He is one of the world’s leading practitioners of scenario methods and now designs cutting-edge “hybrid strategic scenarios” processes for a wide range of international clients. He works closely with his customers to design and implement state-of-the-art scenario processes that reveal the assumptions underlying current choices and the potential, often hidden, in the world around us today. His “rigorous imagining” techniques build the “Futures Literacy” required for both new decision making capabilities and the capacity to innovate.

Riel started his career as a professional economist in the early 1980s at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Economics and Statistics Directorate. From the mid 1980s up until 1994 he worked in four different areas of the Ontario Government: the Legislature, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. During this same period he also worked on projects with a number of OECD directorates, including: the Directorate for Education, Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, and the Territorial Development Service. At the beginning of 1995 he returned full-time to the OECD as a Principal Administrator in the International Futures Programme. In 2005 he left the OECD to establish an independent consultancy, xperidox: futures consulting, Paris.

His current and recent client list includes public and private sector organizations in more than twenty-five countries: the National Economic and Social Development Office, Ireland; the Autonomous University of Mexico; the Office of Harmonization of the Internal Market, Alicante; the Korean Development Institute, Seoul; Europ Assistance; Cartes Bancaire; Ateliers de la Terre; Gemalto; Philips Design; The Renault Foundation; various DGs of the EC: Employment, Research, Administration, Brussels; Scottish Enterprise; Consortium for the Commercial Promotion of Catalonia; Cisco Systems; SecondaryFutures, New Zealand; Office of the National Science Advisor, Canada; Policy Research Initiative, Canada; La Poste, France; The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Seville, Spain; Ministry of Labour, Finland; Research Council of Norway; Alstom, etc..

Riel also devotes considerable time to teaching and speaking. He has taught courses at undergraduate, graduate and professional continuing education levels at institutions around the world, including: the College of Europe, Bruges; Sciences-Po, Paris; IESE, Barcelona; CNAM, Paris; Carleton University, Ottawa; etc.. Riel is a dynamic speaker and on average gives 15 to 20 keynote speeches a year on a wide variety of topics. He holds dual citizenship: Canada, France.

He is currently a member of the Board of the Association of Professional Futurists; a faculty member at the Masters in Public Affairs, Institut de Sciences Politique (Sciences-Po), Paris, France; and a Fellow of the World Future Studies Federation. Born in Canada in 1957, he holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York, MA from York University, Toronto and a BA from Carleton University, Ottawa.