ABOUT

Tanja Hichert is an academically qualified, highly experienced, futures and foresight practitioner who specialises in; scenarios, applied systems thinking, horizon scanning, strategic foresight, risk management and facilitating strategic conversations, that provide clarity and direction for organisations and institutions faced with complexity and uncertainty.

Tanja has spent most of her career either in, or working with, the private sector, but her passion is expanding and building the practical application of Future Studies on the African continent. Where opportunity allows, she relishes in designing innovative, creative and experimental approaches, and working at the intersection of complex issues. In this regard she has built up extensive experience working on issues such as the Future of Agriculture in Africa, future health systems and demographics in West Africa, anticipatory governance, future food systems, the future of the informal sector in Nairobi, and country levels futures for, amongst others, Botswana, Zambia and Lesotho. She has also designed dialogues and vision workshops for the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes initiatives.

She has built up a solid track record in business strategy, planning and forecasting, and puts that to use to work collaboratively with her clients in designing interventions that build future thinking capabilities and expertise in organisations.

Tanja has a MBA specializing in Strategy and Forecasting, and a M.Phil in Futures Studies (cum laude) from Stellenbosch University. In addition to running Hichert & Associates, she is a fellow at Stellenbosch University's Centre for Complex Systems in Transition where she is a Co-Chair of the UNESCO Chair in Complex Systems and Transformative African Futures. Tanja teaches post graduate students, served for six years on the board of the Association of Professional Futurists, served a term as Strategic Foresight Advisor for the United Nations Development Programme, and serves as a director of the South African Node of the Millennium Project where she co-founded the Foresight for Development platform.

In collaboration with her clients and partners Tanja excels at:

• Designing and facilitating enjoyable, insightful, inspiring workshops where participants (learn how to) ‘use the future to make better decisions today’, whilst making sense of complexity and uncertainty.

• Delivering customised, unique scenario planning and futures workshop sessions.

• Designing customised, organisation-specific, thus effective, horizon scanning processes.

• Applying scenario methods, as well as other futures tools and methods to risk management.

Tanja is based near Cape Town, South Africa, and works all over the world. See her LinkedIn profile here https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanja-hichert-4825101