Advisory Board

Dr. Elina Hiltunen

Elina Hiltunen, Ph.D. is CEO and Founder of What’s Next Consulting Oy; Executive in Residence (visiting professor) Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture; and Amigurumi designer, Novita. She coauthored Technolife 2035: How Will Technology Change Our Future?
 
Elina earned her Doctor of Economics from Aalto University, School of Business, Faculty of Organizations and Leadership, with the thesis Weak Signals in Organizational Futures Learning. She also earned her M.Sc. in chemical engineering (major subject: polymer science, technical chemistry, environmental protection, and IDBM) from Helsinki University of Technology in 1996.
 
Her What’s Next Consulting Oy is focused on future proof strategy consulting and weak signal hunting. Elina is also an active key note speaker, columnist, and a writer. Her book, Matkaopas tulevaisuuteen (Travel Guide to the Future) was published May 2012.
 
Altogether Elina has published over 200 academic and popular articles in various magazines, newspapers, and journals. Within her own consultancy, she closely cooperates with various organizations, such as the German based TrendOne, association of creative industries, Diges ry, and Finpro, the Finnish Trade promotion organization. In her career she has previously worked as a futurist at Finland Futures Research Center, Nokia, and Finpro. She has been rewarded for her work as a futurist by the Finland Future Society, 2011.
 
Elina is interested in innovation in theory as she is an innovator herself. Another occupation of hers is amigurumi designer. Actually, she has launched a new term of her occupation: she is a brand crocheted. Her first Brand Crochet book about Dibidogs amigurumis was published in November 2012.
 
Her papers include Was It a Wild Card or Just Our Blindness to Gradual Change?, Scenarios: Process and Outcome, Crowdsourcing the Future: The Foresight Process at Finpro, Good Sources of Weak Signals: A Global Study of Where Futurists Look For Weak Signals, The Futures Window — A Medium for Presenting Visual Weak Signals to Trigger Employees’ Futures Thinking in Organizations, and The Signification Process of the Future Sign.
 
Follow her Twitter feed. Read her LinkedIn profile.