Kevin McDermott

Associate, The Futures Strategy Group

Kevin McDermott is a collaborator with the Futures Strategy Group in its scenario planning work for corporate and government clients. Mr. McDermott’s career spans journalism, publishing and corporate consulting. In 2006, he was a major contributor to Project Horizon, a groundbreaking strategic-planning exercise sponsored by global affairs agencies of the U.S. government and facilitated by FSG.

Mr. McDermott is the founder of Collective Intelligence (CI), based in New York. From its inception the mission of McDermott’s firm has been to collaborate with clients to make a working asset of knowledge earned by experience. Chiefly that means putting the wisdom of individuals to work across their organization at large. Collective Intelligence teams with clients to, first, help them establish what McDermott calls “intelligence agendas” in support of their strategies. With the agenda as its touchstone CI applies the interview techniques of a well-prepared journalist to help clients invent original approaches to engagement debriefs, web content, and scenario-development.

CI’s first major client was an international strategy consultant for which Mr. McDermott developed an innovative engagement-debriefing tool. The success of that invention brought an invitation to address the first forum on “Groupware & Electronic Communities” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since then CI’s client list has grown to include private-equity firms, the U.S. Department of State, a leading international recruiter, financial-services providers and one of the world’s largest international aid organizations.

Before launching Collective Intelligence Mr. McDermott worked as a reporter and magazine editor, including journalism from France for The Washington Post and Saveur, from England for The New York Times, and from Haiti for The Atlantic Monthly. For nine years he was managing editor of D&B Reports, the award-winning business magazine of Dun & Bradstreet, overseeing its coverage of international trade. Earlier he contributed articles on international finance to Business International and Business Latin America, both now part of the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Mr. McDermott earned a Masters in American Studies from the University of Nottingham in England. He also holds a double degree in Political Science and English from the University of Rochester in the United States.

Mr. McDermott has served four elected terms on the board of the Overseas Press Club of America, and co-chairs its international press-freedom committee. He is a member of Frontline Club, the organization of international journalists in London.