Charles W. Thomas

Principal, The Futures Strategy Group

Charles Thomas, a founding principal of the Futures Strategy Group, is a specialist in long-range strategy development and technology planning. He has 30 years' work experience in consulting, teaching, and administration. Mr. Thomas has led projects concerning public and private sector strategic planning, global trends, and the analysis of U.S. and foreign technology. Typical projects are performed for clients who face significant uncertainties and ambiguities in their future operating environment.

Examples of Mr. Thomas’s past client engagements include:

• Global strategy for a professional services firm
• Customer strategy for a global airline
• Project Horizon—long-term planning for U.S. global affairs agencies
• Project Evergreen—long-term operational planning for the U.S. Coast Guard
• Business strategy for an integrated healthcare delivery system
• Scenario planning best practices for the Australian Defence Forces
• New business opportunities for a large East Coast public energy utility
• Technology investment and organizational planning for NASA aeronautics
• New product strategies for the Canadian subsidiary of a global pharmaceutical firm
• U.S Coast Guard strategic assessment post 9/11
• Business portfolio and product planning for a global pharmaceutical firm
• The future of Chinese foreign policy for the U.S. intelligence community
• Business and facilities planning for the Panama Canal
• Long-range threat assessment and strategy for the National Reconnaissance Office (Project Proteus)

From 1998 to 2002, Mr. Thomas was a Firm Director (non-equity partner) in the Boston-based Strategy Practice of Deloitte Consulting. Prior to the merger of The Futures Group (TFG) with Deloitte, Mr. Thomas was vice president of The Futures Group, Inc. He led the Corporate Strategy Practice and, earlier, formed and managed the Scenario Planning Group. He had been with TFG in various positions for over 15 years. Before joining TFG, Mr. Thomas served as an In-Service Fellow at the United Nations, consulted to several Wall Street banks and securities firms, and taught courses in international relations, arms control, political economy, and Soviet domestic and foreign policy at Fordham, Rutgers, and Columbia universities. At Columbia, he also served as director of the Soviet/East European and International Security Program.

Mr. Thomas holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Akron and an MA in International Relations from Ohio University. At Columbia University, he received an MA in Russian Studies and an MPhil in International Relations.

Mr. Thomas is an internationally published author on the use of scenarios in strategic planning. He continues to work with clients in both the private and public sectors including: financial services, consumer products, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, communications, information systems, aerospace and defense, the automotive industry, public utilities, and U.S. Government Departments and Agencies such as NASA, the USCG, and the Intelligence Community.