What We Do
Wayne Pan
Research Director
Wayne brings a deep passion for the power of futures thinking to his role as a Research Director with Institute for the Future. His belief in the need to explore and envision preferable futures and challenge existing assumptions developed through a background in addressing global, intractable environmental conservation, sustainability, and international development issues. Finding just and equitable systems-based solutions to these issues continue to drive his work and research.
Wayne has spent the better part of the last decade focused on futures and foresight work. Prior to joining the Institute, he was a key member of the futures team at Kantar where he helped Fortune 500 companies from a wide range of industries to explore and plan for the future – including Best Buy, the Coca-Cola Company, Mastercard, Microsoft, and J.M. Smucker. He has also spent time working with Forum for the Future, UNDP, and what is now Deloitte Monitor.
Having lived and worked in six countries across three continents – China, Hong Kong SAR, the Philippines, Hungary, Sweden, and the US – he brings a global perspective based on a deep appreciation for cultural differences and local contexts. Wayne has a Masters of Science in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from an Erasmus Mundus program based at Central European University and Lund Universit. He also holds a BA in History, specializing in modern Chinese history, from UC Berkeley. He speaks Mandarin.