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PARAG KHANNA

Leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author

He is Founder & CEO of Climate Alpha, an AI-powered analytics platform to forecast asset values and future-proof global real estate, and Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm
In 2008, Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.”
Served as the foreign policy advisor to President Barack Obama during his historic presidential campaign
He has provided his foresight to over thirty governments, including serving as an advisor to the U.S. National Intelligence Council Land on the Singapore government's Committee on the Future Economy.
He has also served on the boards of numerous financial firms and technology companies
Lectures on global trends and scenarios, systemic risks and technological disruptions, market entry strategies and economic master planning
Has been honored as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum

Dr. Parag Khanna is a visionary strategic futurist and globally bestselling author. He is the founder and managing partner of FutureMap, a boutique advisory firm that marries rigorous data analysis, sophisticated scenarios, and cutting-edge mapping to generate foresight for confident decision-making. A world-renowned authority on globalization, Dr. Khanna was named one of Esquire's “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century” and featured on WIRED's “Smart List”.

Khanna is the leading forecaster of how our complex global system is rapidly evolving. He delivers data-rich visualizations that distill geopolitical, economic, and technological megatrends, and gives tailored and detailed presentations embodying his deep expertise and firsthand experiences in more than 150 countries. His engagements deliver strategically insightful and actionable value, including from FutureMap’s proprietary software Climate Alpha, the leading platform for forecasting asset values under diverse scenarios.

Khanna has provided his foresight to over thirty governments, including serving as an advisor to the U.S. National Intelligence Council and on the Singapore government's Committee on the Future Economy. He has also served on the boards of numerous financial firms and technology companies.

Parag’s analyses are regularly featured in influential media such as CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Financial Times, National Geographic, TIME, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. Khanna was a featured speaker at TED in 2016 and TED Global in 2009, with his talks garnering more than three million views online.

Khanna’s newest book is MOVE: The Forces Uprooting Us (2021), which was named one of the best books of 2021 by Financial Times and endorsed by famed experts Nouriel Roubini, Kim Stanley Robinson, Alec Ross, Balaji Srinivasan, and others. His book The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict, and Culture in the 21st Century (2019) earned high praise from Larry Summers, Jim Rogers, and many other luminaries. It was called “dazzling” by Kirkus Reviews and hailed as “authoritative… a standard reference,” by the Financial Times.

Khanna is also the author of an authoritative trilogy on the future of world order beginning with the bestseller The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008), followed by How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011), and concluding with Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (2016). These books garnered accolades from leading figures such as Eric Schmidt, Chuck Hagel, Fareed Zakaria, Mark Mobius, Robert Kaplan, Kevin Kelly, Martin Sorrell, and Klaus Schwab. The New York Times Book Review hailed Khanna as “a foreign policy whiz kid.”

Khanna also authored two other books, Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State (2017) and Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2011) (co-authored with his wife Ayesha Khanna). The former was strongly endorsed by notable intellectuals such as Tyler Cowen and Lawrence Lessig, and the latter was celebrated by Alvin Toffler, Peter Diamandis, Peter Schwartz, and others. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and received feature coverage in leading publications across the world.

Before founding FutureMap, Khanna was a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the National University of Singapore, as well as a senior fellow at New America and the Brookings Institution. In 2007, he deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as a senior geopolitical advisor to U.S. Special Operations Forces. He also worked at the World Economic Forum in Geneva and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Dr. Khanna holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, and a B.A. and M.A. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He speaks German, Hindi, French, Spanish, and basic Arabic. He is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

Global scenarios for the post-pandemic world
The global war for young talent
Climate adaptation: This century's highest priority
The Future is Asian: Billions of People, Trillions of Dollars

Global Scenarios for the Post-Pandemic World

The two words that best capture the post-pandemic world are “continental drift.” The global economy is rapidly becoming more regional. Globalization continues in many areas such as commodities, capital flows, and digital services, but from energy to electronics, North America, Europe, and Asia are becoming more self-sufficient through trade agreements and industrial policy aimed at controlling the supply chains. At the same time, a new era of competitive connectivity has begun as the tug-of-war heats up between China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the West’s “Build Back Better World” (B3W) agenda. Drawing on the copious research presented in his acclaimed book Connectography, Parag Khanna provides cutting-edge insights into the geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geotechnological shape of the future, with specific recommendations on how and where to invest in a volatile world.

The Global War for Young Talent

The lasting impact of the pandemic will be both demographic and geographic. We are reaching “peak humanity,” a global population not likely to cross nine billion people, but most of the world’s people are still young -- and as they vote with their feet, they determine the winners and losers of the 21st century. Countries are now vigorously competing in a global war for youth to attract the taxpayers, workers, homeowners, and entrepreneurs of the future. Companies must do the same -- but in a remote working world, millennials and Gen-Z are a moving target. How can corporations attract young employees to headquarters while also building a decentralized workplace culture? Drawing upon the insightful research from his latest book MOVE, Parag Khanna presents the world from the standpoint of the youth who will define it, guiding your talent acquisition and retention strategies for the years ahead.

Climate adaptation: this century’s highest priority

Deadly disasters are intensifying, with ever greater costs to societies everywhere. Rising sea levels and floods, droughts and heatwaves, cyclones and forest fires, cause upwards of $200 billion in damage annually. Climate refugees now outnumber political and economic migrants. The world will not only be hotter but also more violent, with conflicts over food and water, and uncontrolled mass migrations. That is why climate adaptation must be every nation and company’s foremost priority. This includes fortifying and redesigning our homes and buildings, investing in renewable energy and resilient food production, and relocating our businesses, citizens, and workers to more stable habitats. The climate will not adapt to us; we will have to adapt to it. Drawing up FutureMap’s proprietary Climate Alpha software, Parag Khanna provides tailored analysis of the locations across the globe best suited to your business requirements and guides you in creating a tailored strategy for climate resilience.

The Future is Asian: Billions of People, Trillions of Dollars

Asia remains the world’s growth engine, representing more than half the world’s population and fifty percent of global GDP. China is neck-and-neck with the US as the top destination for foreign investment, and has accelerated its quest for technological autonomy and expanded use of its currency. Meanwhile, the world’s largest trade agreement -- Asia’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) -- has come into effect. The next chapter of Asia’s economic story is also being written by the “fourth wave” regions of South and Southeast Asia, with countries such as India and Vietnam delivering the world’s fastest growth and taking the lead in new unicorn companies. As the author of the landmark book The Future is Asian, there is no better guide than Parag Khanna to the geography that drives the world economy.

The Environment: Energy, Agriculture, Water, and Health

Dr. Khanna is a leading expert on the governance of our natural commons, and the new global division of labor emerging as we adapt to climate change. He dissects the geography and composition of energy, food, water, and other resources and the new technologies and trade patterns shaping these markets. He also covers how our social policies and safety nets should evolve to cope with accelerating climate disruptions while improving social safety nets. Drawing upon the innovative Climate Alpha toolkit, which analyzes hundreds of variables to make real estate price predictions, he also reveals the emerging "climate oasis" geographies best suited for large-scale population resettlement and how their resources can be sustainably cultivated.

Global Financial Services

Dr. Khanna has a long track record of advising the financial services industry across institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, private equity and hedge funds, wealth management, (re-)insurance, and other verticals. His briefings to financial institutions often cover the shifting trajectories of the world’s three economic megaregions -- North America, Europe, and Asia -- based on the latest monetary, fiscal, trade, and other policy decisions. He also specializes in how demographics, technology, and climate change intersect to shape the global economy, which geographies and asset classes to combine for a high-yield portfolio, and how and where the next generation of investors and entrepreneurs should plan to allocate capital.

Latin America

Dr. Khanna has advised executives of the largest Latin American banks, telecom, and energy companies from Mexico to Chile to Brazil. His travel and research made him the first to document China’s growing influence across the region, and recently his research has shaped Chile and Brazil’s strategies toward China and Asia.

Formats

Dr. Khanna offers the following formats for his engagements:

TED-style keynotes with large-screen data and map visualizations
Formal corporate briefings at podium with data-driven presentations
Interactive panel dialogues as moderator or speaker
Closed-door boardroom briefings for senior management combining strategy insights with detailed discussion
Leadership retreats mixing foresight sessions with casual interactions
Online webinars featuring presentations and interactive Q&A