Sanjay Khanna is a futurist dedicated to enhancing the resiliency of individuals, organizations, and communities and provides tailored and trusted advisory services to clients adding value by illuminating risks and opportunities associated with multiple converging crises. He is a scenario planning expert, completing the Oxford Scenarios Programme at the University of Oxford in 2018 and training with legendary Royal Dutch Shell scenario planners in 2002.
Across industries and functional disciplines, Sanjay’s perspective and prescience inspire wiser thinking on strategy, risk, and innovation in private, public, social, and academic sectors. Starting his career in Silicon Valley, Sanjay advised numerous clients including Hewlett-Packard, Nokia Ventures Organization, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Yamaha Motor Corp., USA. Subsequently, he was a senior consultant on natural catastrophe and flood risk at Insurance Bureau of Canada, the industry association for property and casualty insurance.
From 2017-2020, Sanjay served as futurist at global law firm Baker McKenzie, working with lawyers, clients, corporate leaders, and board directors, to advance a holistic understanding of global risk and change. He played a key role in developing the world’s first multidisciplinary collaboration lab in global law, defining its ethos, and building strategic partnerships in business, technology, and higher education. He was named a Technology Pioneer by The Lawyer, the premier legal industry publication, and was a joint winner of an FT Innovative Lawyers North America Award. As one of Baker McKenzie’s leading thinkers on the climate crisis, Sanjay facilitated the expansion of the World Economic Forum’s Climate Governance Initiative to Australia, India, and Singapore.
Sanjay’s consulting practice focuses on the implications of the “era of converging crises,” a phrase he coined to capture interrelated and unprecedented impacts of issues such as climate change, declining health, geopolitical fragmentation, socioeconomic disruption, and technological acceleration. He has published influential thought leadership on converging crises with Baker McKenzie, on cybersecurity scenarios with The Decision Lab, and on strategic foresight and the future of work with the Diversity Institute at Ted Rogers School of Management and Future Skills Centre. Other recent engagements include delivering keynotes, senior leadership seminars, and/or scenario planning services for BC Lottery Corporation, Canada School of Public Service, Deloitte Canada, Family Enterprise Foundation, FMO—Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, Global Alliance for Banking on Values, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and the Global Initiative on Justice with Children. He is an advisor on humanitarian action on climate and the environment for Médicins Sans Frontières Canada and on foresight and behavioral sciences for The Decision Lab, as well as an Expert Reviewer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability).
Sanjay’s professional and academic work has been featured and quoted by media outlets including Financial Times, CBC, The Globe and Mail, Les Affaires, and Nature. Committed to sharing value-creating knowledge with executives and the next generation. Sanjay delivers keynote presentations, designs, and facilitates corporate leadership sessions, teaches at university, and has published book chapters and academic papers. He is an Adjunct Professor at McMaster University, where he lectures in—and is an advisory board member of—the Master of Public Policy in Digital Society Program. Sanjay is on the Program Faculty of the Law of Emergencies Certificate Program at Osgoode Professional Development, York University. He is currently Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art (RCA), the world’s number 1 art & design university, and Project Partner of its new Liveable Planet Challenge Lab. He was previously Resident Futurist (2013-2014) and Saul Rae Fellow (2011-2012) at Massey College in the University of Toronto.