Tanja Hichert

Tanja Hichert

CEO: Hichert and Associates (Pty) Ltd
Senior Research Associate: Institute for Futures Research, University of Stellenbosch
Director: South African Node of the Millennium Project
Member: Association for Professional Futurists

Tanja Hichert is a South African futurist with specialised skills in scenario planning, facilitating strategic conversations and scanning. She is a member of the Association for Professional Futurists. She has 15 years of practical business experience, mostly in the field of strategic planning, and has worked for international corporations in the mining, oil and tobacco industries. In particular she served as the UK-based scenario planning manager for BAT plc and conducted futures work for them in countries like Russia, Italy, UAE and Africa.

Her consultancy now supplies strategy futures services to South African and international clients in a wide range of industries including FMCG, media, insurance, mining and utilities. She has developed particular techniques and expertise in applying scenario planning to risk management and also trains risk managers in this regard. Her public sector work, in association with the SA Institute for International Affairs, includes projects on sub-Saharan trade agreement futures and Southern African agricultural futures. She also serves on a global Foresight Exchange Forum for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

In addition to managing Hichert & Associates, Tanja is a senior research associate at the University of Stellenbosch’s Institute for Futures Research (IFR). In this capacity she delivers environmental scanning/future trends presentations to public and private sector members of the institute; authors chapters on human development, environmental futures and sustainable development for the annual ‘Business Futures’ publication; produces a bi-monthly ‘Sustainability Watch’ scan; and writes a series of ‘Corporate Strategy Insights’ dealing with the greening of business, the future of management, innovations for a sustainable economy and systemic risk management. Tanja also lectures to M.Phil (Future Studies) students and conducts workshops and scenario planning training courses for public and private sector members of the institute.

Tanja also serves as a director of the South African node of the Millennium Project (a global participatory futures research think tank) and helped organise the first African Futures Conference which brought together futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers from all over the continent. In this capacity she produces a monthly horizon scanning publication, which is part of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Searchlight Project, that deals with equitable growth, human development and resilience across Southern Africa.

Education:

BA (Political Science, Philosophy, Economics)
University of Stellenbosch
BA Hons (Political Science)
University of Stellenbosch
MBA
University of Stellenbosch
Additional MBA elective on ‘Business Strategy for China’
University of Stellenbosch
M.Phil (Future Studies) cum laude
University of Stellenbosch

Read more about Tanja Hichert and her work at: www.hichert.co.za

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