Meet the 2024 Predict Speakers
Predict speakers provide big picture information through forward-thinking content to help position your organization to be future focused.
Matt Carmichael
Matt Carmichael, Senior Vice President, Ipsos Global Trends & Foresight; Editor, What the Future
Matt combines foresight with insights as the founding editor of What the Future, Ipsos’ award-winning magazine. Each issue covers the future of a different topic from Food to Wellness, AI to Housing through exclusive expert interviews and custom consumer research. What the Future drives client engagement and Ipsos business.
He is an engaging speaker and media commentator, presenting to global clients and industry events on a wide range of “future of…” and demographic topics. Within the global Trends & Foresight team, he contributes to the content, development, and activation of the annual Ipsos Global Trends report, now fielded in 50 markets around the world.
In addition, he oversees the Ipsos U.S. Consumer Tracker, a twice-monthly survey of American attitudes and behaviors. Now in its fourth year, the data is the backbone of Ipsos’ thought-leadership program.
Previously, Matt was an editor at trade and consumer publications including Advertising Age, Crain’s Chicago Business and Livability.com. He has covered interactive marketing since the web’s beginnings as well as demographics, urban planning, and consumer trends.
He is the author of Buyographics, a book combining big data and ethnography to tell the complex story of today’s American consumer. Matt is also an accomplished concert photographer, published globally in hundreds of media outlets, represented by the leading photojournalism agency, Getty Images. His portfolio site, rocknroll.net launched in 1994 as one of the first 5,000 web sites online. He is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill school and was awarded a certificate of achievement from the University of Houston’s Foresight program. He is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists.
Dane Chamorro
Dane Chamorro, Partner a Control Risks, Head of Global Risk Analysis and Business Intelligence, Americas
Specializing in political/regulatory risk and business intelligence, Dane regularly advises strategic and portfolio investors and private equity firms on political and partner risks, corporate governance and high-profile business disputes globally.
A former US diplomat with over 30 years’ professional experience in the Asia Pacific region, Dane previously served as the Markets and Partnerships lead for Control Risks in Asia Pacific, as well as Managing Partner for the Southeast Asia business. Prior to this he acted as Director of Global Risk Analysis for the Asia Pacific region and Managing Director of the company’s North Asia business, encompassing Greater China, Korea and Mongolia.
An expert on China and Asian politics, governance, and investment, Dane is regularly featured in the media and at international conferences. Before joining Control Risks, Dane worked as a government integrity programs manager for Swiss group SGS (Société Générale de Surveillance), developing fiscal governance programs for sovereign clients in South and South-East Asia. Dane also worked as a consultant for the Hong Kong office of Chicago’s Technomic Consultants, Thailand’s Manager Media Group, and advised on government relations for the world’s largest nuclear fuel trading firm.
Dane has a degree in international finance from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and completed graduate research on comparative Asian political-economy and security issues at the University of California. He is an honors graduate of the US Army Intelligence School, speaks Mandarin Chinese and is a Certified Fraud Examiner and licensed investigator in Singapore. Dane is also a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.
Chris Jackson
Chris Jackson, Senior Vice President, US Public Affairs and Lead for Public Polling, IPSOS
Chris Jackson is Senior Vice President and lead for the Ipsos People & Society practice in the United States. His research specialties include public opinion trends, public health polling, strategic communications, reputation, and election research. He works with a wide variety of public and private sector clients, including our media partners ABC News, the Washington Post, and Thomson Reuters, and he is a spokesperson for Ipsos Public Affairs in the U.S.
Chris works across a wide range of research subjects, including technology, healthcare, public health, public policy, energy, and consumer issues. His research combines social science principles with real-world experience and leverages a wide range of opinion research techniques, from multi-national surveys to elite in-depth interviews.
Chris earned his BA from the University of Southern Mississippi and did his graduate work at the University of Georgia (MA) where he specialized in American elections.
Sam Potolicchio, Ph.D.
Dr. Sam Potolicchio, President, Preparing Global Leaders Forum
Dr. Sam Potolicchio was named one of “America’s Best Professors” by the Princeton Review, the Future Leader of American Higher Education by the Association of Colleges and Universities, and winner of the OZY Educator Award as one of the six outstanding American educators. He was also profiled in a cover story on his leadership curriculum by Newsweek Japan as the “Best Professor in America”. Potolicchio is President of the Preparing Global Leaders Forum and Distinguished University Professor, Department Chairman and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Political Science at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. He is a visiting lecturer at the University of Bologna (Italy). He is a columnist for Newsweek Japan, a Distinguished Global Scholar at the Canterbury School of Fort Myers, and a lecturer on Leadership at the Library of Congress for OWLC, an international leadership program of the United States Congress. Potolicchio is an adviser to prominent business, non-profit and government leaders. He created and designed the first undergraduate degree in Global Governance and Leadership in English in the Russian Federation where he serves as Academic Director.
Potolicchio has served as the Director of Global and Custom Education at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, has been a visiting professor at New York University, and joined Senator Richard Lugar as tag team senior lecturers at UIndy’s Semester in Washington. Potolicchio has delivered lectures in over 85 countries, from Oxford, LSE, Cambridge and Yale to Iraq’s Komar University and Donetsk State University. As a middle-school basketball coach, he led his Little Hoyas to 6 league titles and previously served as a 5th grade Latin teacher, public high school teacher of Law and History and secondary school admissions officer.
From 2015-2019 Potolicchio served as the Director of Global and Custom Education at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, has been a visiting professor at New York University, and joined Senator Richard Lugar as tag team senior lecturers at UIndy’s Semester in Washington. Potolicchio has delivered lectures in over 85 countries, from Oxford, LSE, Cambridge and Yale to Iraq’s Komar University and Donetsk State University. As a middle-school basketball coach he led his Little Hoyas to 6 league titles and previously served as a 5th grade Latin teacher, public high school teacher of Law and History and secondary school admissions officer.
Sam received his B.A. Government from Georgetown, B.A. Psychology, Georgetown, M.T.S. Theology and Culture from Harvard, PRSE, Harvard, MA, Government, Georgetown and PhD, Government, Georgetown.
Noelle Russell
Leading AI Innovator & Practitioner, Founder & Chief AI Officer at AI Leadership Institute
With a profound passion for technology and its potential to transform business and society, Noelle Russell has dedicated her career to helping organizations uncover the possibilities artificial intelligence presents to their businesses and guiding them through the intricacies of AI adoption. In her daily work Russell advises companies across industries on how to integrate emerging technologies — including AI, Web3, and the Cloud — into their operations and workplace strategies. She is an award-winning technologist with an entrepreneurial spirit who has led innovative tech teams at Accenture, NPR, Microsoft, IBM, AWS, and Amazon Alexa, and is among the world’s leading voices on data and AI literacy.
Among her accolades, Russell has recently been honored with the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award for Artificial Intelligence, as well as VentureBeat’s Women in AI Responsibility and Ethics award. In 2023, she was named one of DCA Live’s “New Power Women of DC Tech” and one of the Association of Latino Professionals for America’s “Latinas to Watch.”
Adam Sacks
President, Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics Company
Adam Sacks is the President of Tourism Economics; an Oxford Economics company dedicated to analytically based consulting to the tourism sector.
For more than two decades, Adam has worked with destinations, industry associations, and companies around the world in the areas of opportunity and risk assessments, policy analysis, and economic impact.
Adam’s work has provided the foundation for billions of dollars in capital investment decisions by hotel companies, developers, and investors. Destination marketing organizations around the world rely on Tourism Economics data and scenario models to inform global marketing investment allocations.
Adam also supports trade associations in the aviation, hotel, and broader travel arena with forecasts widely considered to be an industry standard. And by examining the economic merits of travel facilitation, taxation, and tourism promotion initiatives, Adam’s work has influenced critical government policies.
He is an authority on measuring the economic impact of visitor activity and has analyzed the impacts of cruising, gaming, timeshare, hotels, new attractions and destination marketing.
Adam regularly presents to corporate strategic planning teams on the threats and opportunities facing their businesses and is a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Travel & Tourism Advisory Board.
Sean Watson
Futurist, Senior Vice President of Special Projects at Trend Hunter
Known as a tech enthusiast with a thirst for new information, Sean brings an enthusiasm to Trend Hunter’s content that is unmatched. After amassing an extensive background at companies like Rogers, Bertelsmann and American Express, Sean joined Trend Hunter in 2015 and is now Senior Vice President of Specialty Projects. He has since interviewed over 200 leaders in insight, innovation and strategy to uncover best practices and approaches to facilitating innovation. His keynotes specialize on topics such as technology, entertainment, media and consumer behavior.
Sean’s capabilities span across both innovation, AI and trend work. He specializes in framing Trend Hunter’s findings through the lens of actionability, formulating custom recommendations and specific growth opportunities using a combination of macrotrends and custom innovation frameworks. He has run custom trend sessions and workshops with iconic brands from the tech space and spoken at conferences like TMRE and Future Festival.
