Ed Gillespie

Biography

Ed Gillespie is a poet, writer, communications specialist, serial entrepreneur and futurist. He specialises in systems thinking and systems change, consistently arguing persuasively that the future is not about leaping to ‘solutions’ but fundamentally about asking the right questions.

Ed is the author of ‘Only Planet – a flight-free adventure around the world’ a book about his circumnavigation of the globe without getting on a plane. Ed co-presents two leading podcasts, ‘The Great Humbling’ with Dougald Hine, and ‘Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts – Book of Revelations’ with comedian Jon Richardson and fellow reluctant futurist Mark Stevenson.

Ed is a lead facilitator with the Forward Institute where we works on responsible leadership with 40 of the UK’s biggest institutions, a Director of Greenpeace UK, a Trustee of Ecolibrium and Chief Futurist at the Global Destination Sustainability Movement. 

Ed is actively involved in a number of pioneering ethical businesses as a Director or Investor, and has presented all over the world, giving dozens of talks a year from Hong Kong to Bratislava, Korea to Auckland. And he’s been heard by every kind of audience, from the UN and national governments, to multi-national corporations and global associations.

His  speaking engagements include giving the inaugural ‘Bonn Speech’ on Global Transformation for the German Government, a keynote on ‘Fixing the Future’ in Barcelona, his fourth TEDx, and an interview with a leading Spanish newspaper for this film.