Riel Miller

Riel Miller is a specialist in long-run strategic thinking. For over two decades his work has concentrated on how to assess and direct the potential for socio-economic transformation in the private and public sectors.

Born in Canada in 1957, he holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York, a Masters in Social and Political Thought from York University, Toronto, and a combined Honours B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Carleton University, Ottawa.

Professor Miller started his career as a professional economist in the early 1980s at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Economics and Statistics Directorate. From the mid 1980s up until 1994 he worked in four different areas of the Ontario Government: the Legislature, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. During this same period he also worked on projects with a number of OECD directorates, including: the Directorate for Education, Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, and the Territorial Development Service. At the beginning of 1995 Professor Miller returned full-time to the OECD as a Principal Administrator in the International Futures Programme. In 2003 he transferred over to the OECD Education Directorate to co-direct the Schooling for Tomorrow initiative. In 2005 he left the OECD to establish an independent consultancy, XperidoX: Futures Consulting, Paris.

Professor Miller’s recent and forthcoming publications address a range of issues, from futures methodology and the design of scenario processes for strategic decision making to personalization of output (goods and services) and reform of the public sector. he is one of the world’s leading practitioners of scenario methods and now designs cutting-edge “hybrid strategic scenarios” for clients around the world. He works closely with clients to design and implement state-of-the-art scenario processes that reveal the assumptions underlying current choices and the potential, often hidden, in the world around us today. He uses “rigorous imagining” techniques that build “Futures Literacy.” This generates both new decision making capabilities and the capacity to innovate.

Over the last decade he has consulted for public and private sector organizations in more than twenty-five countries and given speeches to a wide range of audiences. Recent clients include Gemalto; Philips Design; The Renault Foundation; DG Research; DG Administration; Scottish Enterprise; Consortium for the Commercial Promotion of Catalonia; National Economic and Social Council of Ireland; Festo; Office of the National Science Advisor, Canada; Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Cisco Systems,etc..

He is currently also Visiting Senior Fellow at the Danish Technological Institute; an Associate at Demos, UK; and a member of the Faculty of the Masters of Public Affairs, Sciences-Po, Paris.