Running a Futures Council

Tessa Finlev became a futurist through a Craigslist job posting. In 2008, she applied to the Institute for the Future without knowing much about the field. The job became a decade of work and a professional identity she says she grew into gradually. Calling herself an accidental futurist is quite literal.

Building foresight inside an organization, however, requires intention. In this episode of Innovation Rockstars, Finlev draws on her work as Dolby's first internal futurist to explain how a Futures Council can connect research, strategy and people across a company. Her concern is how the work survives beyond an inspiring presentation. Someone has to organize participation, help people interpret what they find and make the result useful enough that colleagues begin asking for it.

Give the work a home without narrowing its purpose

Finlev's first sponsor at Dolby was in the People & Places team. Support also came from technology, advanced research and corporate strategy. She describes the People team as a helpful organizational home because its interests extend across the company, including culture, talent and employee engagement.

That position made it easier to work beyond one product group. But she does not prescribe a single reporting line for every foresight function. Participation and purpose matter more. A team located within innovation should still consider organizational processes and culture. A team within corporate strategy should connect its work to a wider vision.

The practical question is whether people across the company can see themselves in the work. A narrowly owned research initiative can struggle to influence decisions outside its immediate department. Finlev instead describes building allies and finding the places where interest already exists, then developing a structure that can sustain it.

Pay attention to the work of keeping people involved

A futures program can attract enthusiasm at the beginning and then lose momentum as participants return to their regular jobs. Finlev is direct about the effort required to prevent that.

“It's a full-time job and then some.”

The capabilities extend beyond research. Someone needs to facilitate discussions, train participants, manage the community and determine the right levels of engagement. Expecting all of that to happen informally on top of existing responsibilities is, in her view, a poor foundation.

Dolby's Futures Council provides different ways to participate. Executive sponsors lend legitimacy. Advisors help connect the program to leadership and relevant topics. Participants called time travelers receive training in foresight and research methods, then investigate possible futures. Strategists consider what those futures could mean for Dolby, including opportunities and challenges.

At the time of the interview, lighter-touch rating and voting participation was planned as another way to involve colleagues. That distinction matters: the council was still developing, and Finlev describes an evolving model rather than a finished system rolled out to everyone.

Ask for interpretation, not just another interesting link

Finlev explains why a central platform matters to this work. Her team uses ITONICS to collect signals, assess them and discuss their significance. The shared archive gives contributions a place to remain accessible, rather than dispersing them across conversations and forwarded links.

The harder part is the thinking required of contributors. Finding something interesting is only the beginning. Finlev describes asking people to explain what it is, why it matters and what it might mean, then invite others to respond.

That turns scanning into a shared exercise in interpretation. A contributor has to make their reasoning visible, and colleagues can challenge or extend it. The platform supports that exchange; people still have to do the intellectual work.

The council also develops outputs for different audiences. Finlev describes annual reports presenting multiple scenarios and their implications, alongside newsletters sharing signals and broader themes. Moving toward more frequent newsletters was part of the effort to help more people encounter and engage with the research.

Grow at a pace that respects people's contributions

Finlev describes a council of around 30 people at the time of the conversation. Starting relatively small allowed the team to learn how participation could work before inviting many more colleagues in.

“You want to scale up slowly rather than just have a bunch of people come in and do something.”

Her concern is what happens after someone contributes. If people invest time and creative effort and see no useful result, the experience falls flat. The program needs to give them something valuable in return and show how their work connects to a wider purpose.

That purpose includes exploring developments beyond the immediately obvious. Finlev discusses the democratization of technology and how broader access can change who is able to innovate. She treats possible futures as topics to investigate, with implications for products, competitors, talent and culture. The point is to widen the company's perspective while retaining a route back to its decisions.

Notice when colleagues start asking for help

One achievement Finlev recalls is a short visioning session with senior leaders that received positive feedback and contributed to strategic thinking. Another was still ahead of her on the day of the recording: a meeting with a colleague developing an internal strategy, after the Futures Council had gathered around the topic.

The anticipated meeting captures her ambition for the council. She wants an internal community that colleagues know they can call on when thinking about a strategy, a vision or a future challenge. Foresight becomes a resource used in the work, rather than material waiting for an audience.

The accidental career began with a job advertisement. The organizational capability took sponsorship, facilitation and patient development. In Finlev's account, progress becomes visible when the next conversation begins with someone asking the council to join in.