Dr. Peter Ellyard
Australia's most prominent futurist.
Profile
Dr Peter Ellyard is Australia’s most prominent futurist as well as a strategist, speaker and author. Peter is particularly known for his highly original, challenging and inspirational ideas on shaping the future, and for his motivational addresses on future-making.
Current experience:
His most recent work has involved the development of a world-first Concepts Bank and Toolkit for the Shaping the Future, this is the result of 30 years work that will become available in 2019.
Previous experience:
Peter is a graduate of Sydney University and of Cornell University (Ph.D). He is Chairman of the Preferred Futures Institute, which he founded in 1991, where he assists individuals, families, organisations, communities and nations to chart and implement visions and strategies to ensure success in an emerging, twenty-first century integrated, interdependent, global society.
Peter has a distinguished record in public sector leadership and administration, including three years as Executive Director of The Australian Commission for the Future. He held CEO positions in a number of public sector organizations over 15 years, including two associated with environment and planning and one with industry and technology, and was also Chief of Staff of the Office of Environment Ministers in Canberra for three years. He is a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators, the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand and the Australian Institute of Management. He has been a Senior Adviser to the United Nations system for more than 40 years, including the UNDP, UNEP and UNESCO, and was involved in the 1992 Earth Summit as a Senior Advisor on both the climate change and the biodiversity conventions.
Peter is the author of four books: Ideas for the New Millennium (1998, 2001), Designing 2050: Pathways to Sustainable Prosperity on Spaceship Earth (2008), Destination 2050: A Concepts Bank and Toolkit for Future-makers (2013) and The Future Knowledge Compendium (to be published in 2019).
Media
Feedback
Very personable and helpful to our association. It's amazing that he can speak for so long without notes … His passion is infectious, his ideas and concepts provocative. Thank you, Peter
Peter had done his homework via discussions with President Vanessa Gay and gave a very interesting presentation.
Peter was delightful to work with. We scoped the brief and he contextualised his segment well for the audience. He was suitably provocative and challenged people's thinking.
Dr Ellyard was well prepared and stimulated our group to think beyond our current horizons and to challenge our existing assumptions.
Peter picked up on the personalities, politics and aliances. I was really impressed with the way he worked with those, rather than just delivering a prepared speech. he was much more than a speaker - he was a change agent.
Dr Ellyard is not only a delightful person but an excellent presenter. His talk was extremely interesting, thought provoking and motivational.
You delivered a magnificent address. It was excellently presented, relevant and certainly thought provoking.
Peter was asked to speak and then take part in one to one short presentations. He had never done anything like this before but was willing to try and did exceptionally well.
Your opening address inspired and challenged participants. Not only was it relevant to our planning for education in the future, but it enabled us to look at our roles from a new perspective”.
Peter's Facilitation of our Strategic Directions workshop was focussed and enabled/encouraged participants to think beyond immediate operational priorities.
Riveting presentation enlightening a fresh and positive outlook on the future. Speakers on day two of the conference referred to Dr Ellyard's presentation, adding greater value to the conference. Thank you.
Feedback from the participants of our program was excellent. The majority of participants felt that Peter had really stretched their thinking.
Dr Ellyard was all that we expected and more. He challenged, provoked and stimulated a difficult audience.
Peter was very engaging and many delegates mentioned him specifically as one of the highlights of the conference. Naturally, the committee is very pleased also.
Peter captured our attention, inspired our thinking and helped us to open up new possibilities. Executive Manager wants to develop this direction more. I would highly recommend Peter.
Dr Peter Ellyard rated extremely highly in TTC’s general evaluation. Many delegates commented to me on his outstanding presentation. He generated the greatest amount of questions and discussion. Personally, I found his presentation highly motivational and creative. Peter has a gift of making you identify with him on a personal level.
Your speech was very well received, many delegates said that it broadened their horizons and awakened in them a new way of thinking.
Verbal feedback was overwhelmingly positive towards Peter's presentation. Delegates were very impressed with his wide ranging presentation.... all were grateful that he has supplied a 35 page paper that people can investigate at their leisure. Comments focused on the 'food for thought' and 'inspiration' of his presentation.
Peter's presentation at our workshop was inspirational, challenging and providing a climate to get high level participants' heads into a futures thinking mode and in a way that related strongly to the topic of the workshop and general sustainability principles. He has a great repertoire of "sayings" that simply describe the principles he is putting forward.
Unfortunately I was unable to see Dr Peter Ellyards presentation, however my colleague rated it very highly. Aside from the presentation, Peter was a pleasure to deal with as a speaker, in the lead to my event. We were in contact in the weeks before, to ensure that everything was on track, that he was taking the right angle. He was also in contact the day after the event to let me know he was sorry I couldn't make it. Something I did not expect after "the job was done"
Peter was a great speaker who was extremely effective in challenging and engaging the audience.
Thank you for speaking at ASpa's third annual conference in Melbourne. The conference was a success, due in no small part to your contribution. Comments from delegates included…
"Marc Cohen & Peter Ellyard… excellent."
"Wonderful."
"Dr Ellyard - 5 - especially the singing."
"Peter Ellyard, Joe Stezzi and Samantha Foster were excellent. Fantastic quality of speakers."
"He's outsanding and inspirational."
Dr Ellyard was a pleasure to work with. When we needed to change his session from a panel into a keynote only days before the event, he did so with grace. His keynote is delivered with such enthusiasm and joy that at lunch, the participants were enthusiastically discussing how to implement his ideas into their own companies.
Dr Peter Ellyard spoke at our Annual Awards for 2008 that was themed ‘Sustainable Communities’. The following day Peter also facilitated a workshop for some of our community peers, major clients and staff.
In both settings, Peter was very dynamic, engaging and left everyone with much to think about. I’ve received many requests for copies of his presentation and for a date when his new book is to be released, that’s the level of interest and engagement he generated.
Definitely highly recommend Peter if you are seeking a dynamic and engaging speaker!
Peter related well to the audience. He was passionate and the overall response from conferences was extremely positive.
Contracted him for two engagements - feedback from both was very good.
Engaging and motivational. Quite outstanding.
Very accommodating and professional. I highly recommend Peter as a speaker.
He was fantastic. They really liked him.
Peter took on the brief and responded well to the challenge. He provided a thought provoking address and the feedback was very positive.
Peter was fantastic. All day people were commenting on how good his session was. From a planning perspective I found Peter very supportive, even arriving an hour or more early for his first session so I would be confident he was there. This is very reassuring for organisers. Peter was flexible and able to easily adapt to the facilitation of our pm session, even though this was not his particular content area. I am amazed at the amount of knowledge he has, which is a great advantage to whoever books his services.
Peter's presentation was inspiring and thought-provoking.
Peter's presentation was fabulous: the quotes and the message that flowed through the presentation were quite valuable especially. If you always do what you have always done, you are always going to get what you have always got!
The feedback our staff had for Peter's presentation and his later discussions with the team were universally full of praise. As anticipated Peter was able to inject a different perspective into the minds of our team as they began a week of professional development and this set the foundation of a successful week.
Peter gave an insightful presentation that stimulated lots of conversation at our event. We would love the opportunity to work with Peter again in the future.
Peter's presentation at our workshop was inspirational and challenging. He provided a climate to get high level participants' heads into a futures thinking mode and in a way that related strongly to the topic of the workshop and general sustainability principles.
