Travels from District of Columbia, USA
Eric Garland's speaking fee falls within range: $10,000 to $15,000
Eric Garland is trusted for his unique insight and analysis on economic trends, geopolitics, and society. He personally consults executives on market growth strategy, leads transformative educational sessions for organizations, and specializes in keynotes that spark conversations.
Eric is the founder and Executive Director of Competitive Futures, a competitive analysis firm that provides insight and expert guidance to corporate clients and government agencies. A brief list of notable clients includes Energizer, Coca-Cola, Siemens, the country of France, the City of Charlotte, the state of South Dakota, and the Principality of Monaco, to name a select few.
A unique futurist with expertise that crosses multiple fields, Eric is also an accomplished linguist and author. His most recent book Observations from Upper Mexico (Wallingford Press – 2015) consists of almost fifty essays which analyze emerging trends in American life, from alternative currencies to online dating. He is currently working on two more books The Guardians of Language which explores the hidden culture of people who are fighting to keep their ancestors’ language as much a part of the future as it is the past, and a currently untitled work which explores the ethos of American cities, their rise, demise, and resurrection.
Eric Garland is a career intelligence analyst, futurist, and keynote speaker who has spent more than two decades briefing C-suite executives and government leaders on geopolitical risk, competitive intelligence, and strategic foresight. He is the author of Future, Inc.: How Businesses Can Anticipate and Profit from What’s Next (AMACOM, 2007) and How to Predict the Future…and WIN! (2011), a Fellow of the Council of Competitive Intelligence, and a keynote speaker on four continents.
On December 11, 2016, Garland published a 127-tweet thread — “It’s time for some game theory” — that recast the 2016 election as the outcome of a decade-long Russian intelligence operation targeting Western democracy. Written entirely from open-source intelligence, the thread reached millions of readers and was subsequently named by the New York Times as one of the 25 most important tweets in history. On May 21, 2022, Vladimir Putin sanctioned Garland for his work exposing Russian espionage operations in the United States, placing him on a list alongside the President of the United States, the Attorney General, and three directors of the CIA.
In March 2026, Garland launched Game Theory Today, a media channel delivering professional intelligence analysis to general audiences on TikTok and YouTube which has produced viral videos on geopolitical analysis right out of the gate.
Garland’s clients include the Wall Street Journal CEO Summit, IBM, General Motors, Siemens, Toshiba, Johnson & Johnson, Cummins, 3M, DuPont, and the national governments of France and Monaco. He has been quoted by or profiled in the BBC, Politico, and the Chicago Sun-Times, and is a contributor to The Atlantic and Harvard Business Review.
His flagship keynote, “The Chaos Advantage,” translates professional intelligence tradecraft and cognitive bias frameworks for executive audiences navigating an era of geopolitical disruption.
Eric discusses obtaining shared success in the competitive future in an unconventional way. Referring to the true story of Iceland’s debt, he turns a normally dry subject into a high-energy comedic narrative.
After achieving a debt that was worth 1000 % of their GDP, Iceland found itself in a highly tense situation with the U.K. who wanted to put the famously frigid country on a rigid budget in order to pay back lenders. Eric quotes an Icelandic government official’s public statement to the U.K.: “We are not paying back these debts. We are the sons and daughter of the Vikings. You want your money? You come here like a man and I’ll put an axe in your head.” Chuckling, Eric recalls his reaction upon reading that in the New York Times. “I have never had as much respect for a people as I do right now.”
Eric produces keynotes and strategy briefings based on the specific needs of individual clients. Since he often briefs school boards, prime ministers, mayors, pharmaceutical companies, makers of diesel engines, people looking at the future of skin care, environmental protection agencies, college philosophy classes, finance ministers running lotteries, and sales conferences, he knows that all clients need specialized information and require a specialized approach. His research company, Competitive Futures, has up-to-the-minute trend data from which to create new presentations for each event.
To give you an idea of his wide range of expertise and experience, please take a look at the descriptions of some of his past presentations. If you tell him what kind of event you want, he will suggest a theme that works for you and your audience with great pleasure, based on the most up-to-date information available.
The Chaos Advantage: How Great Leaders Win in Uncertain Times
This keynote combines historical examples and current trends to show how the greatest leaders have actually used chaotic trend to thrive in the past–and how today’s leaders can find the same opportunities in the near future. Prohibition, world wars, and the end of communism actually led to some of the greatest triumphs in the history of leadership, and today’s future trends are no less full of potential for your organization’s success. From Anheuser-Busch during Prohibition, to Royal Dutch Shell during the 1970s oil crisis, to Nokia and the fall of the Soviet Union, history gives us vivid lessons in how great organizations find their ultimate success not when all is calm, but when all is chaotic.
The Future of Globalization: What Business and Government Will Really Look Like in the 21st Century
The late 20th Century, Post-Cold War global order is coming to an end. The world where offshore finance, rampant consumerism, and foreign manufacturing dominate, and where transnational organized crime flourishes, is coming to a rapid end. What will replace it? Who will succeed and who will fail? This keynote shows the way forward from a world transformed by new American tariffs, a re-armed, anti-Russia NATO, less interdependence with China, a modern Mexico, and the impending end of transnational organized crime. The old model of globalization is falling apart, and a new global economy is being re-engineered before our very eyes. Armed with foresight, your organization can position itself today for success.
How to Think About the Future (and How Not to Screw It Up!)
This is a presentation for government and business professionals to improve their analytical skills. The most successful organizations are led through a sophisticated understanding of the future and which factors will create it. This takes time to build, and there are many pitfalls. Available as a keynote, breakout session, or day-long executive education session which covers the history of forecasting, the tragicomedy of bad forecasts throughout history, how to understand cognitive bias, and how any organization can improve its capacity to anticipate the future and win.
Strategic Intelligence Brief (Industry Specific)
This keynote or breakout session will be built to order for each client, combining strategic trends and expert forecasts from Eric Garland’s personal database of intelligence based on thirty years of working for corporate and government clients. Briefs will include analysis of trends in national security, information technology, energy, culture, economics, geopolitics, society, ecology, and more.
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How to Predict the Future and what to do about it so you Win!
As much as we say through business books and keynote speeches that we want to expect the unexpected, provide early warning, think outside of the box and create the future – we don’t. Not usually. Bureaucracies are designed to maintain their current structure, not to evolve to meet future challenges. Is this the result of fifty years of futurism, of thousands of executive retreats, of millions of pages of trend analysis? With decades of advanced intellectual techniques in foresight, why do we seem to keep stumbling into housing bubbles, financial collapse, disruptive technologies and wildcard events and then declare, “Nobody could see it coming!” In this world of superconnected economies and increasingly fragile institutions, we must restore our ability to imagine the future, based on critical thinking instead of fear. In How to Predict the Future…and WIN!!! Eric Garland illustrates how bureaucracies avoid actual discussions of their futures and recommends how we can turn our organizations around to become truly future-focused. His narrator in this intellectual journey is P. Hughes Egon, the world’s “premier futurological predictologist” for the past forty years who doesn’t realize how 1988 his visions of the future really are. In the book, Garland exposes Egon’s twenty-five “tips” on foresight so that our organizations can achieve actual vision of what’s next.
Reviews for How to Predict the Future and what to do about it so you Win!:
“Garland disabuses decision-makers of their false assumptions with a literary flair for illustrating the limits of our cult of expertise.” Arik Johnson, chairman, AuroraWDC, co-founder of the Intelligence Collaborative
“This book is one of the best I′ve ever read about the problems that practitioners and organizations encounter in trying to look out and ahead.” Dr. Craig Fleisher, author of Analysis Without Paralysis
“Eric Garland sticks a big needle in the inflated, self-important gurus with his evidence-based, down-to-earth, integrative–yet fun-loving–approach.” Tim Powell – author, Analyzing Your Competition
“His sarcastic and somewhat sardonic delivery of these so-called “tips” are entertaining, educational, and unfortunately all-too disturbingly accurate in their portrayal of the decision making process.”Earth Intelligence Network
“A funny and insightful look at how badly those working with the future, such as strategic planners, competitive intelligence professionals, war gamers, and futurologists, do what they are supposed to do, and what they should really be doing for their clients.” John McGonagle, Competitive Intelligence Magazine
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Future, Inc.: How Businesses Can Anticipate and Profit from What′s Next
Foreword by Joseph Coates
In the next 50 years, new technologies, shifting global economics, and many other factors will present innumerable changes for business and society to navigate. Starting now, leaders need to be more flexible, responsive, and decisive than ever before. Unfortunately, most people are not trained in the type of critical thinking required to anticipate what lies ahead. This groundbreaking book will change that.
Futuring is not a matter of tea leaves and crystal balls — it is a rigorous science based on time-tested analytical methods. Future, Inc. translates the proven techniques of professional futurists into accessible language and shows how to:
The author illustrates his advice with examples of companies whose foresight has given them an unparalleled advantage and identifies significant trends that will impact businesses in the future. Companies can’t afford to be caught unaware. In order to survive and succeed, they need to look ahead. Future, Inc. provides the tools to bring the future into focus.
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