What does it take to work at Kairos Future?
Our employees come from a diverse academic background. What unites us is a great interest for the world and the changes that affect society, in general as well as for individual industries and companies. We all have a passion for making a complex world comprehensible and manageable for our clients.
Simply stated, there are two main roles at Kairos Future: Analyst/Researcher and Consultant/Future Strategist.
Our Analysts/Researchers work mainly to clarify and explain trends occurring in society, through quantitative and qualitative methods. For example, understanding how future transportation will evolve, mapping challenges in healthcare by 2030, measuring a population’s changing values, or gaining insight into how consumers’ shopping behavior will be affected by digitalization through the coming years. Our analysts/researchers often have an academic background in mathematics, statistics, or anthropology. Programming and AI are becoming increasingly important within analysis, so expertise in these areas is a merit. Key skills include the ability to understand complex contexts, finding relationships between data, and identifying consequences. Summarizing the analysis in a well-written text alongside powerful images and communicating to peers and clients in a clear and concise manner are also essential skills.
Our Consultants/Future Strategists work mainly with helping our clients understand and shape the future. Which environmental factors are most essential to consider and how should they best be handled in a company’s strategy? How can concepts driven by external business factors be created, that become more successful and sustainable than those solely relying on what clients say they want? In this instance, it is essential to quickly understand and adapt to industries’ unique conditions, and in a pedagogical manner, assist the client in determining an action plan based on an environmental perspective that suits the organization’s capabilities and vision. Key skills are analytical ability, leadership (where process management is more important than authority), creativity, and the ability to capture an audience (Kairos Future is one of Sweden’s largest lecture intermediaries). As a Consultant/Future Strategist, you also need to be adept at summarizing insights and ideas in well-written texts and illustrative figures. In this role, you are responsible for contributing to Kairos Future’s schedule, finding and attracting new clients and assignments, and so great customer service skills are a merit. An academic background is great, but the exact field is not as important.
Both analysts and consultants are challenged daily to think beyond established patterns and behaviors. Even though we have work methods and models that build on research and proven experience, it is important that you are stimulated by challenges that require new ways of working towards creative solutions. Assignments are done in small, rotating teams as well as individually. Our clients come both from the private and public sectors and most projects involve either developing a future-proof strategy, working with future-driven innovation, or conducting broad studies within a specific area that the client wants to invest in.
Read more about our services and products, and get to know our team.