Jo Lepore


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Jo Lepore has spent her career building the discipline of corporate foresight from the inside out, having established and scaled futures practices within the global headquarters of two of the world’s best known consumer brands, McDonald’s and Mars Wrigley. In that role she worked directly with senior leadership teams, including global CEOs, while also partnering horizontally with market managing directors across more than 60 countries, effectively acting as an in-house futurist tasked with elevating long-term planning and helping organisations adapt to shifting consumer expectations and increasingly complex market conditions.

Today Jo serves as Executive Vice President of Foresight at the insights company Dig, where she helps bring future-ready strategy to research and innovation work on a global scale. Drawing on more than 15 years of experience building transformative growth pathways, she has launched innovations that generated millions in retail sales and identified billion-dollar white space opportunities for the organisations she has advised. Her standing in the field is further reflected in her roles as Australian Chair for the Millennium Project and Partner with the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies.

Jo is also recognised as a Friend of the Forum, a position on the organising committee selected by the Dubai Future Foundation for the Dubai Future Forum, the world’s largest gathering of futurists. An advocate for curiosity and differentiated thinking, she hosts the Looking Outside podcast exploring fresh business ideas, and in 2024 founded the Foresight Inside Group alongside peers from Disney and JLR, a network that now supports eleven member organisations including Nestle, PepsiCo, Shell, Google and AXA.

Jo holds degrees in Philosophy and Professional Writing from Deakin University, a mini-MBA from Marketing Week, and foresight certifications from the Institute for the Future and the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. Her foresight expertise is complemented by earlier marketing and innovation experience across the FMCG, retail and food industries, including roles at General Mills, SCA Hygiene, Devondale and Saputo.

Book Jo Lepore keynote speaker to help your organization build long-term thinking into its growth strategy. Contact us to check availability.

Keynote Topics

From Zero to Foresight: building future-ready organizations

How to embed futures thinking across enterprise organizations, without sacrificing short-term execution.

Most businesses claim they want long-term thinking, but reward quarterly results. This session reveals how to break that cycle by embedding foresight capability that drives both immediate business growth and sustained competitive advantage.

Drawing on experience establishing foresight functions from scratch at the global headquarters of Mars Wrigley and McDonald’s. This talk provides a practical playbook for transformation: the organizational battles won, the cultural shifts evidenced, and the metrics that convinced skeptical C-suite executives.

Takeaways: The roadmap for building foresight capability (and the mistakes that kill it); where to start and how to measure meaningful impact.

Signature Keynote. 

The global brand playbook

Translating macro global trends to local consumer strategies.

The time of “universally loved” global brands is ending. Multinationals face a strategic paradox: macro forces like climate change, technological disruption, and demographic shifts are universal – but their consumer impact is profoundly local. Brands today require a different playbook to operate successfully across diverse geographical environments.

This talk draws from experience building localized strategies for global brands within General Mills, Mars and McDonald’s, with ways to navigate complex macro forces and shifting local consumer behaviours.

Takeaways: Macro forces reshaping consumer behaviour globally, and how they manifest differently locally.

Future-ready skills

Why asking better questions is your competitive advantage.

As organizations race to adopt AI for efficiency gains, they’re inadvertently creating a new strategic risk in organizational intelligence: cognitive atrophy and creativity bust.

This talk dives into the necessary skills of future organizational leaders: curiosity, futures thinking and adaptability. Drawing on futures thinking and design principles, this talk identifies the distinctly human capabilities that will separate winning organizations from efficient ones.

Takeaways: Core competencies of great future leaders that can be practically enhanced in corporate environments.

 

Testimonials

Client Reviews: Jo Lepore Keynote Speaker in Action

Olivier Desbiey
Head of Foresight, AXA
Jo is a true futurist and master connector, seamlessly integrating foresight into corporate strategies. Curiosity and openness make her a passionate professional.

Michelle Gansle
Chief Data & Analytics Officer, McDonald’s
Jo is an absolute star and the world’s best at seeing around corners! She has built foresight capability from scratch. When Jo speaks, people listen.

Andrew Leakey
General Manager, Mars Wrigley Australia
Jo’s foresight ability is world class. She is prepared to challenge the thinking of senior executives and the industry in general, to ensure foresight is an activity that cannot be left out of the strategy.