People

Eva Oloumi

Eva Oloumi

Executive Director

Eva grew up playing in the ruins of the temple of Claros. She is Founder and Group CEO of Erisian, CEO of Paradeigma, an award-winning strategic foresight and collaborative design practice. An expert on transformative foresight and Causal Layered Analysis, her work focuses on helping organizations break free from short-term thinking and drive long-term, systems-level change with 13+ years consulting to governments, NGOs, multi-laterals, and corporations. WEF Agenda Contributor, published researcher in the Journal of Futures Studies, Devex World Luminary 2024, and named a Leading Woman to Watch in Futures in 2025.

Hugh Forrest

Hugh Forrest

Community & Convening

Hugh spent more than three decades building SXSW into one of the world’s most influential platforms for technology, innovation, culture and ideas, serving as President and Chief Programming Officer. Mastermind behind the crowdsourcing approach to content at SXSW that opened agenda-setting to the wider community and revolutionized how SXSW connected with emerging ideas, talent, and voices at scale. Austinite of the Year, EY Austin Entrepreneur of the Year, Kenyon College honorary doctorate, and Austin Business Journal Legacy CEO of the Year 2025.

Board

The Board is selected for the range of experience, geography, worldview and epistemology its members bring. They are actively involved in Erisian Institute’s development and contribute directly across intellectual direction, strategy, institutional relationships and foresight.

Ziad-Alexandre Hayek

Ziad-Alexandre Hayek

Chair, Board

Ziad worked decades where incompatible positions must be negotiated rather than averaged away. Candidate for President of Lebanon in 2025. Nominated for President of the World Bank in 2019. Former investment banker, Secretary General of Lebanon's High Council for Privatization, advisor to four prime ministers, Vice Chair of the UN Working Party on PPP, public policy expert, and tech entrepreneur. Currently leads the World Association for Public-Private Partnerships, whose members include 67 governments globally.

Sohail Inayatullah

Sohail Inayatullah

Board

Sohail is the originator of Causal Layered Analysis, the most widely used foresight methodology in the world, UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies and top 2% of scientists globally by citation. Has delivered executive foresight workshops in over 50 countries across three decades, including for the prime ministers of Canada, Australia, and South Korea. Advisor to NATO, the European Commission, and dozens of national governments. Author of 26 books translated into multiple languages.

Steven Kenney

Steven Kenney

Board

Steven has spent over three decades inside the US national security and policy communities, where the same evidence routinely supports opposing conclusions. Former partner at Toffler Associates, the consultancy founded by Alvin Toffler, whose book Future Shock launched the modern futures field. Former Vice President at Monitor 360. Founder and Principal of Foresight Vector, advising governments, corporations, and nonprofits on strategic foresight.

Additional board members are being confirmed. Erisian Institute is committed to plurality of worldview, geography, and epistemology in its leadership.

Selected members of Erisian’s Board of Directors also serve a strategic function as part of Erisian's Strategic Council, creating a direct link between the people shaping Erisian’s strategic and intellectual direction and the institution protecting its editorial independence and pluralistic mandate.

Governance and Board Nominations

Two entities. Shared ethos.

Erisian Institute

Erisian Institute is an independent global foresight institution that exists to create spaces and capacity for ideas to be challenged, stress-tested and developed without any single government, funder or institutional agenda owning the lens.

It protects the plurality, intellectual independence and the collisions of competing worldviews that emerge in those spaces.

Erisian

Erisian is a comparative intelligence company building a new analytical layer for high-stakes decision-making.

Its platform makes competing narratives, assumptions, logic and fault lines navigable at scale, preserving the differences conventional analysis tends to flatten into synthesis.

The two entities have different roles but the same ethos: reality is contested, disagreement contains information, and understanding the future requires seeing the fault lines rather than smoothing them away.

Independence

Erisian Institute is independent and pluralistic by design.

We work across governments, institutions, organizations, and communities. But no funder, partner, government or institution gets to determine which questions are asked, what perspectives are excluded, who participates, or what conclusions must emerge.

We care about the quality and relevance of knowledge, not its politics, ideology or agenda. We recognize different epistemologies, worldviews and forms of knowledge without treating inclusion as endorsement. If a perspective is legitimately shaping the landscape, it belongs in the conversation and must be open to scrutiny.

We encourage challenge. If a perspective is missing, bring it forward. If an assumption goes unquestioned, interrogate it. If you disagree with our work, challenge it. Our publications, convenings and initiatives are not intended to be insulated from criticism.

Erisian Institute is not captured by any single actor, worldview or agenda. Plurality is how we maintain epistemic independence.

Let the worldviews collide.