Chief Scientific Officer, The Cynefin Company
Jules joined the organisation in 2009 to support the delivery of government projects in Singapore and has since worked with public, private and third-sector clients across Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Americas and Africa. In 2014, she relocated to the UK on secondment to Bangor University to establish the Cynefin Centre for Applied Complexity, where she led member recruitment, bringing together organisations including Oxfam GB, IFRC, Sitra, the University of Bradford, the University of Kansas, University of Utah Hospital and a multi-university consortium spanning Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Caltech and Cornell. She has since returned to Singapore.
With a double major in English Linguistics and Literature, Jules applies narrative research to complex organisational challenges. Her interests span computational linguistics, urban planning and governance, futures and foresight, climate change, and the evolving role of the Global South. Outside work, she enjoys museum-hopping and persevering with Chinese brush calligraphy.
Jules will explore why consulting craft still matters, our judgement, insight and ability to detect weak signals in complex environments, and how AI can be adapted as a tool that supports contextual thinking rather than replacing it. She will challenge the assumption that more data automatically leads to better decisions, highlighting the importance of experience, pattern recognition and sense-making in uncertain contexts.
In a landscape increasingly shaped by automation and data, Jules will examine how consultants can consciously integrate AI into their practice while maintaining discernment, ethics and human nuance. Rather than positioning AI as either threat or silver bullet, she will offer a balanced perspective on how to work alongside it — amplifying capability without diminishing professional expertise.
Chief Scientific Officer, The Cynefin Company
David is the creator of the Cynefin Framework and the originator of SenseMaker®, the world’s first distributed ethnography tool. He is lead author of *Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis: A field guide for decision-makers*, developed in collaboration with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the Cynefin Centre. As founder and Chief Scientific Officer of The Cynefin Company and founder and Director of the Cynefin Centre, his international work spans government and industry, focusing on complex strategy and organisational decision-making. He is widely recognised for pioneering a science-based approach to organisations, drawing on anthropology, neuroscience and complex adaptive systems theory, and is a sought-after keynote speaker known for his pragmatic and iconoclastic style.
David holds academic positions as Extraordinary Professor at the Universities of Pretoria and Stellenbosch and Visiting Professor at the University of Hull, having previously held roles at Bangor University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the University of Warwick, the University of Surrey and others. He has also served as Senior Fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang University and the Civil Service College in Singapore and has contributed to major research initiatives in complexity science in both the UK and US.
His co-authored Harvard Business Review cover article on leadership (2007) won the Academy of Management award for best practitioner paper, and he has received additional recognition for originality in knowledge management. A former IBM Director of the Institute for Knowledge Management and founder of the Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity, he was selected as one of IBM’s global on-demand thinkers. Earlier in his career, he held a range of strategic and management roles across the service sector.
In this session, David will introduce practical, complexity-based methods such as SwarmCompass and Estuarine Mapping, offering consultants new, actionable ways to navigate uncertainty and design interventions without relying on prediction. Rather than forcing certainty where none exists, these approaches help practitioners work with the realities of ambiguity, emergence and shifting constraints.
Drawing on decades of experience in complexity science and organisational strategy, David will challenge linear thinking and provide grounded, field-tested tools that can be immediately applied in client environments, particularly where AI, rapid change and increasing system interdependence demand more adaptive ways of working.