Suzanne Whitby

I’m a professional facilitator specialising in futures and foresight. I help organisations and groups navigate uncertainty through participatory futures processes, not by predicting what will happen, but by creating space to explore what’s possible and what that means for decisions today.

Futures Fit is where I practice this work: with practitioners learning together, with organisations facing complex change, and through ongoing experimentation with what actually helps groups think well about the future.

I’ve been facilitating groups internationally for over 20 years, working across research organisations, science-driven businesses, public sector agencies, cultural institutions, and intergovernmental organisations including the UN and IMF. Since 2014, I’ve focused specifically on sustainability and futures-oriented work – facilitating visioning, backcasting, scenario development, and strategic sense-making processes.

In 2020, I went deeper into futures studies, which led to my PhD research on climate futures and action, where I developed the senstoryscapes method for creating experiential, place-based futures experiences. I founded Futures Fit in same years as a space to practice facilitating futures, not as a consultancy with fixed methodologies, but as an evolving practice shaped by what I’m learning with practitioners and clients.

Over the years, I’ve learned that futures work is a social practice before it’s an analytical one. The quality of a futures process depends less on which methods you use and more on the quality of the conversation – who’s in the room, how uncertainty is held, whose imagination gets legitimised, and whether the group can move from insight to action.

When I’m facilitating, I’m tracking how the future is being held in the space: how uncertainty is showing up emotionally, whose futures are being heard, how imagination is being constrained or opened up, and the relationship between what people are exploring and their sense of agency. I hold the space where futures become discussable rather than defensible, and where groups can work with uncertainty rather than trying to resolve it prematurely.

My work is oriented toward hopeful, sustainable futures, which in practice means inviting groups to consider long-term impacts, systemic effects, and shared responsibility, whatever sector they’re working in.

Alongside my work at Futures Fit, I’m also the founder of SciComm Success, where I help scientists and researchers to communicate their work more effectively. This background strongly informs my futures practice: I’m particularly interested in how evidence, imagination, and participation come together to support better decisions that are good for people, planet and systems.

You can learn more about my broader constellation of work, including my PhD research on climate futures and action, creative practices, and other projects, at suzannewhitby.com.

Fancy a chat?

I am a professional facilitator specialising in futures and foresight. I help organisations, networks, and communities slow down and think together about change, possibility, and what comes next.

Over a 20+ year international career, I’ve worked extensively with research organisations, science-driven businesses and R&D teams, the public sector, cultural organisations, and intergovernmental organisations including the UN and the IMF.

I’m also the founder of SciComm Success, where I help scientists and researchers to communicate their work more effectively. This background strongly informs my futures practice: I’m particularly interested in how evidence, imagination, and participation come together to support better decisions that are good for people, planet and systems.

You can learn more about my broader constellation of work, including my PhD research on climate futures and action, creative practices, and other projects, at suzannewhitby.com.

Fancy a chat?