Using scenarios methodology, Shirin Elahi works with organisations to make sense of complex global risk and adapt to unexpected change. Elahi’s consulting focuses on examining uncertainty and looking for existing signals that indicate a likelihood of unanticipated change in the future. Elahi runs her own consultancy, Scenarios Architecture Ltd., and is Director of Scenarios and Innovation at NormannPartners, a Scandinavian scenarios and strategy consultancy.

Elahi has worked on numerous scenarios projects with a regional and global focus, including research into the future of: HIV/AIDS in Africa; global development and sustainable energy; uninsured losses from natural hazards; the impacts of existing financial systems; and the future of the intellectual property system. Her clients have included the European Patent Office (EPO), Shell International Ltd., and UNAIDS. She has lectured and published widely on risk and uncertainty, fairness, and management of change.

Elahi joined Open AIR at its inception in 2011, and led and managed the network’s scenario-building work from 2011 to 2013, which resulted in the publication Knowledge and Innovation in Africa: Scenarios for the Future (Open AIR, 2013).