Diana Wu David is a female futurist, educator and best-selling author.
A former Financial Times executive, David is now a Top 50 Global Influencer for the future of industry. Along with writing extensively on innovation and leadership, she is the best-selling author of Future Proof: Reinventing Work in the Age of Acceleration. The book tackles the question of how we can adopt agile mindsets and practices to facilitate success in a fast-changing world across a 100-year life.
Her company, Future Proof Lab, consults boards, CEOs and senior leaders to navigate complex challenges, drive innovation and secure bold visions for the future. Recent clients include Google, ServiceNow, Oracle, JP Morgan, London Stock Exchange, Mandarin Oriental Hotels, National Basketball Association, the World Bank and KPMG.
Diana Wu David started out as an assistant to Dr. Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State. Since then, she has become a corporate innovator, entrepreneur and strategist, with a career spanning over 30 years across multiple continents, MNCs, start-ups and the multiverse. David is known for giving esteemed lectures at Hong Kong University and Columbia Business Schools; she has become FORWARD Fellow at RMIT University; and she currently oversees the Financial Times Board Director Programmes as head of faculty.
Her breadth of experience has taken her from chairing governance task forces and serving as an independent director, while engaging with a variety of academic institutions, to founding the Financial Times Non-Executive Directors Diploma in Asia. She also teaches for the London Stock Exchange and Bursa Malaysia.
A contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Inc, Nikkei and Association of Professional Futurists, David is a popular speaker on the future of work, human potential in an AI powered world and people sustainability. Her renowned TEDx was hailed “a clarion call for people to get off the treadmill of unfulfilling work and learn to run free”.
Diana Wu David lives in Hong Kong with her husband and three children.
