Dr Chris Luebkeman is insatiably curious, deeply passionate about curating constructive
dialogue, relishes the opportunity to discover the opportunities which will be created by
change and, perhaps most importantly, to evolve positive solutions to the profound
challenges we face today. His career to date has spanned professions and geographies.
It started with a multidisciplinary education which was encouraged by his Mid-Western
USA family of educators and entrepreneurs (Vanderbilt: degrees in geology and civil
engineering, Cornell: structural engineering, entrepreneurship and at ETH Zurich:
Doctorate in Architecture). He was then a faculty at the University of Oregon, the
Chinese University of Hong Kong and at the MIT where he taught courses on Design
and Technology. He joined Arup in London to lead the Research and Development
group in 1999 and became a corporate intrapreneur by founding the Foresight,
Innovation and Incubation teams. He is proud to have been accused by the Guardian to
have a mindset “in league with the future”. For twenty years he travelled the globe
sharing his observations and insights by leading projects focused on the future for Arup,
Arup’s clients and for many of the world’s leading institutions. He has spoken at TED,
WEF, Aspen Design, keynoted hundreds of other conferences around the world and is a
member of the nominating committee for the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew World City
Prize. He founded the [y]our2040 community which is focused on creating pragmatic
positive scenarios for the future when he returned to the ETH in Zurich in 2020. There
he joined the team of President Joel Mesot as a strategic advisor, leading the Strategic
Foresight Hub within the Office of the President at ETH Zurich.