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International Futures Forum is registered as a charity in Scotland. The charity maintains IFF's international clan, progresses its learning, publishes its insights, and continues to develop its ideas, methods, processes, people and tradecraft such that it remains a unique resource for taking on the world’s tough challenges. The Charity has a board of three trustees.
IFF also supports clients and partners - in government, business and communities – to take on seemingly intractable challenges in practice. This work is centred on a number of Praxis Centres around the world. Each Praxis Centre is established according to local law and has its own Board of Directors, including at least one long-standing member of the IFF clan. At present there are two such centres, in Scotland (UK) and California (US).
IFF maintains integrity, strategy and direction with the assistance of a steering group consisting of:
Sir John Elvidge KCB is the former Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government. He retired from the post in June 2010. While at the Scottish Office, he worked particularly in the fields of economic development, physical infrastructure and European Union relations. He was seconded to Scottish Homes, from 1988–89, and to the Cabinet Office, from 1998 to 1999, where he was involved in co-ordination of the Government's legislative programme and social policies. In May 1999, He was appointed Head of the Scottish Government Education Department, and in March 2002 became Head of the Finance and Central Services Department. In 2003, he became Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government. He was created a Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB) in the 2006 Birthday Honours. 
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Patrick Heneghan has provided strategic support to a wide range of companies and organisations since setting up his own company in 1995, from major oil companies to independent record labels, from a business school in China to the World Health Organisation. Pat is a member of, and the facilitator of, the International Futures Forum. Pat specialises in facilitating at the senior executive level, often in high risk situations. He has a particular interest in using creative approaches to difficult problems. Pat has lived in a number of overseas locations and continues to work in different locations around the world. His first degree is in Mechanical Engineering and he has a Masters degree in Petroleum Engineering. He held a number of positions in the exploration division of a major oil company from 1975 to 1995 including Drilling Operations, Training, Change Management and Strategy and Planning. He is married with two grown-up children, lives in Aberdour and has a 28ft cruising yacht and a dog.
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Peter Lederer joined Gleneagles in 1984 as General Manager and was appointed Managing Director in 1987 and became Chairman in November 2007. Previously he held operational and senior management positions in Canada for ten years with the Four Seasons hotel group in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, and with Plaza Hotels in Toronto. He was also for two years, a partner in a design and consulting firm providing services to the hospitality industry.
Since joining Gleneagles, he has developed the resort/hotel into one of the premier hotels in the world. The hotel has won numerous awards for its attention to detail, luxurious facilities and personalised standards. During his tenure, the hotel moved from a seasonal golf hotel to an internationally recognised and successful resort, encompassing hotel, a wide range of leisure facilities and real estate developments. Gleneagles is recognised as a leader in the hospitality industry in terms of service, training, marketing and innovation. The hotel has been owned by Guinness/Diageo plc since 1985.
He is committed to improving quality, educational standards and training opportunities within the hospitality and tourism industries. He is President of the Institute of Hospitality (formerly HCIMA), President of Enable, a Patron of the Hospitality Industry Trust Scotland and Chairman, One & All Foundation. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and University of Stirling. In addition, Peter is a Master Innholder and Freeman of the City of London, as well as a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Innholders.
Peter was Chairman of VisitScotland from 2001 - 2010 and is a board member of The Leading Hotels of the World and Chairman, Hamilton & Inches. In 1993 he won the Tourism 'Catey' award and in 1997 was honoured as Hotelier of the Year. In her 1994 Birthday Honours List, Her Majesty The Queen appointed him an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to the industry. This was followed by the honour of CBE in 2005.
He was born in 1950, is married to Marilyn since 1981 and has two sons, Matthew and Mark. He was educated at City of London School (1962-1968) followed by four-year Hotel and Catering Management Course at Hendon College, London (1968-1972) and an Advanced Management Programme at Insead (1994).
Graham Leicester is Director of the International Futures Forum. Graham previously ran Scotland's leading think tank, the Scottish Council Foundation, founded in 1997. From 1984-1995 he served as a diplomat in HM Diplomatic Service, specialising in China (he speaks Mandarin Chinese) and the EU. Between 1995 and 1997 he was senior research fellow with the Constitution Unit at University College London. He has also worked as a freelance professional cellist, including with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He has a strong interest in governance, innovation and education, is a senior adviser to the British Council on those issues, and has previously worked with OECD, the World Bank Institute and other agencies on the themes of governance in a knowledge society and the governance of the long term.
Andrew Lyon was born in Kilmarnock in 1954. He studied Sociology and economics at Edinburgh University. After completing his PhD, he led a workplace based community oriented health programme at Polaroid UK Ltd, before moving to Glasgow to lead the Healthy Cities Programme there. During this time he also worked for the World Health Organisation in Bangladesh and Europe. In 1996 he moved to Forward Scotland to develop a Scottish approach to sustainable development, becoming acting chief executive in 2000. He is now a converger with International Futures Forum. He has also been engaged in voluntary activity for most of his adult life and currently serves on the boards of several charities.
Dr. Maureen O'Hara is Professor in the Psychology Department at National University, La Jolla, CA and President Emerita of Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco. Working with American psychologist Dr. Carl R. Rogers, she helped develop the Person-Centered Approach to psychotherapy and large group process. More recently her writings have examined the relationship between the "big picture" changes underway and internal psychological adaptation. Combining her background as psychotherapist, organizational consultant and futurist, she is a frequent keynote speaker nationally and internationally on the evolution of new ways of being in a changing world.
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Wolfgang Michalski is Managing Director of WM International - a company providing strategic intelligence and policy advice to business, governments and international organisations. He is an internationally recognized expert in the analysis of longer-term economic, social and technological developments and their implications for decision making. For more than 20 years (1980-2001), Wolfgang Michalski served as Chief Advisor to the Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with particular responsibility for the analysis and evaluation of emerging economic and social policy issues and related strategic challenges, both at domestic and international level. Wolfgang Michalski has been a Director of several renowned research institutes. He received his PhD in 1964, holds a professorship of economics at the University of Hamburg since 1972 and was awarded a Doctor honoris causa by the Warsaw School of Economics in 2001. He has published 10 books, including most recently Capitalising on Change in a Globalising World, and more than 120 papers which have been translated into more than ten languages.
Bill Sharpe is an independent researcher in science, technology and society. He was research director at Hewlett Packard Laboratories where he led research into everyday applications of technology and introduced scenario methods to HP to support long-range research and innovation. Since leaving HP he has specialised in science, technology and policy studies for business strategy and public policy foresight. With a background in psychology he is particularly interested in drawing on leading edge research in cognition and systems thinking to find new ways of tackling complex problems. He is author of the IFF/Triarchy book Economies of Life: patterns of health and wealth.
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Jennifer Williams is an American artist based in London, UK where, in 1977, she founded the Centre for Creative Communities (CCC). Additional to the CCC work, Jennifer works as a freelance artist and as a specialist in social change processes. Jennifer's interest in IFF is in collaborative projects that link learning with creative practice, social inclusion and community development. Besides maintaining an active schedule of public speaking and writing for journals, in recent years she has developed a specialist role as artist-in-residence at conferences, courses and extended processes such as Glasgow's Civic Conversation. Jennifer has written books on topics including cultural exchange, the arts and urban regeneration and cross sector collaboration. Jennifer's artwork, mainly visual, ranges from hand made books, cutouts, photography, illustration and printmaking to the making of masks. Prior to moving to the UK, Jennifer ran a touring puppet theatre known as Williams Toy Theatre, which was awarded a number of distinctions from the international puppet community.
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