Not to predict the future, but to be ready to move, whichever future comes. Next-generation leaders draw that map themselves, and bring the executive team along with them.
What we do
Starting from the uncertainty in the business environment, the organization's own people draw several possible scenarios. Those scenarios become a shared language for talking about the long term, inside the company and outside it, and bring into view what to take on now in order to be ready.
We help the organization turn the future it has drawn into something management can use. From a neutral standpoint, we support cross-functional teams in taking a view of the whole and the long term, and walk alongside them until they draw out the implications for their mid-term plan and vision.
Next-generation leaders take the lead, and management supports them. Through training in strategic foresight and in framing questions, we design the relationships and environments in which they grow to take differences as a starting point and bring individuals and organizations along with them.
Principal
Nobuyuki Tamaki
Representative Director & CEO / Scenario Planner
He works with leadership teams of large manufacturers on future scenarios, enterprise transformation partnering and the development of next-generation co-creation leaders. Concurrently, he is Project Leader of the Future Co-creation Initiative at Yokogawa Electric Corporation and Executive Advisor at Future Artisan Inc.
He joined Yokogawa Electric in 1989. After designing and building production management systems for semiconductor and pharmaceutical manufacturing, he moved through product planning, systems consulting, new business development, corporate planning and long-term strategy, and led cross-organizational global projects including global marketing strategy and the transformation of the industrial automation business.
In 2019 he developed a co-creative leadership program for the next generation. In 2021 he launched the Future Co-creation Initiative under the direct sponsorship of the CEO and CHRO and, together with Waseda University, founded Green Phoenix Project (GPP) — a learning community bridging industry, government and academia. He established Tamaki & Associates, Inc. in 2024.
He has designed and facilitated co-creative scenario planning for large manufacturers, and works on the ground in healthcare, education and regional communities as well — on transformation led by the next generation, and on the environments in which people grow. He served as general advisor to the Japan Medical Association symposium “Disaster Medicine for the Next Generation.” He is an advisory member of the SFL (Sustainable Future Leadership) Consortium (Future Corporation and Waseda University) and sits on the steering committee of the KOCHI Future Conference (Kochi University). In 2026 he co-founded the Dynamo Leaders Community (DLC).
Work
FUTURE CO-CREATION INITIATIVE
Yokogawa Electric Corporation — Future Co-creation Initiative (2021–)
Launched a future co-creation program under the direct sponsorship of the CEO and CHRO, and founded Green Phoenix Project (GPP) with Waseda University as a learning community bridging industry, government and academia. Initiative site
25th GPP Lecture & Workshop — full reports
Held at Waseda University (September 2025). A three-part report on the Green Phoenix Project session.
Future Co-creation Initiative — interview series
An interview series on the practice of participants and collaborators. Tamaki is involved in every installment, appearing variously as the interviewer, as the interviewee, and as one of those present: regional development, school education, people development, co-creative leadership education and scenario practice. Interviews
HR Award 2021 (Japan) — Corporate HR category, award recipient
Recognition for the Future Co-creation Initiative. (Press release in Japanese)
COMPANY AND SECTOR SCENARIOS
Yokogawa Electric — future scenarios for 2040, “Shaping Horizons of Uncertainty” (2025)
Produced and published as part of the Future Co-creation Initiative. PDF
Yokogawa Electric — future scenarios for 2035, “A Journey Through Time” (2022)
Produced and published as part of the Future Co-creation Initiative. PDF
A major chemical manufacturer — future scenarios for 2045 (2026)
Future scenarios drawn over six months with emerging and mid-career leaders became the basis of the company’s published long-term vision and mid-term management plan.
A major general machinery manufacturer — future scenarios for 2035 (2025–2026)
Drew future scenarios shared across every business unit; these fed into the review of each unit’s business strategy roadmap (two engagements).
A major fluid-control equipment manufacturer — the 2040 long-term vision (2025)
Supported the development of the long-term vision, starting from future scenarios.
Japanese Association for Acute Medicine — the “FUTURE CASTING” session (2022)
Chaired the panel discussion at the 50th Annual Meeting, on future scenarios for emergency medicine fifty years out.
Sumitomo Chemical — future scenarios for 2030 (2017)
Designed and facilitated the project. Interview (Yokogawa)
SOCIETY AND COMMUNITIES
Japan Medical Association symposium “Disaster Medicine for the Next Generation” — general advisor (2024)
Following a 2022 lecture at the JMA, served as general advisor to a symposium bringing together medicine, government, academia and industry. Report page Full report (PDF) Program (PDF, Japanese) Agenda film (Japanese)
KOCHI Future Conference — steering committee
Hosted by Kochi University. Involved from the preparations for its founding in 2024 and continuing on the steering committee; spoke on the panel at the second conference (November 2025). The third conference will be held on 5 December 2026 (free admission). Third conference (Japanese) Reports (PDF, Japanese): first conference (2024) / second conference (2025)
SFL (Sustainable Future Leadership) Consortium — advisory
Advisory member of a co-creation consortium founded in 2023 by Future Corporation and Waseda University. Site (Japanese) Advisory and members (Japanese)
ESG workshop program “Mirai Kyoso Atelier” — supervising advisor
Supervises a workshop program offered by Future Artisan Inc., drawing on the work of the SFL Consortium. Program (Japanese) Launch announcement (Japanese, October 2026)
Speaking & media
SPEAKING
The 2nd Leadership Academia Forum — “Japan’s Leadership, Shown to the World”
Keio University, Mita Campus, Tokyo (October 2026) — panelist, “Future Readiness”, and a cross-talk pairing two approaches to the long view: scenario planning and SINIC theory. Article (note, Japanese)
Growth, Innovation & Leadership Summit 2026 — panel discussion
Hosted by Frost & Sullivan (October 2026) — “An Operating System for Co-Creation: Moving Japan’s Future” (Japanese)
Matsuyama Chamber of Commerce and Industry — seminars (2024, 2025)
Spoke at seminars held with the Ehime Prefecture Chamber of Commerce Federation: “Returning to a circular society, and scenarios for co-creating the future” (December 2024) and “Energy and co-creation for a sustainable future” (November 2025). An ongoing relationship, with repeated talks in Matsuyama. Announcement 2024 Announcement 2025 (Japanese)
Finance Tomon-kai, a Waseda University alumni association (October 2025, Japanese)
Musashino Valley Academia — lecturer (2025)
Musashino Valley Inc. — led a session in the cohort that began in October 2025. Event report Program announcement (Japanese)
Human capital management consortium — third research session
Keio Research Institute at SFC and Persol Research Institute (August 2025, Japanese)
System leadership for system change
Change Agent 20th anniversary symposium (April 2025) — keynote and panel (Japanese)
MEDIA
WIRED — sponsored content
Developing next-generation leaders through scenario planning
TV TOKYO — “TeleTo Plus” (Japanese)
Leadership development through 2035 scenario planning
Biz/Zine, Shoeisha (Japanese)
Scenario planning and next-generation leadership — an interview series in four parts
Collaborative DX, Future Artisan (2022, Japanese)
#01 Developing future leaders for a new social and economic landscape
#02 Building diverse teams of different minds to draw a future that has no answers
#03 The “2035 Future Scenarios”, born of a new form of scenario planning
#04 Sustainability starts with developing people
→ More on the Future Co-creation Initiative at Yokogawa Electric can be found on their site.
Company
