The Future of Global Smart Grids:

A NEW ENERGY INTERNET?

Implications for Corporate, Investment and

Innovation Strategies Across Industry Sectors

By Olaf Groth, Jesse Goldhammer and Doug Randall

W e are facing a high-stakes moment
for smart grids. Trillions of dollars
energy sector or simply an investor looking
for large returns, it is hard not to notice that
smart grids are attracting a lot of attention.
of private and public sector invest-
Globally, the investment in electricity grids-
ment are at stake over the next 20
related technologies and infrastructure im-
years.1 But, the future of smart grids provements has been skyrocketing, fed by
is unclear. Some believe that smart government stimulus dollars as well as cor-
grids will usher in the next Internet porate and venture capital around the world.
boom — democratizing energy man- The funding is spreading across a wide ar-
ray of capital-intensive spaces, including
agement and use. Others imagine the
renewable energy sources, transmission
future of electricity grids falling into
infrastructure, and consumption-reducing
the hands of a few, powerful, estab- end-user equipment. The International
lished players that are poised to le- Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that invest-
verage smart technologies into even ment in national electricity grids related
greater control over national energy technologies and infrastructure improve-
flows. Now is the time for business ments will amount to a fantastical $13.6
trillion through 2030.2 Unsurprisingly
leaders across a wide array of sec-
then, valuations for prominent early stage
tors to question their assumptions.
companies in this
They should consider how critical space have seen sig-
TODAY, WESTERN
uncertainties with respect to the dif- nificant increases
ferentiated evolution of the energy in recent years; the PERSPECTIVES ABOUT
and power infrastructure around the much-anticipated Sil- SMART GRIDS ARE SHAPED
ver Springs Networks
world might impact their businesses BY OUR EXPERIENCE WITH
IPO, for instance, is
and their corporate, innovation and THE INTERNET, WHICH HAS
aiming at a market
investment strategies. valuation of $3B.3 CHANGED THE LANDSCAPE OF
A High-Stakes Moment But, wherever you DOZENS OF INDUSTRIES.
hear the sound of
Smart grids might be the next big thing. If money rushing in, you can be sure that the
you happen to be an energy security or cli- hype is not far behind. To be sure, electricity
mate change evangelist, an entrepreneurial grids themselves do not have a reputation for
technologist, a business executive in the being the most dynamic of sectors. Having

2 “World Energy Outlook 2008,” International Energy Agency.

1 “World Energy Outlook 2008,” International Energy Agency. 3 Dow Jones Clean Technology Insight, February 2010.

Outreach for Insight: Lessons from Business for the Intelligence Community 1
 of heated investment environment, smart in-
vestment requires clear thinking, an objective
assessment of the smart grid landscape and
a careful plan for the future. Above all, it re-
quires unpacking and challenging the mind-
set that is currently driving the optimism that
smart grids will deliver the expected results.
evolved organically, subject to a dense thicket
For starters, today, Western perspectives
of regulations and controlled by a relatively
about smart grids are shaped by our experi-
small number of actors, electricity grids are
ence with the Internet, which has changed
designed to accomplish one function really
the landscape of dozens of industries, given
well: getting electricity to end-users without
individuals a previously unimaginable abil-
interruption. But, if you start to qualify grids
ity to communicate and access information,
with “smart,” a whole new, exciting world of
and, in the process, generated billions of dol-
opportunity emerges: “Smart” means fusing
lars in wealth. There is a consistency to this
a sophisticated layer of information and com-
logic. In the same way that techno-optimists
munication technologies with the existing
believe that Internet companies will cause
electricity grid infrastructure. Hooked to the
authoritarian regimes to crumble, and that
Internet, these “smart” devices are expected
cloud computing will free us from the tyran-
to generate a massive quantity of new data
ny of operating systems and enterprise soft-
that can be used to manage the grid, as well
ware, the proponents of smart grids imagine
as its suppliers and customers. Finally, add
a world in which control over generation and
in next-generation software applications that
consumption of energy will be completely
can perform a variety of “smart” tasks, such
decentralized and democratized. Why would
as enhanced demand and supply analytics
we not be able to repeat the path from cen-
and prediction with appealing user interfac-
tralized to decentralized system in energy,
es, preferably loaded onto an iPhone, and the
just as we went from the bricks-and-mortar
smart grid is born. All of a sudden, the boring
world to the online world? After all, it holds
infrastructure that simply delivered electric-
true to the western ideal that individual self-
ity to your home and office is now enabled to
determination is always preferable to central
perform a variety of seemingly magical func-
power. In the language of scenario planning,
tions: self-healing, consumer participation,
this is the “official future” — the future that
attack resistance, energy efficiency, high
we believe to not just be possible but highly
quality power and more.
likely to come true.
As a result, for established corporate leaders
all the way to start-up entrepreneurs, smart
grids hold a lot of promise. But, in this kind

2
The Official Future:
“The Energy Internet“
In the official future, the rapid implementa-
tion of smart grid technologies will enable
an equally swift decentralization of our ex-
isting electricity grids, allowing distributed
electricity generation and newfound con-
sumer controls with reasonably open access
to and management of information and en-
ergy. In an effort to spark innovation, gov-
ernments will require established, regulated
energy companies to share everything from
their data to their transmission lines. Tech-
nology breakthroughs in energy storage
will dramatically ease the integration of re-
newable energy sources into the grid infra-
structure. Energy will be “packetized” and
become routable on demand. Smaller, more
disruptive players will get access to capital
and find ways to trade and monetize units of
energy as well as consumer energy-use data.
Electricity consumers in turn will reward
companies and investors who make tech-
nologies that are simple and effective — and
that are designed for consumers who may
not understand or care about the details of
electricity flows and pricing. Consumers will
benefit from feed-in tariffs that allow them
to sell their own excess energy capacity into
the larger community network, whereby
they engage in trading their own energy and
related information. Electricity infrastruc-
ture developments will focus on the indi-
vidual home or business facility, tying, for
instance, electrified personal transportation
solutions, such as plug-in electric vehicles,
to those individual residences and business-
es, rather than to centralized stations.
There are already signposts for this scenar-
io: Advances in battery storage, commer-
cial successes with facilities-based rooftop
solar and the impending mass availability
of plug-in electric vehicles give us at least
a few reasons to believe that we might have
dramatically more control over future en-
ergy generation, transmission and distri-
bution. Furthermore, in the United States,
where electricity grids are already mature
and fairly reliable, there is a flurry of ac-
tivity to give consumers more control over
energy consumption in order to increase
overall efficiency. Investments on the de-
mand side are expected to increase from
US$21.4B to US$42.8B by 2014:4 An esti-
mated 25M smart meters will be installed
in the US by 2012 as part of Advanced Me-
tering Infrastructure (AMI), which will gen-
erate the energy usage data that can even-
tually allow enterprises and consumers to
manage demand in a distributed fashion.
The American market is also leading glob-
ally in another area that relies on a decen-
tralized control scheme: Smart Home Ap-
pliances, which will grow from US$0.2B to
4 “Smart Grid and Consumers,” SBI Energy, July 2010.
Outreach for Insight: Lessons from Business for the Intelligence Community 3
 If this scenario were to
come true, it would raise
a number of questions:
1. Energy, infrastructure and technology
companies: If end-users exercise total indi-
vidual control over electricity and data flows,
how will you address the demand for a myriad
of personalized electricity generation and con-
sumption solutions? Will consumers require
storage capabilities and trading platforms to
use, buy and sell electricity on demand and
at their discretion? How will total end-user
empowerment and ad-hoc electricity trading
impact the future energy mix?
2. Transportation and logistics providers:
What types of individualized electrified trans-
portation solutions that tie into home-based
energy management will you offer? How will
individual electricity generation, storage,
footprints, and trading shape requirements
for your products’ capabilities? Will personal
energy footprint accountability determine
how goods will be shipped?
3. Consumer goods and services firms: Will
consumers and businesses make choices on
goods and services based on their electric-
ity footprint? Will all electricity consuming
goods made today eventually contain elec-
tricity management technologies that can tie
into an individual end-user’s overall home-
based electricity management system? How
will you monetize services, if data is owned
and managed exclusively by consumers?
4. Insurance companies: What types of risks
could emerge in a world in which consumers
exercise total control over their electricity?
How will those risks be distributed across
different geographies and populations? Will
overall risk decrease due to higher degrees of
distribution, or will it increase due to higher
potential for human operator errors? What
types of electricity-related individualized
insurance products will consumers demand?
4
US$12B by 2014.5 Last but not least, mini-
grids are springing up, allowing communi-
ties and corporations to become their own
energy suppliers and therefore reasonably
energy independent of the larger regional or
national grids.
A Familiar Story
If this official future sounds familiar, that’s
because we have been here before with the
boom and eventual bust of the dot-coms. Be-
tween 1995 and 2000, hundreds of billions
of dollars were invested in internet-related
firms offering a wide array of distributed
solutions and services, from shopping to
productivity to dating applications, which
could be generated, accessed and consumed
by almost anyone. Investors and executives
took to this new distributed model in droves:
In March 2000 the technology-heavy Nas-
daq Composite Index rose to 5,132 points,
more than double its value the year before.
But then, within days, the index contracted
to 4,800 points and eventually, by October
2002, to 1,180 points. By some estimates,
approximately $5 trillion in market value
were lost in the process.6 More than 50% of
dot-coms closed their doors and many oth-
ers were acquired by old economy competi-
tors, — the very same competitors that the
dot-coms had sought to displace. Most of
these old economy companies stayed true to
their business fundamentals, simply using
5 “Smart Grid and Consumers,” SBI Energy, July 2010.
6 “Fears of Dot-Com Crash, Version 2.0,” L.A. Times, July 16th
2006.
 As a result, perhaps the biggest surprise of
the dotcom bust, and the one that may be
most instructive for the smart grid enthusi-
asts, is how the promise of democratization
and decentralization gave way to the mas-
sive, centralized power of a few big players.
the new Internet technologies to reinvent It is not hard to remember the prolifera-
their marketing strategies. tion of Internet-service providers, portals
and search engines in late 1990s and early
With the benefit of hindsight, we know that
2000s. They are mostly gone, leaving us
over-estimation of medium term demand
with fewer large ones, some new and many
for internet-based services and under-
old, such as AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner,
estimation in demand for existing bricks-
the big consumer goods conglomerates, and
and-mortar offerings helped to cause the
of course, Google. These companies, and
dot-com bust. Investors and executives
the control that they exert over the Internet,
assumed that Internet businesses would
remind us that conventional wisdom can be
proliferate and displace physical ones, and
painfully wrong. And, they underscore how
that this process would happen quickly and
important it is for executives in the energy
indiscriminately across the globe. They
and ICT sectors to check their assumptions
also assumed that the Internet would crush
carefully about whether smarts grids will
longstanding business models by radically
indeed be like a completely democratized
decentralizing consumer access to infor-
Internet in the short to medium term and
mation and controls. They based their as-
across different geographies.
sumptions on what they saw: the rapid
development and dissemination of new Understanding the critical uncertainties
technologies and the revolutionary, bot- and the forces that are impacting and driv-
tom-up spirit of the “New Economy.” But, ing smart grid developments is therefore
they were wrong. They missed the fact that imperative for making the right strategic
businesses and consumers were not willing choices this time around.
to pay for Internet offerings on a scale and
in time to warrant the tremendous, upfront
investments in infrastructure in the early
years. They couldn’t imagine how security
concerns and state controls could recentral-
ize parts of the Internet. And, they didn’t
want to believe that old, trusted brands and
proven legacy business models, supported
by Internet technologies, would largely hold
their own.

Outreach for Insight: Lessons from Business for the Intelligence Community 5
 Critical Uncertainties
There are many questions to ask about the
future of smart grids: What technologies will
disrupt the traditional players in the elec-
tricity grid sector? What “killer” applications
will propel the rapid
IT IS OFTEN HELPFUL TO market adoption of these
new technologies? How
START BY NARROWING ALL
will government deregu-
OF THE UNCERTAINTIES THAT lation and re-regulation
AFFECT THE FUTURE OF SMART impact growth and in-
novation? Despite their
GRIDS TO THE TWO MOST
breadth, these questions
CRITICAL: FIRST, HOW WILL can be answered. And, to
THE MAJOR OBJECTIVE OF GRID answer them, it is often
helpful to start by nar-
MANAGEMENT, RELIABILITY, BE
rowing all of the uncer-
IMPACTED BY NEW EFFICIENCY tainties that affect the fu-
AND MARKET ENHANCING ture of smart grids to the
two most critical: First,
OBJECTIVES? SECOND,
how will the major ob-
WILL CONSUMERS DEMAND jective of grid manage-
INCREASED CONTROLS OVER ment, reliability, be im-
pacted by new efficiency
THEIR ENERGY CONSUMPTION,
and market enhancing
AND WHAT WOULD THEY DO IF objectives? Second, will
the grid more transparent. But, it is also true
that today, and in the near term, energy re-
quires central coordination to balance de-
mand and supply minute-by-minute in order
to keep the grid stable and reliable. The reason
for this is simple: energy does not behave like
information. Unlike bits and bites, electrons
are a physical matter with known properties
that must be tightly controlled and managed,
so as to travel and arrive safely, on time and in
the right amounts without causing blackouts
resulting in disastrous economic effects and
physical harm. Hence, most electricity grids
require central grid coordinators to ensure
reliability, security and adequacy of electric-
ity. And those coordinators are by-and-large
very successful at fulfilling their objectives:
compared to Internet or telecom networks,
central grid coordinators in the industrial-

AND WHEN THEY GET IT? consumers demand in-
creased controls over
their energy consumption, and what would
they do if and when they get it?
THE RELIABILITY UNCERTAINTY
It’s true that in countries like the United
States, there is a confusing and unbelievably
complex patchwork of organizations which
generate, transmit and distribute electricity,
and that the decentralization-focused invest-
ments are well-intended in their aim to make
ized world on average steadily exceed the
“five-nines” network uptime requirements.
For instance, the average consumer in the US
experiences only about 2 hours of outages per
year; in some European countries, that num-
ber is even lower, and in Japan it is an aston-
ishing 6 minutes. So, in the short to medium
term, we should consider the question wheth-
er transforming the grid into a more decen-
tralized and democratized “energy Internet”
rapidly with more elements and factors might
not yield more, but rather less reliability.

6
So, it comes at no surprise that the most pilots around the U.S., for instance, which
powerful actors who are responsible for have been met with resistance, with some
maintaining reliability today, such as bal- consumers claiming dramatically increased
ancing authorities, regional coordinators, electricity bills without guidance on how to
utilities and regulators are leery to change change consumption behavior, and others
the system for the sake of efficiency or mar- questioning the utility and feasibility of in-
ket enhancement that can undermine re- dividualized controls in their already busy
liability near term. Consider California’s lives. And even if we assume that consumers
disastrous experiment with energy deregu- will adopt enhanced controls, no one knows
lation in 2000 and 2001. The theory made how they will behave
sense: make the energy market more com- when technology IN THE MEDIUM TERM,
petitive, increase efficiency and decrease enables them to not
MUCH LIKE THE INTERNET
cost. The reality looked quite different: just use electricity
market manipulation by Enron and others, more efficiently, but AFTER THE BUBBLE, ALL
rolling brown and black outs due to energy store, broker, trade OF THE NEW INFORMATION
shortages, millions of lost revenue for busi- and barter it, poten-
TECHNOLOGIES IN GRIDS
nesses and a utility in bankruptcy proceed- tially across munici-
ings. While the failure of California’s dereg- pal, state or even na- MIGHT JUST REINFORCE
ulation may appear to be the result of a few tional borders. EXISTING ACTORS,
bad players in an otherwise good system,
Together, the reli- OPERATIONS AND BUSINESS
the overall lesson should not be dismissed.
ability and the con-
Electricity grids are optimized for reliability. MODELS, RATHER THAN
sumer uncertainties
THE CONSUMER UNCERTAINTY might actually work DISPLACE THEM.
Today, when utilities need a large industrial against the decentralized official future that
customer to shed load in order to balance most Western investors currently believe.
flows in the grid, they have a reliable solu- Instead, the future might be one populated
tion: pick up the phone and ask them to do by a few, powerful actors who find innova-
so, based on pre-agreed terms. In contrast, tive ways to aggregate and make sense of
the smart grid calls for a future of decen- smart grid data on behalf of residential and
tralized consumer-side demand response commercial customers. So, in the medium
in which consumers will effectively control term, much like the Internet after the bub-
their own energy usage in response to sig- ble, all of the new information technologies
nals, such as the price of electricity. It is in grids might just reinforce existing actors,
not at all clear that the public is ready for operations and business models, rather
electricity controls, let alone ready to pay for than displace them. Let’s take a closer look
them and any “killer smart home apps” with at this alternative picture:
the savings that these applications may help
to accrue. Consider the many smart meter

Outreach for Insight: Lessons from Business for the Intelligence Community 7
 goods and people, as well as the efficient de-
livery and consumption of different types of
services at different times of the day, month
or year, depending on what is required to
ensure the balance of energy supply and de-
mand, as well as grid reliability.

We are already seeing signposts for this

scenario in global markets. To enable reli-
An Alternative Future: able and secure transmission, US$30B will
“Air Traffic Control“ be invested in the central elements of grids:
intelligent transmission and distribution in-
In an alternative future, investors and ex-
frastructure, grid operators and utility op-
ecutives gravitate toward established energy
erations globally from 2010-2014.7 The best
players with big budgets and operations re-
example of a market with a relative focus on
sponsibility for the transmission and dis-
the centralized model is China, which invest-
tribution portions of the electricity grids.
ed an estimated US$36.5B in updated trans-
Access to and management of energy and
mission infrastructure in 2009. Its brand
information is proprietary and centrally con-
new high-voltage, low-loss, DC transmission
trolled by utilities and large-scale regional or
lines run from central generation locations
national network operators. Big established
in the rural northwestern provinces to the
electricity players, infrastructure firms and
industrial production hubs in its southeast-
large grid-management technology suppli-
ern coastal provinces. Moreover, across the
ers call the shots in their respective ecosys-
country, China has already installed nearly
tems. Overpowered by reliability-impacting
1,000 PMUs – more than any other country
events, such as security breaches and large-
in the world – to help central grid operators
scale disruptions, government essentially
manage transmission infrastructure. In Chi-
abandons attempts to empower the demand
na, as in many markets around the globe that
side and to foster distributed energy gen-
have established grids, the regulatory envi-
eration or consumption control. Consumer
ronment and dynamics between established
energy and information flows are steered
energy players are optimized for reliability,
by these large corporations and government
balancing supply and demand, not for effi-
agencies in an effort to stabilize and secure
energy flows, and to keep electricity afford-
able. Communication technologies will al-
low these central actors, not consumers, to
manage energy consumption remotely in
consumer devices. Central authorities will 7 SBI at www.sbireports.com; includes T&D Monitoring and
also manage the energy-efficient routing of Control Systems; Distribution Automation; Protective Relays;
Substation Automation; and PMUs; Automated Metering
Infrastructure excluded.

8
ciency, consumer controls or profit. Simi-
larly, there are only a few powerful national
and regional transmission-operating orga-
nizations, which execute on this reliability
mandate and hold almost all of the power to
shape policies and execute the massive in-
frastructural and technological changes.
Needless to say, both scenarios are extremes
that are intended to question our assump-
tions and demonstrate the plausibility of
vastly differing investment and innovation
conditions. The future will likely play out
in various hybrid forms between the two
extremes across different countries. But
depending on where exactly a market will
fall along the centralized versus decentral-
ized spectrum, making bad decisions based
on the wrong assumptions at any given time
could make or break a company.
What To Do About It
In the midst of what is claimed to be a revo-
lution in the electricity sector (which should
rather be characterized as an evolution in
some markets), it’s easy to get lost in the
technical details and to build business plans
that reflect untested, potentially risky as-
sumptions about the future
Before your company or investment firm
bets the farm on any one future for a giv-
en market, take a step back to evaluate
the uncertainties and forces that are driv-
ing the implementation of smart grids and
to examine how these forces will generate
unique combinations of risk and opportuni-
ty. Specifically, business executives should
ask how these uncertainties and forces may
play out across different geographies in fu-
ture, affecting consumption and competi-
tion patterns, and hence strategic choices in
their sectors.
If this scenario comes true, it
will raise several questions:
1. Energy, infrastructure and technology
companies: What will be the energy mix that
caters best to the needs of utilities and trans-
mission operators? Will industrial-strength
wind and solar farms, alongside nuclear and
coal, be preferred by these players over resi-
dential or mini-grid solar? What types of infra-
structure projects and technology systems are
needed to address large central deployments?
2. Consumer goods firms: What kind of com-
mand and control technologies need to be
embedded in consumer goods that rely on
central authorities to manage electricity and
the behavior of devices remotely? How will
privacy concerns be addressed if central play-
ers own most of the end-use data?
3. Transportation and logistics providers:
What types of remote control capabilities will
logistics firms need to embed in their elec-
trified transportation solutions to allow for
radically centralized electricity management?
How will transport and shipping routes and
timing be impacted?
4. Insurance companies: Will a centralized
energy grid system have greater complexity,
be prone to cascading disruption, potentially
resulting in entire system failures? What types
of risk will the centralized electricity paradigm
yield and what types of insurance products
does this require? Which programs can insur-
ance companies put in place to mitigate these
large-scale risks with central authorities?
Outreach for Insight: Lessons from Business for the Intelligence Community 9

Of course, nobody can predict exactly what the
smart grid of the future will look like and, there-
fore, which companies will win. But, strategic
planning is not about prediction; it’s about chal-
lenging our assumptions about the future in or-
der to imagine what’s possible. And, it’s about
making choices today that are designed to con-
vert those possibilities into profit. We have suc-
cessfully used this process, which we call “From
Scenarios to Strategy,” across many sectors.
How Monitor Can Help
For companies hoping to capitalize on smart
grid opportunities, Monitor can help in the fol-
lowing ways:
1. Build Scenarios: Apply proven foresight-
and insight-generating methodologies, along
with networks of renowned thought-leaders
and experts, who can help your organization
make sense of the complexity. We identify the
most relevant uncertainties in the smart grid
space and build 3-5 alternative scenarios that
demonstrate how a given market might plau-
sibly evolve. This will help your senior execu-
tives question their assumptions about how
the future of smart grids, align their visions of
the evolving landscape, recognize signposts
particular futures and set strategy flexibly.
2. Identify Options: Identify, quantify and
prioritize the implications of and options in
the unfolding scenario pictures described
above that matter most to your business. This
10
will help separate mission-critical options
from those that are of secondary importance.
It will also yield a portfolio of priority op-
portunities for different scenarios, each with
quantified bottom-line impact. For instance,
depending on an organization’s business fo-
cus, its product mix may be impacted severely
by regulatory and standards changes driv-
ing toward the centralized market scenario,
rather than by consumer empowerment pat-
terns in the decentralized scenario. Resulting
opportunities might consist of partnerships
and acquisitions that address utilities, net-
work operators or large technology providers,
while steadily building capabilities toward the
longer-term decentralized scenario with con-
sumer solutions.
3. Formulate Strategy: Define long-range
goals and formulate a plan that provides the
best options for success. This strategy will in-
clude an execution plan with action steps and
financial performance metrics along the way.
And, it will be “future-proof,” i.e. it would
perform robustly against the extreme book-
end scenarios and various hybrid scenarios
in between. It will also allow an organization
to recognize and navigate shifts in market
scenarios flexibly to stay ahead of surprises.
For instance, robust strategies might entail
building capabilities and solutions that play
well in the biggest centralized markets, but
also generate derivative know-how that can
be leveraged for success in a more decentral-
ized grid structure.
We can help your organization to convert the
uncertainty of this high-stakes moment into a
winning opportunity. ●
About the Authors
Olaf Groth is a senior practitioner at Monitor 360, where he leads engagements that employ strategy,
innovation and uncertainty management craft to generate insights for clients in business and government in
hi-tech, cleantech and energy domains. Olaf also brings to his clients 20 years of international experience in
business and academia. Previously, he headed hi-tech and clean-tech work for Monitor’s GBN unit. Prior to
joining Monitor, he was a business executive for international corporate, market and operations development,
public policy and strategy with Qualcomm, Boeing, Vodafone, AirTouch Communications, a clean-tech
startup, and innovation-focused boutique advisory firms. In these functions, he spent many years working
in Asia, Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and parts of the Middle East. Olaf is a frequent panelist and
speaker on international innovation, technology and energy trends and their intersections with the global
economy and geo-politics. He is involved in a number of initiatives, thinktanks and forums, such as the panel
of judges for GE’s $200M Ecomagination Challenge, Clean Economy Network, the Energy, Environment and
Security Committee of the Pacific Council on International Policy, the International Institute for Strategic
Studies, the BMW Foundation Transatlantic Forum, and the Bay Area Council Economics Institute. Olaf
holds MALD and PhD degrees in international affairs with technology, business, and political economy focus
from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and BA and MAIPS degrees with similar emphasis from the
Monterey Institute of International Studies.
olaf_groth@monitor-360.com

Jesse Goldhammer is a partner at the Monitor Group and Monitor 360, where he works with public- and
private-sector clients to undertake strategic, analytic, organizational and institutional transformation. Jesse
has spent the past 20 years bringing together unique people, ideas and approaches in order to devise lasting
and effective solutions to vexing problems. These solutions include developing novel analytic approaches to
understand and reframe client challenges; using human networks to leverage alternative and unorthodox
perspectives; and designing training programs to propagate new strategies and tradecraft. Having originally
come to Monitor through Global Business Network, Jesse is also an expert in scenario planning, has taught
scenario planning training courses and published “Four Futures for China Inc.” in Business 2.0. Jesse previously
worked in search-related strategy, sales and analysis at Yahoo!, Overture and Inktomi. He holds a BA in social
science from UC Berkeley, an MA in political science from New York University, and a PhD in political
science from UC Berkeley. An accomplished instructor and expert in modern political theory, Jesse has
written several articles and is the author of The Headless Republic (Cornell University Press, 2005). He is
currently working on a book concerned with the topic of deviant globalization.
jesse_goldhammer@monitor-360.com

Doug Randall is Managing Partner of Monitor 360 and a Partner at Monitor. He has nearly 20 years of
professional experience serving governments and private sector organizations in strategic planning, scenario
thinking, networking, and complexity management. Doug is a recognized thought leader on managing
uncertainty, designing effective institutionalization programs, and a select set of geopolitical issues. He has
lectured at the Wharton School, Stanford, and National Defense University; and has published in the Financial
Times, Wired magazine, and Strategy & Learning. Doug was previously co-head of the consulting practice at
Global Business Network (GBN). Before that, he was a Vice President at Snapfish, a senior consultant at
Decision Strategies, Inc., and a senior research fellow at the Wharton School. Doug received his BA, cum
laude, from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from the Wharton School. He practices Ashtanga
yoga and meditates daily. He is on the board of directors of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
doug_randall@monitor-360.com

Outreach for Insight: Lessons from Business for the Intelligence Community 11
ABOUT MONITOR 360

Monitor 360 helps organizations make sense of complex geo-strategic issues.

We serve a variety of clients, including governments, NGOs and corporations.

Our unique multi-disciplinary approach leverages best practices from corporations and
academics to develop new analytic approaches, capabilities and tradecraft. In creating
these solutions, we reach out to a proprietary network of thousands of thought leaders
and experts from around the world who offer fresh perspectives. We institutionalize
these solutions through a variety of novel approaches, including state-of-the-art custom
training programs, workshops, and other innovative capability development programs.
Working with Monitor 360, our clients get actionable answers to their problems.

For more information about Monitor 360,

please contact Olaf Groth at olaf_groth@monitor-360.com or +1 (415) 205-0807

101 Market Street

Suite 1000
San Francisco, CA 94105
T 415-932-5300

www.monitor-360.com