After eleven years in the Arizona State University School for the Future of innovation in Society, I am thrilled to announce that I am moving to ASU’s Thunderbird School of Global Management!
I will be continuing to focus on my work around navigating advanced technology transitions, and especially on the public-facing scholarship I have built up around emerging technologies on platforms like Substack and the Modem Futura podcast. But the move provides me with an opportunity to align this work more closely with leadership at all levels and across more sectors — an area where I believe there is a growing need to equip leaders with the mindset, perspectives and tools that will enable them to thrive in a technologically-advanced future, and which traditional training simply does not provide.
My colleague Sean Leahy and I are also moving the ASU Future of Being Human initiative to Thunderbird, where we have plans to build on the past four years as we move to a new phase of the initiative.
I moved from the University of Michigan to ASU in 2015 specifically to support the vision of a new school — the School for the Future of Innovation in Society — under the leadership of David Guston, and to join a fabulous group of people (many of whom I was already working or otherwise connected with in some capacity) in grappling with how we equip society to thrive in the face of transformative, and disruptive technologies that defy conventional understanding. We were building something unique and timely together and, above all, something that was desperately needed as everyone from students, parents, tech developers, CEOs and policy makers were struggling to navigate a technology-driven world that was changing faster than anyone could keep up.
SFIS is now undergoing a transition of its own as it re-evaluated its focus and enters a new phase. And as it does, this seemed an appropriate time to me to also review where my work might have the most impact.
The move to Thunderbird is the result of this. It’s a move that will give me the ability to continue my work on navigating advanced technology transitions, and what human flourishing means in a technologically complex future, and to do so within an environment that opens up new opportunities — especially working with current and future leaders on how to lead effectively in a world where the old ways of doing things increasingly don’t apply. And it allows me to build on the work I’ve been doing for years now around global leadership.
I’ll still be on sabbatical this coming academic year. But this will be time spent in part planning for the new phase in my academic and professional career. In other words, waych this space!
Andrew Maynard
August 2026