Dr. Thomas Vande Zande is a consulting futurist and co-founder at Flagship Futures Group, LLC. Thomas has 14 years of extensive leadership, software development, information technology (IT), and project management experience. He is a veteran of both the United States Air Force and United States Coast Guard.

While working in enterprise systems and asset management, Thomas decided to pursue his doctoral degree in Business Administration with a strong focus in Strategy and Strategic Foresight. This allowed him to broaden his already keen IT knowledge and apply future-looking strategy formulation to traditionally stale government IT implementations.

Expanding on his existing wealth of IT knowledge and leadership experience, Dr. Vande Zande has worked strategically with directorate level military and contract management teams on procurement, project management, and asset software development in fast-paced agile development environments on full life cycle software development, deployment, and maintenance activities.

Dr. Vande Zande is the sole-developer of Flagship Futures Group proprietary environmental scanning system, the FutureScope, and co-developer along with Dr. Mike Petty of the firm’s proprietary futures management framework - The 5 Practices of Future-Focused Leaders.

Applying his foresight knowledge, Dr. Vande Zande has helped provide solutions to future problems. By helping clients create visions of their preferred future, along with identification of necessary interim actions based on future-looking plans Dr. Vande Zande contributes to his clients sustained long term success and achievement of their best future.

Thomas earned is bachelor’s and master’s degrees in information technology and software development from Stratford University. While attending Stratford, he also earned two post-graduate certificates in advanced studies for Futures Studies and Business Futures culminating his research in a Doctor of Business Administration degree, with a specialization in Strategic Foresight.

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Dr. Michael Petty is the co-founder and consulting-futurist at Flagship Futures Group, LLC in Washington, DC. Mike brings over forty-five years of leadership, financial and strategic management experience to the service of his clients. He has experience with both publicly-traded and privately-owned companies, ranging in size from start-up to multi-billion dollars in revenue. His greatest value to his clients lies in his expertise in the areas of strategic thinking, planning and execution; shareholder value creation; and leadership development.

Mike has worked at the financial and strategic executive level of a Fortune 500 multi-national manufacturing company, a senior executive with a privately-owned medical service company as well as serving in the capacity of senior vice-president and consultant for an international financial advisory firm,  and a consultant in a  “Big Four” public accounting firm.

Dr. Petty is the former Dean of the School of Business of Stratford University. In his capacity, he developed the university’s innovative joint Doctor of Business Administration and Information Technology programs. He has taught Financial Intelligence and Strategic Intelligence in the programs core curriculum, and the three Strategic Foresight specialization courses. He was also the doctoral advisor for candidates pursuing the Strategic Foresight specialization.

Mike has also created and conducted workshops on the development of strategic foresight and futures thinking for the International Conference of the World Futures Society. Dr. Petty is currently a member of the World Future Society and The Association of Professional Futurists.

Mike received his bachelor’s degree in accounting and Executive Master of Business Administration degrees from Michigan State University, and his Doctorate in Strategic Foresight from Regent University.‍

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