Liya Safina Speaking Topics

• Strategic Foresight 101: Scenario Thinking for Leaders

  In an era of exponential disruption, strategy without foresight is just risk with a nice name. The most successful leaders aren’t just agile—they’re pre-positioned. In this talk, discover how to use scenario planning as a leadership advantage, not just a strategy tool.

  Source insights directly from Liya Safina's experience working with Fortune 500 companies like Google, Nike and Toyota. These are the signal detection strategies used by top foresight teams to make high-conviction bets, build resilience, and act early.

  You’ll learn the fundamentals of modern foresight—not futurism, but a rigorous leadership capability used by top-performing organizations to anticipate change, navigate uncertainty, and act ahead of the curve.

  We'll unpack why conventional roadmaps fail, how to cultivate a foresight mindset, and how to build future-resilient companies in an age when speed and clarity are the new currency. Miss this—and risk becoming the next cautionary tale.

  Audience Takeaways:

  • Understand foresight as a core executive function and how to use scenarios to uncover opportunity and hedge against blindspots
  • Reframe volatility as a source of strategic advantage
  • Get frameworks for embedding foresight into strategic decision-making, using the “axes of uncertainty” model to forecast future market dynamics
  • Gain credibility in the boardroom by identifying risk windows early
  • Leave equipped to lead your organization through complexity—before the next disruption hits

• Outsider Advantage: How Immigrant Women Lead the Future of Work

  Liya Safina’s journey spans borders, industries, and identities—architect-turned-educator, founder-turned-Googler, Eastern-born and globally fluent. From Russia to Hawaii, she has rebuilt her career across systems not built for her, ultimately shaping frontier products in AI, XR, and urban innovation. Her path was never linear—but that’s exactly what made it future-proof.

  In this high-impact keynote, Liya unveils the "Outsider Advantage"—a strategic framework for how immigrant women, often underestimated or overlooked, are already equipped with the leadership traits today’s world demands: adaptability, systems-thinking, emotional intelligence, and cultural fluency.

  Drawing from her own experience navigating global power structures, she speaks directly to senior women who’ve had to lead without precedent, influence without titles, and succeed without belonging.

  This talk delivers both personal resonance and institutional relevance. It’s designed to catalyze leadership transformation—for women ready to claim their power, and for organizations ready to benefit from it.

  Audience Takeaways (for immigrant women in leadership):

  • Learn how to transform cultural “otherness” into executive distinctiveness
  • Discover how adaptive identity builds strategic foresight and resilience
  • Reframe nonlinear, cross-disciplinary careers as assets—not liabilities—in executive roles
  • Gain tools to lead across systems, cultures, and power structures without assimilation
  • Leave with language, confidence, and clarity to lead visibly and unapologetically on the global stage

• FUTURE OF WORK: Forecasting Your Career in a World of Constant Change

  In a world where roles, industries, and technologies shift faster than ever, linear careers are obsolete.

  This talk offers a framework for designing your next career era with clarity and intentionality. Instead of chasing titles or trends, learn how to map future signals, identify emergent skills, and align personal values with market shifts.

  We’ll explore how advanced technologies—from generative AI to automation—will impact specific career paths, and provide you with a hands-on framework to assess risk (automation) and opportunity (augmentation) in your field. You'll leave with a toolkit to future-proof your trajectory, and the confidence to lead your own evolution—not react to someone else’s.

  Drawing from Liya Safina's own experience reinventing across architecture, education, tech, and XR—often ahead of the curve—explore speculative design tools to imagine multiple futures and reverse-engineer them into today’s strategy. Whether you’re burnt out, pivoting, or building something new, this session helps you create a resilient and resonant path forward.

  Attendee Results:

  • Learn how to apply foresight tools (like scenario planning and signal scanning) to your career
  • Identify your personal “superpowers” and how they evolve across industries
  • Create a multi-era roadmap instead of chasing a single goal or role
  • Understand how to build for optionality while staying authentic to your core
  • Leave with a prototype of your next professional chapter, grounded in long-term vision

• The Fortune 500 of 2035

  How do you build products and companies for a future that hasn’t arrived yet—when technology is undefined, use cases are unclear, and the cultural context is complex?

  In this session, we explore a methodology Liya Safina developed while working with Google and Toyota’s futuristic Woven City project, blending speculative design, UX strategy, and cultural translation.

  Learn how to forecast market opportunities, identify hidden friction points in users' daily routines and apply small design interventions that unlock massive systemic impact—like business acupuncture.

  Drawing from Liya's direct experience leading design across XR, AI, and spatial computing, explore a framework to help teams build for uncertainty, with practical tools to future-proof service ecosystems. Ideal for executives, program directors, VPs and designers in frontier tech, innovation teams, or anyone tasked with making the intangible real.

  Attendee Results:

  • Practice identifying friction in daily experience and translating it into innovation opportunities
  • Learn how to balance long-term vision with short-term deliverables in high-stakes projects
  • Explore a lean framework for designing adaptable services and systems
  • Gain tools to communicate ambiguity and inspire cross-functional alignment
  • Leave with a repeatable method for future-resilient design thinking

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