Frederick W. Smith, chairman, president, and CEO of Federal Express, has called Mathews an "exceptional strategic thinker." He is widely regarded as an expert on consumers and their relationships to brands, products, services, and the companies that offer them.
WATTS WACKER is one of the most celebrated and influential minds in modern business. Wacker--lecturer, best-selling author, political commentator, and social critic--has served as futurist at SRI International, the legendary Menlo Park think tank, and spent ten years as resident futurist at the preeminent social research organization, Yankelovich Partners. He now directs FirstMatter LLC, a new kind of think tank designed to "bring the future to your organization."
Wacker's first book, The 500 Year Delta, was an international bestseller translated into ten languages and an Editor's Choice Top 5 selection at Amazon.com. His next book, The Visionary's Handbook, is required reading at many of the world's top business schools. His third book, The Deviant's Advantage--authored with Ryan Mathews--has earned raves from reviewers ranging from TIME to The Harvard Business Review. He has been recognized as "one of the 50 most influential business thinkers in the world" (Financial Times)."one of the 21 best speakers in America" (Successful Meetings)."the inheritor of the Marshall McCluhan tradition" (Fortune).and "one of 21 socially important people we selected to make a prediction for the 21st century" (The Science Channel).