Pierre Wack (1922–1997) was a French oil executive who was the first to develop the use of

scenario planning Scenario planning, scenario thinking, scenario analysis, scenario prediction and the scenario method all describe a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. It is in large part an adaptation and gen ...

in the private sector, at

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company, headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...

’s London headquarters in the 1970s. So successful was he that the Anglo-Dutch oil giant was able to anticipate not just one Arab-induced oil shock during that decade, but two. His 1985 articles "Scenarios: Uncharted Waters Ahead" and "Scenarios: Shooting the Rapids" are considered among the first to bring the thoughts and theories of

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities ...

Herman Kahn Herman Kahn (February 15, 1922 – July 7, 1983) was an American physicist and a founding member of the Hudson Institute, regarded as one of the preeminent futurists of the latter part of the twentieth century. He originally came to prominence ...

into

business strategy In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of ...

. Thanks to his work for de Beers Co in South of Africa, he met

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

and participated in the end of

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

. A biography was written in 2017 about Pierre Wack by Thomas J. Chermack that details his life history as well as the evolution of scenario planning during his time at Shell and beyond. The book also details his work with de Beers and

Anglo American Corporation Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British de ...

in South Africa as well as his work on scenarios that tackled the end of apartheid.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wack, Pierre 1922 births 1997 deaths 20th-century French businesspeople Businesspeople in the oil industry French expatriates in the United Kingdom French expatriates in South Africa