Mike Bechtel

As Chief Futurist for Deloitte Consulting LLP, Mike Bechtel and his team work to make sense of what’s new and next in tech. Their goal: Helping today’s leaders arrive at their preferred tomorrows slightly ahead of schedule.

He also serves as an adjunct professor teaching corporate innovation at the University of Notre Dame.

In 2013, Bechtel co-founded and served as Managing Director of Ringleader Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage startups that had (intentionally or not) built simple solutions to complex corporate challenges.

Prior to Ringleader, Bechtel served as Chief Technology Officer at Start Early (then the Ounce of Prevention Fund), a not-for-profit committed to the idea that all children - particularly those born into poverty - have quality early childhood experiences in the crucial first five years of life.

Bechtel began his career with Accenture Labs, where his team helped Fortune 500 clients put emerging technologies to profitable use. Twelve years (and 12 U.S. patents) later, he was named the firm’s first Global Innovation Director, where he was charged with creating a strategy, process, and culture to foster company-wide intrapreneurship.

Bechtel gives frequent keynote speeches to international business, government, and academic audiences, and his work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, the World Economic Forum, Wired, NPR, Reuters, Business Insider, and Inc. Magazine. Bechtel has also served as a director and advisor on a number of corporate, university, and not-for-profit boards.

Bechtel graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a double major in anthropology & political science, and a minor in philosophy and economics.