Elaine France
Elaine France is a distinguished futurist, consultant, and educator whose professional activities center on the application of strategic foresight, sophisticated innovation processes, and impactful entrepreneurial education. She is a Futurist and Guest Lecturer at the Geneva Responsible Entrepreneurship Center and Founder of the Flourishing Futures Collective and Flow In Action. She is also a Consultant at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
Operating primarily from her base in Switzerland, her work is dedicated to catalyzing dynamic innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems. She has over 30 years of experience in social change and developing innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems for sustainable development solutions globally. Her core objective is to cultivate and enhance the competencies for individuals and organizations to actively shape positive, sustainable, and genuinely flourishing futures, moving beyond incremental improvements toward transformative change.
She is the Founder of Flow In Action, an initiative established in August 2011. Flow In Action serves as the primary vehicle for this mission, offering a comprehensive suite of services including high-level government advisory, bespoke consultancy projects, targeted training programs, executive coaching, and the development of innovative e-learning solutions and practical toolkits designed for real-world applications.
Elaine is focused on Sustainability, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and systems-thinking around ESG to support a fundamental shift in mindset and behaviors that build resilience in a VUCA world.
Building on her commitment to community-driven change, Elaine founded The Flourishing Futures Collective in January 2023. This initiative functions as both a community of practice and a learning hub, specifically empowering women to conceptualize and implement regenerative solutions. Utilizing future thinking methodologies, the Collective engages participants in collaboratively creating and sharing narratives of flourishing futures, thereby embedding foresight as an essential green skill that unlocks creativity and practical pathways for designing impactful, sustainable change within their communities.
Demonstrating her commitment to integrating foresight into formal education, Elaine has held the position of Futurist and Guest Lecturer in Entrepreneurial Thinking at the prestigious Geneva Responsible Entrepreneurship Centre (GREC) since December 2024. She integrates strategic foresight into the GREC’s experiential Bachelor’s program. Furthermore, she designs and delivers a dynamic program of activities aimed at engaging students, alongside start-ups and established M/SMEs within the broader entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Her extensive consultancy portfolio underscores her engagement with major international organizations. This includes significant ongoing work with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), where she has contributed her expertise to the Learning Solutions Roster for the Division of Peace since April 2020, focusing on designing practical tools and effective training modules relevant to peacebuilding contexts.
Before this, she undertook several contracts as an E-Tutor Consultant for UNHCR Leadership Development Section, the UN Refugee Agency, spanning between 2020 and 2023. In this role, she provided crucial coaching feedback and developmental guidance on assignments related to leadership development (MLP), conflict management (CCLP), and coaching programs, supporting the professional growth of UNHCR staff operating in challenging environments worldwide and reinforcing their capacity to lead teams and protect refugees effectively.
Her international consultancy experience also extends to curriculum development, notably working with the Ministry of Trade & Industry Lesotho between October 2020 and July 2021, through the Lesotho National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC). This project involved developing a contextually relevant entrepreneurship curriculum for Grade 9 students, directly supporting Lesotho’s Economic Diversification Support Programme (EDSP) by fostering essential 21st-century skills among youth.
In 2019, she was a Column Writer for Sovereign Magazine exploring innovation and entrepreneurship for social impact, sustainability, and sustainable development, sponsored by Lemania-Verbier International School. Read Learn To Move Mountains: How you can learn to move mountains too, Interview — Learn to Move Mountains, and Design Thinking is an Essential Skill.
Elaine’s background includes other significant roles that inform her current practice. She served as an Associate Economic Affairs Officer at UNCTAD in Geneva, where she played a key role in the end-to-end event management of the high-profile UNCTAD Empretec Women in Business Awards 2018 during the World Investment Forum (WIF) 2018.
Between 2011 and 2016, she made substantial contributions at St. George’s School in Switzerland. as a Thinking Skills Teacher, School Librarian, and Social Change Coordinator. She not only managed three school libraries but also pioneered and implemented innovative curricula for students aged 11–18, explicitly developing entrepreneurial mindsets.
She taught critical and creative Thinking Skills, co-developed the Creativity, Activity & Service (CAS) curriculum, and established the student-led Change-Makers Club to coordinate social change activities. Concurrently, she founded Women Who Move Mountains in 2011, a brand focused on coaching female entrepreneurs, the activities of which are now integrated into Flow In Action.
Her earlier career, primarily based in the UK, provided a strong foundation in strategic development, project management, and resource mobilization within the public and third sectors. This included serving as Head of Business Development (Public Services) at Local Partnerships LLP and its predecessor Partnerships UK, a specialized commercial advisory body spun out from HM Treasury. In these roles, she led strategic bid responses, including securing market entry into social investment via the £100m Social Enterprise Investment Fund (SEIF).
Other relevant positions were held at The Matrix Knowledge Group as a Management Consultant, at North West London Strategic Health Authority as a Program Office Manager working in the Strategy Team to implement the Department of Health’s reconfiguration of healthcare provision, and at Barts and The London NHS Trust, where she established and managed the Fundraising Research Unit. This unit supported corporate, Ultra-High-Net-Worth (UHNW) Individual, and Foundation fundraising teams in achieving significant targets, including £15 million for Barts Cancer Centre and £5 million for the Heart Cells Foundation and Children’s Services.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Elaine demonstrated parallel entrepreneurial and technical skills. She founded Elaine France Floral Design in 1998, establishing a business that delivered floral arrangements for high-profile events (e.g., at Kensington Palace, House of Lords). Simultaneously, as a Fundraising Database Consultant for Westwood Forster Ltd, between 1998 and 2000, she project-managed database solutions for NGO clients and developed the specification for a new Event Management software module.
Elaine earned her Bachelor’s Degree of Arts with Honors in Classical Civilisation in 1992 from the University of Leeds. In 1994, she earned her Postgraduate Diploma (PgD) in Information and Library Studies from Liverpool John Moores University.
At the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) between 1996 and 1997, Elaine worked as Corporate Information Officer, and earlier, between 1994 and 1996, at the British Red Cross National Headquarters, she managed the Prospect Research Unit as a Fundraising Information and Research Officer, supporting diverse income streams and leading the development strategy for a UHNW Individual Donor campaign.
Her foundational experience includes working as a Library Assistant at Manchester Metropolitan University between 1992 and 1993, where she supported the technical conversion of two campus libraries to an online system, documented processes, and trained users.
She began her career as a Library Assistant in 1992 at the Manchester Metropolitan University. She continued as a Fundraising Information and Research Officer at British Red Cross NHQ.
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