Tamara Carleton

Dr. Tamara Carleton specializes in radical innovation and strategic foresight, areas in which she is an award-winning professor,
industry advisor, and author, characterized by the global impact and multidisciplinary nature of her work. She has jointly held the UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Leadership at Tecnológico de Monterrey since 2023. She is also part of the faculty at several universities in Europe and Asia. Special areas of interest include frontier research models (including DARPA and the ARPA agency model), technological visions, and organizational innovation practices.

Her experience includes being the founder and CEO of Innovation Leadership Group LLC, where she works with organizations to build innovation capacity and map bold futures. Clients have included Airbus Group, Axtel, Nestle, Vinnova (Sweden’s national innovation agency), Volvo Group, and UNESCO, among others.

She has co-authored several books on innovation, including Building Moonshots: 50+ Ways to Turn Radical Ideas into Reality, Inventing the Almost Impossible, and the Playbook for Strategic Foresight and Innovation. Tamara Carleton was recently recognized as one of the Top 50 Women Leaders in Education by Women We Admire (2023 and 2024).

Tamara Carleton joined Tecnológico de Monterrey as a Distinguished Global Professor of Radical Innovation for the Business School and EGADE Business School.

• Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
• M.S., Public Relations, Syracuse University
• B.A., Communication, The George Washington University

• Svabo, C., Shanks, M., Zhou, C., & Carleton, T. (Eds.) (2025). Creative Pragmatics for Active Learning in STEM Education (Contributions from Science Education Research series). Springer. https://www.springer.com/series/11180
• Carleton, T., & Cockayne, W. (2023). Building Moonshots: 50+ Ways to Turn Radical Ideas into Reality. Wiley. https://www.buildingmoonshots.com
• Carleton, T., West, S., & Cockayne, W. R. (Eds.) (2023). Inventing the Almost Impossible: Creating, Teaching, Funding, and Leading Radical Innovation. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-36224-8
• Carleton, T. & Miller, R. (Eds.). (2023). Futures Literacy Laboratory Playbook: An Essentials Guide for Co-Designing a Lab to Explore How and Why We Anticipate. UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000385485
• Carleton, T. (Ed.) (2019). ME310 at Stanford University: 50 Years of Redesign (1967-2017). Innovation Leadership Publishing. https://www.amazon.com/ME310-Stanford-University-Redesign-1967-2017/dp/173320220X/
• Carleton, T., Cockayne, W., & Tahvanainen, A. (2013). Playbook for Strategic Foresight and Innovation. Tekes. https://foresight.stanford.edu/methods

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