Sandeep Pahuja has always been drawn to what’s next. Not just in the techy, flying cars and robots kind of way, but in the messy, hopeful, deeply human sense of the future. Raised on stories and strategy, he's spent more than 20 years helping teams see what’s coming and actually do something about it. Through his consultancy, Preferred Futures, he works with leaders facing big decisions—things like AI, new business models, or how to align their teams—and helps them find a clear, human-centered way forward.
He's worked with companies like Samsung, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Walgreens, and Starbucks; with governments in the UAE; and with founders navigating the weird and wonderful early stages of startup life. His sweet spot? Big, tangled, systemic challenges—especially the ones that live at the intersection of culture, tech, and behavior. He helps clients sort signal from noise, and then builds the strategies, roadmaps, and stories that move ideas from “just a thought” to “oh wow, we’re doing this.”
Before launching Preferred Futures, Sandeep was a Senior Director at IDEO, where he co-led the Food practice and the Strategy discipline and was once named one of IDEO’s “five most critical future leaders” (no pressure). He co-created and hosted Food by Design, a chart-topping podcast about the future of food systems, climate, and what we eat when we’re trying to fix the world. He began his career at Procter & Gamble and earned his MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Along the way, he’s helped shape new ventures, launch new categories, and work with companies that went on to be acquired for, well, a lot. He’s also a frequent speaker on the future of innovation, AI, and systems change—known for making big ideas feel approachable, energizing, and just the right amount of weird.
At Berkeley-Haas, he now teaches Designing Futures, a course that helps MBA students look at change not with fear, but with fluency. And when he’s not teaching, consulting, or writing teeny tiny angel checks, you can find him being a #girldad, on a quest to taste the best whiskeys ever made, or hunting down the latest new food sensation in the Bay Area.
