Thomas Boermans: AI, RISK, & the FUTURE OF POWER | Inside Smart Energy at E.ON

How To Drive Better Energy Decisions: From A to Z

In this episode of The Innovation Brief Podcast, hosts Matt Briggs and Gabriella G. Hernandez speak with Thomas Boermans, Head of Trend Intelligence at E.ON, about how innovation leadership is evolving inside one of Europe’s largest energy companies.

Thomas shares how foresight has shifted from trend-spotting to becoming a core part of strategic decision-making. This includes supporting everything from setting strategic objectives to navigating disruption in the energy sector innovation space.

The episode also explores:

• Smart grid technologies and how smart grids are reshaping energy systems
• How ethical AI supports foresight without replacing human judgement
• The role of data governance implementation and data governance tools in enabling better decisions
• What new innovation leadership looks like in complex organisations
• How social impact and humanitarian innovation are increasingly tied to energy transformation
• Bridging the gap between theoretical foresight and practical, daily strategic application
• Building resilient, future-focused organisations with The Innovation Brief mindset

At its core, this conversation is about transformative work: how organisations can move beyond reacting to change and start actively shaping what comes next. 

So, as energy systems, technology, and society continue to evolve: how do we make sure the decisions we’re making today are truly aligned with the future we want to build?

Follow Thomas:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-boermans-07701a5/

Head of Trend Intelligence at E.ON SE, Advisory Board Member at Themis Foresight

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Transcript

0:04

Welcome to The Innovation Brief, the podcast where we have real conversations with leaders driving meaningful change across diverse sectors. I'm Matt Bricks. And I'm Gabriella Hernandez. Each episode, we bring you insights from innovators who are shaping the future through bold ideas, fresh perspectives, and transformative work. Today, we're joined by Thomas Boorman's head of foresight at E.ON, one of Europe's largest energy companies. Thomas has spent eight years building and evolving Ian's foresight function from the ground up at the intersection of strategy, sustainability and innovation. His work helps one of the world's biggest energy companies prepare for what's coming, not just react to it. Whether you're an innovation leader, strategist or someone trying to make long term thinking actually land inside a large organization, this conversation is going to give you some real, practical and honest takeaways. Let's dive in. So welcome, Thomas. Really glad to have you here. Could you start by telling us about your current role and the foresight function that Ian what it actually does? Yes. And then thanks for the invite and looking forward to our chat. So yes, I'm heading the force activities at E.ON as part of its strategy function, and we analyze trend developments that could disrupt our business in the next ten years. We assess opportunities and risks along with it, and identify options for achieving internal preparedness and to actually create impact. We work closely there with the group strategy and risk teams and also support management committees. A deal in one or the other way with securing long term strategic objectives. And how did you get into this kind of work? What was the the journey that led you here? Yeah, I studied engineering with a specialization in environmental safety. So at that time it was about harmful gases and so on. Then I did my final thesis on sustainable water supply. It was already going a bit into more looking at resources and not so much at toxic substances. And then in 2000, I started working in a consultancy in the field of sustainable energy, particularly in the building sector. And I was doing a lot of work for the Brussels arena. So industry associations, the European Commission or NGOs that worked on these topics. For a year. Looking back over the eight years of, you know, building out the foresight function at E.ON, what do you think has changed the most? Is it the function itself where it sits in the organisation, the way that you talk about it with other people, what do you think has changed the most for you? I would say this is all connected. The function changed actually from innovation impulses to rather strategic implications. And therefore we also moved organizationally from the innovation team to the strategy team. And along with that, of course, also communication changed from introducing innovation fields that the teams could innovate in to rather work on the company's preparedness for what we call what ifs. What if this and that happens, and how could we prepare for that and that that has changed, let's say, from this initial innovation position that was with the former CEO that wanted to have this role, and it was a very good start for us. But I think it was also meaningful development to go more in a strategic directive. And while quite some things changed, we what we try to keep all the time is to dare to have a position on what we anticipate while showing also other options. But also, yeah, taking a stand because we recognize that is where real discussions start. Also on disagreement. As you kind of mentioned before, you have a background in Sustainability. And now you're working in foresight at an energy company, which is at a time where it's, you know, very pivotal sector for the moment. As for the industry. How do these two lenses, sustainability and foresight, interact for you? And do you think the sustainability agenda has changed what organizations need from a role such as foresight? Well, first of all, sustainability and foresight are different things, but they share the importance of looking at impacts that may be further ahead or likely to be further ahead, but need preparation now. And this is where, let's say, both the sustainability agenda is always about tomorrow and the days after. And that is exactly what foresight looks at. And let's say there's also a reason, because looking ahead could be just a nice thing. And actually I do like it. But ultimately The goal is to prepare better upfront, and you can actually prepare better if you have more time. It's not a hectic reaction, but more a structured action and usually at an earlier stage. There are also more options open. It's like in your personal life, if you wait until the very last moment, it's maybe just the taxi you can grab. If you arrange earlier, you might have 3 or 4 options that you could take to go to the train station. So it's not rocket science. It's not something completely crazy. Or so it's normally this should be just part of daily life, but for ourselves and for society and for companies, this is a challenge when daily life forces or requires all our focus and efforts, and what the sustainability agenda has not changed, in my view, is actually what organizations need from foresight. I think it's still the same things, but maybe with the anticipatory character of sustainability, this just pulled more attention to foresight. That's what we indeed see. I always like to ask, I guess, about things that that haven't worked out, and I'm sure even as a head of foresight, I'm sure that applies to you as well. Do you have an example for as maybe of something that didn't work out the way you expected it to and what you took from that experience? Yeah. Good question. I mean, being wrong is I mentioned the closeness to innovation and being wrong a lot of times at an early stage is a beautiful skill in innovation. I've learned. And so same goes for foresight. And working in in a company which is also a moving environment. So bumping into things that didn't work should be normal. But of course it's not always comfortable. Yeah. To be clear about that. But what we had to learn, for example, is beyond the change that I mentioned, from innovation to foresight to strategic foresight, which worked better for us as a company. and that might be different in a different company. So this is not a one size fits all. But for us that was better. But for example, we just recently changed how we define our scope because until last year we were more or less said, okay, we start where others end. So there's a planning period of 3 to 5 years for the company, and we are looking beyond that. But then again, other teams do this as well. They look at price projections, price forecasts, whatever, and that's very important. But that's not what we do. And then we said, okay, a clearer distinction probably is if we care about the more disruptive developments. So not the linear ones that you can actually calculate also in scenario work. And of course this also has tipping points and so on. But we are looking at specifically stuff that really changes fundamentally the way how markets work, the way technology functions, political situations that turn things really upside down. And that is, for us, a better distinction than the mere time frame. How do you think about demonstrating the value of the the foresight work that you do? What does meaningful impact look like for your team? That is a good question. And it's also an important question because I believe a lot in in KPI's. That sounds a bit block headed, let's say for a foresight person. But on the other hand, we always recognize that the things that you discuss at the end of the year with your manager are very powerful, and you tend to to work along these. So be careful when you choose KPIs because you might hit them or match them. And in that aspect, actually, when we started the function we got this question. So what KPIs do you want to have? And of course we were thinking initially okay. Yeah, maybe we do some predictions and then then later on we check whether they are true and if they turn out right, we've done a good job or so. But I think we about that we. We were thinking about this probably like for three minutes or so because then we recognised that firstly, we would not have a meaningful discussion at the end of the year because the stuff might turn out true in two, three, four years. So practically, how we would, how would we do that? And then secondly, it's not about being right or not. It's the question whether we support at this stage our organisation, that we empower them to see things, take decisions early, be informed, have the possibility to go these or choose for these different trajectories that I mentioned before. And so actually we defined our KPIs as a basically positive feedback from our internal clients. How happy are you, how foresight supports your in your decisions? To what extent can they bring, you know, clarity to the maze around us. And that is what we're working along. That leads really well into our next question. We're living in a time where, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty across many different fronts. Our people at least have that feeling. How does that affect the human side of the work that you do? And by that I mean, how do you help the people in your organization kind of, you know, sit with and deal with the ambiguity rather than shy away from it? That's a really good question. And actually also within the team, we said end of last year, for example. Oh my God. I mean, all these developments we look at basically the bigger lines are rather looking like they would get more dangerous. I mean, if you look at climate change is progressing with geopolitical developments that get really difficult. So there's of course we see technology moving ahead, but like AI and so on. But at the same time, there are concerns about its its use and what it will do to to our societies and so on. So in a summary, I would say looks negative at this moment in time. On the other hand, that's also part of our job because firstly you see the threat immediately. That is what comes up. But the solutions are often also under construction. So you do not immediately see their benefit or the progress just at the moment that they appear and break through. That is the moment you recognize, okay, maybe we have something here that is one thing. The other thing is also and social media has added to that, that the news you get are typically negative. And this was also with the newspapers ten years or 20 years ago. However, now let's say the click rates. And I guess you know that better than I do on news and so on are determined, let's say, how much it attracts the attention. And of course, these negative things are I just just received better clicks. And now, if you think even of AI producing news or developing news around this logic, then success in outreach and so on will be linked to negativity. And I'm not saying that this is now all shiny and blue, and only the damn system makes it look bad. But that's part of reality that people are seeing this more often and got get concerned and then tend to cocooning and other things. And then our job is in the company, at least to make sure we have a balanced view on all what is negative on all what is positive, on all the options we might have. And then in the end, it's all about finding a right balance. Here it's a bit the boring consultant answer. So yeah, you need to find a balance. But that's actually what it is in my view. And secondly, there's also let's say this view of seeing volatility rather as a chance to influence stuff. Of course, this might sound a bit like, yeah, you need to embrace volatility and uncertainty and then you will love it. And that's not the way how humans work. But it does help to think of okay, so if things are changing I could change as well. Or which options are now building up. And sometimes we forget that. And finally, I think in all of this, empathy is important for foresight and doing foresight because it's people who move the world. So you you need to think of who might do what. If you want to look ahead and not just the mechanics of the system and also to the to the inside, we're talking to humans inside our organization. And so that's also it's not an explicit request from us to help people to work with ambiguity, but it's actually the concrete result of what happens in many times. I would say. You touched on AI there more broadly, but I wondered if, um, specifically within the work that you're doing, has AI kind of changed the processes or the tools that you used, or, you know, the way that you scan and synthesize data to make sense of what's coming? Yeah, indeed, it changed it. But maybe, uh, while I say this, there will be new tools out and new functionality. So this is, uh, we're more or less constantly checking since I would say 3 or 4 years, the AI capabilities of the tools we're using or platforms we're having that integrate such functionalities or own stuff we are having. I would say at this moment in time, I mean, AI is shaped to produce an output that is expected to be beneficial for the one who prompt it. So the system tries to guess what you want to hear. And in this function, I would say you cannot expect at this stage a kind of out of the box views, something unexpected or so. It's rather the contrary. it looks for the expected. And then of course, prompting is is good. Prompting is a prerequisite what you hear from everybody. So if you say, well what's the future of energy. It will tell maybe. Yeah, it will be sustainable and more decentralized and what have you. And that's all okay. But I mean, that is not an added value in a foresight function. However, let's say if you're convinced that, for example, cybersecurity at smart grids for specific user interfaces could be a benefit but also a threat and how this might evolve at this intersection, then by prompting and asking, let's say, what are good reports in this area? There's a lot you can do, but then you more or less have already an idea and concept, and then AI is at this stage a beautiful tool to get more information, condense the information and the like. That's a great answer. And I guess that ties back in with what you were saying before about you're trying to find that balance again between, you know, that human insights and empathy and so on as well as you know what the data can unveil. Looking back across the eight years of building out the foresight function within your organization, what's a piece of advice that you'd give to someone who's just starting to set up a foresight capability in their organization, and wants it to actually have a positive impact? I would say, firstly, I think it's super important to discuss with the stakeholders what kind of foresight is actually needed and wished because there are many, many ways of doing foresight. It can be a source of inspiration. It can be a supporting innovation. It can guide strategic discussions like in our case. But what you will do is very different depending on this initial wish. So I think that's important to clarify with your organization what kind of foresight they want. And maybe that is already super fixed, but maybe not. That is an important first step. Then, quite in general, I would say it's very important to combine creativity in thinking with very clear processes, and that is where innovation and foresight are, for example, very similar. You see innovators that have a really creative people, but you will find in each, especially the very good innovation teams, you will find people which are super rigid project managers and directors because to, let's say, guide this creativity to impact, you need very clear approaches like this usual sage gate processes, innovation and so on. And with foresight it's practically similar. I usually say what what innovation is to business. That's what foresight is to strategy. So yes, it's unclear. It's uncertain. But we can grasp some potential developments that we want to, let's say, prepare ourselves against. And that can be a very clear process. And that's why we, for example, work together also with the risk management team, because they also have very rigid processes and functions to keep and track also such topics in the company. Thomas, this has been a really interesting conversation. I think we're nearly out of time now. But just a final question for me. Who comes to mind as as someone who and this could be inside or outside of the energy sector, someone who's thinking on the future you find genuinely interesting or useful, and what draws you to their work? I mean, they are many. And as I mentioned, foresight is about talking to people and understanding their needs. So we're trying to to talk to and also be personally to very different people with different backgrounds to get a picture. But also in the light of the current discussion around artificial intelligence, I can point to Nell Watson's work at the intersection of human ethics and AI. And actually the reason for that is that we talked at a meeting in Berlin, I think was something like seven years ago on this topic, and that was quite early, I would say, for this ethical AI discussion. So that made a strong impression to me at that stage. And I said, oh, there's something coming up here. And secondly, she's working on foundational principles that shape AI and how to translate them into governance frameworks and technical standards. So very practical and impact driven. And that links again to how we look at foresight that it yes, it needs to be creative. It needs to be early in time. But you also need, you know, frameworks and standards to make it impactful. And that's something her work mirrors. Yeah. That is, uh, someone I can mention. Thank you so much, Thomas. We really loved this conversation. It's super interesting topic and work that you do for anyone listening who wants to learn more about yourself and the work that you and your team are doing at eOne. Where's the best place to follow along and find out more? Yeah, I would say you can find some stuff on on my LinkedIn profile and also reach out to me. As mentioned, I'm always interested in having these conversations with people from different backgrounds and different, different opinions. So if you're interested the ones listening, I'm happy to get in touch. Okay, well, that's a wrap on this episode of The Innovation Brief. A huge thank you to Thomas Borman for sharing his insights on how foresight can help organizations prepare for disruption and make better decisions in uncertain times. Now, if you enjoyed this conversation, please share this episode, subscribe to The Innovation Brief and leave us a review. It helps other innovation leaders and curious minds to find the show. Thank you again. We'll be back soon with another amazing conversation. I'm Gabriella Hernandez. And I'm Matt Briggs. Thanks for listening.