Companies & Organizations
Consultancies and talks that combine strategic foresight, regenerative economics and business strategy to help organizations read the present and design possible futures.
Decoding Culture · Strategic Foresight · Futures Research · Systems · Perception
Building futures begins with navigating the in-between.
We are living through an interregnum: the old models no longer hold our decisions, and the new ones have not yet had room to emerge. Organizations that cannot navigate that void stall, react late, or repeat answers that no longer work.
I help organizations decode cultural change, make sense of complexity without flattening it, and translate emerging possibilities into strategic direction.
Carol Cardoso · Founder
Why do organizations with no shortage of data still decide too late?
For 22 years, I worked at the intersection of global business, strategy and consumer markets, leading initiatives at multinational companies including Hewlett-Packard and EssilorLuxottica. I managed multimillion-euro budgets and worked with teams across more than 17 countries, navigating different markets, cultures and business contexts.
That experience shaped a question that now guides my work: what if the challenge is not a lack of information, but the way we perceive change before we interpret it?
I pursued this question through an interdisciplinary path spanning Futures Studies and Strategic Foresight, trend forecasting, regenerative economics and phenomenology. My training includes Futures Studies with the Institute for the Future, trend forecasting at IED in Milan, Regenerative Economics at Schumacher College in the UK, and Phenomenology Integrated in Qualitative Research at SDU Kolding in Denmark. I also hold an MBA in Strategic and Economic Business Management from FGV in Brazil and completed executive coursework in urban regeneration and corporate sustainability at Bocconi University in Milan.
Today, I work as a researcher, foresight strategist and educator at the intersection of cultural decoding, strategic foresight, systems thinking and perception. I help organizations recognize emerging cultural shifts, make sense of complexity without flattening it, and translate new understandings into strategic direction.
My practice brings together executive experience, futures research and a sensitivity to the relationships that shape how we live, consume, design and organize our worlds. Through consulting, research and teaching, I explore how changing the way we perceive the present can expand the futures we are able to imagine.
I am also co-founder of The Domanists and the Milan hub of Climate Designers, a global network advancing climate action through design. I work between Brazil and Italy, which is, in the end, a personal way of inhabiting the in-between.
- 22
- years leading global business
- 17+
- countries operated in
- 4
- languages: PT / EN / IT / ES
- 2
- continents, one practice
Practice
Intersections
My work is organized around intersections between forms of knowledge that, at first, seem disconnected. It is from these crossings that readings and analyses emerge.
Cities, Architecture & Design
Interdisciplinary research exploring how we inhabit, experience and shape cities, urban environments, architecture and design. It investigates the relationships between human perception, behaviour, culture, urban dynamics and the built environment to envision new ways of living and creating spaces.
Climate Change & Design
Work at the intersection between design and climate change, materialized in Climate Designers Milan, a hub I co-founded and lead in Milan.
How I work · Three movements
From perception to direction
Perceive
The Perceiver
How do we see what we were never trained to see?
For organizations and people whose decisions are shaped by limited ways of perceiving change.
Poiesis · Perceptual Inquiry · Cultural Decoding
A practice of cultivating perception: registering signals, textures, tensions and nuances before they are flattened into ready-made categories. It expands what can be noticed, questioned and brought into awareness.
Contextualize
The Cartographer of Change
How do we make sense of relationships and emerging possibilities without reducing complexity?
For teams that gather data but struggle to recognize the relationships, patterns and possibilities connecting the dots.
Systems Thinking · Contextual Intelligence
A practice of contextualizing what we perceive, tracing relationships, patterns and tensions across systems. It connects cultural, social, economic and environmental dynamics to make complexity more intelligible and reveal emerging possibilities.
Reframe
The Reframer
What if we could question the frames through which we understand the world?
For leaders and organizations ready to question established assumptions and explore different ways of thinking and acting.
Unlearning · Re-imagining · Experiential Learning
A practice of questioning the assumptions that shape how we understand problems and imagine solutions. By challenging established frames, it opens space for alternative interpretations, new questions and different possibilities for action.
Ways to engage
Five ways to bring this reading inside your organization.
Slide through
Track record
Selected work, in the room.
Grupo Renner · Camicado
São Paulo · 2025
In-Company Course
A four-day in-company immersion for HR, Operations, Marketing, Product and Visual Merchandising leadership, expanding the organization's capacity to interpret shifts in consumer behavior and convert them into concrete growth: sales, differentiation, brand relevance.
Sustainable Houses
São Paulo · 2026
Strategic Foresight
A strategic foresight project exploring how societal, environmental, technological and regulatory shifts could reshape housing. Through horizon scanning, emerging signals and alternative scenarios, it challenged assumptions and identified sustainable living opportunities. Insights were translated into product territories and strategic pathways, guiding innovation, anticipating future needs and ensuring housing solutions remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.
GoodBase
Milan · 2025
Strategic Facilitation
A workshop moving through memory, sensory prompts and guided visualization to confront the emotional distance we create between ourselves and the future, beyond information, into embodied reflection.
Politecnico di Milano
Milan · 2025
Guest Professor
Cities, like living organisms, depend on flows of energy, materials and information. Reading those flows as one system moves urban strategy beyond linear, mechanistic fixes and into holistic direction that holds social, ecological and economic dimensions together.
Unlearning Experiences
Learning by unlearning.
In collaboration with The Domanists
We believe that creating new possibilities begins with unlearning old ones. Our Unlearning Journeys are designed around this idea: each journey can be tailor-made for a specific client and challenge, or companies can join experiences we have already built at the intersection of the territories we research, lifestyle, regeneration, culture, design, architecture and cities.
bru.ma at Amazonia
A 9 day learning journey deep into the Brazilian Amazon.
For creatives, designers and architects ready to think differently, lead boldly, and create with purpose. June 2027.
Wellness Design
Design spaces and products that make people feel better.
A learning experience for designers and architects on how space shapes human wellbeing. Running since 2024.
Slow Futures
What can the Mediterranean teach us about regenerative futures?
A deep dive into the intelligence of a territory, opening new readings for leaders and organizations who want to widen their perception.
Material Futures
Industry and material innovation meet the architecture of the future.
Cersaie and the Biennale Architettura read together, from material innovation to the cultural and conceptual vision shaping what comes next.
If something here resonates, let's talk.
Open to strategic consulting, learning journeys, speaking engagements and long-form collaborations, in Portuguese, English, Italian or Spanish, between Brazil and Europe.