AEM brought a dozen of its brightest and influential member leaders together in Chicago last week for the first in-person meeting of its newly relaunched AEM Futures Council.
Chaired by Dr. Ray Gallant of AEM member company Volvo Construction Equipment North America and supported by AEM staff leaders from the association’s Industry Sectors teams, the council discussed plans to tackle changes impacting the off-road equipment industry and brainstormed ideas on how AEM should adapt to thrive in that change.
“Without disruption and reinvention, progress isn’t possible,” said AEM Senior Director of Industry Sectors John Rozum. “The global impact our industry has on communities and economies is well known. Taking that knowledge and the strong commitment of our members to have a positive impact, we’re excited to bring together a revamped AEM Futures Council to help tackle the disruptors poised to shape the future of our industry.”
The council has established three main goals to drive its work for the remainder of 2025 and throughout next year:
- Identify a prioritized list of disruption topics that AEM should bring to its membership through content, committees, or its Sector Boards; disruptions within its trades of construction, agriculture, utility, forestry, or mining, or disruptions in its operations of channel to market, manufacturing, or supply channel.
- Deliver ideas or changes in suggested approach to support membership to the AEM Education and Content Team, membership or boards. In addition, it will contribute to a “watch list” of items likely to disrupt the association’s service and financial model.
- Establish a regular cadence of disruption outlook content delivered to members.
In 2021 and 2022, the collective expertise of the AEM Futures Council helped drive one of the largest thought leadership initiatives in the association’s history: the development and launch of the Future of Food Production and Future of Building whitepapers.
Council representatives set and prioritized topics and trends for the papers, they provided a pulse check on the initiative’s progress, and they assisted as subject matter experts on key topical matters. Vision teams comprised of AEM member company thought leaders then discussed, developed, and documented in the whitepapers more than 20 trends that they felt defined the future of the agriculture and construction industries.
The whitepapers were released in the spring of 2022.
While the scope of work and eventual deliverables of the newly relaunched AEM Futures Council are still being examined, AEM is looking to hear from members and industry leaders about their thoughts on the council’s work and disruptive trends poised to impact the industry.
“Tomorrow will be different than yesterday,” said Rozum. “As a group of thought leaders, it’s our responsibility to find early signals that point to how the future will evolve. There are several ways to accomplish this task, and our revamped Futures Council is excited to welcome the experience of working together as a team and discovering the early signals that point to the industry of tomorrow.”
To learn more about the AEM Futures Council and its efforts, contact AEM’s John Rozum at jrozum@aem.org.
