Terry Young is a founder, author, and field-builder who created Possibility Sciences, a new discipline for understanding why bold ideas reshape the world while others stall—and the conditions in which breakthrough ideas take root and compound. Drawing on systems thinking, social science, artificial intelligence, design thinking, network theory, exponential technologies, and public-interest technology, the discipline examines how societies expand our collective capacity to realize what once seemed impossible.
Young is the founder and former CEO of sparks & honey, the cultural intelligence consultancy that pioneered the cultural strategy industry and helped organizations anticipate emerging cultural shifts long before they became mainstream. Over twelve years of daily culture briefings, he developed new approaches for sensing weak signals, connecting ideas across disciplines, and translating cultural change into strategy, innovation, and long-term growth.
His career spans entrepreneurship, McKinsey & Company, and advising Fortune 500 companies, governments, nonprofits, and public institutions navigating disruption, reinvention, and long-horizon transformation. Across those settings, his work has remained focused on a single question: How do people and institutions become better at turning bold possibilities into reality?
A former Peace Corps volunteer in Uralsk, Kazakhstan, Young’s perspective has been shaped as much by lived experience as executive leadership. Those experiences working alongside local entrepreneurs, families, and community leaders continue to shape his thinking about how societies turn possibility into progress.
He is also the founder of the nonprofit Possibility Institute, established to advance Possibility Sciences through research, education, technology, and collaborative practice. Young lives in New York with his partner and two children.
