About Robert H. Brown, Vice President and Keahn Gary, Senior Manager, Cognizant Center for the Future of Work

Robert Brown joined Cognizant in 2014. He is a fellow at the Fisher Center for Business Analytics at BerkeleyHaas, a member of the Bay Area Council, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Agenda for Work, Wages and Job Creation, and in 2018 was an Action Forum participant at the Aspen Institute. Previously, he was a Managing VP of research at Gartner, and also held roles at Hewlett-Packard and the British House of Commons. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from UC Berkeley and attended LSE as a Hansard Scholar.

Keahn Gary’s research focuses on modernizing value systems and optimizing evaluation methodology to create dynamic and inclusive work environment. Keahn joined Cognizant in 2016 to advise Communications, Media, and Technology clients on how to navigate their unique journeys through digital transformation. Over her tenure at Cognizant, Keahn has collaborated with market and industry leaders to address disruption and uncertainty through technology modernization, talent innovation, and direct to consumer strategy. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Babson College and earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Southern California.

Pitching Your Place of the Future to Next Gen Talent

Why one city decays and another thrives can sometimes seem random. So, trying to foresee downrange why the future will happen in City A and not City B is hard.  Moreover, to imagine that there is one formula that all 7.8 billion of us should adhere to, wherever it is we live, is clearly nonsensical.

In our work, we study, research, and rank places to determine what the best practices are to increase economic prosperity, social equity, and quality of life. Ultimately, the question we want to answer is: What is it that makes a city a place of the future?  In our research, one thing has become clear to us: next-gen talent is the fuel for the future of place. And by extension, jobs of the future will happen in places of the future.