Altimeter, a Prophet Company is a company.
Key people at Altimeter, a Prophet Company.
Altimeter, a Prophet Company was founded by Charlene Li (Founder, Former CEO & Senior Fellow).
Altimeter, a Prophet Company was founded by Charlene Li (Founder, Former CEO & Senior Fellow).
Key people at Altimeter, a Prophet Company.
Altimeter, a Prophet Company is not an independent investment firm or startup but the research arm of Prophet Consulting, a global consultancy specializing in growth strategy, brand transformation, and customer-centric innovation.[1][2][4] Acquired by Prophet in 2015, Altimeter focuses on digital technology research, including social media, Internet of Things, data privacy, and customer experience amid digital disruption.[1][5] It enhances Prophet's offerings by providing actionable insights to clients across industries, helping them navigate threats and opportunities in innovation, sales, and branding, while operating under the Altimeter name from Prophet's San Francisco headquarters.[1][4]
Prophet, founded in the 1990s, leverages Altimeter alongside other partners like Keylens and Springbox to deliver specialized services, with 500-1,000 employees across 15 offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.[2][4] This structure supports Prophet's mission of human-centric growth through branding, marketing, design, analytics, and innovation, serving clients like General Motors, Sony, and Volkswagen.[3][4]
Altimeter Group was founded in 2008 by Charlene Li, former Forrester analyst, in San Francisco, recruiting notable experts like Brian Solis and Susan Etlinger.[1][6] It quickly gained recognition for research in emerging tech areas such as social media, IoT, and data privacy.[1][5]
In 2015, Prophet—a consultancy established in the early 1990s by Scott Galloway and Ian Chaplin—acquired Altimeter to bolster its digital capabilities.[1][3][4] Prophet had grown through organic expansion and acquisitions like (r)evolution, Material Group, Figtree, and later Keylens, evolving from a San Francisco-based brand strategy firm into a global player with expertise in customer-centric transformations.[2][4] Li highlighted the appeal: Prophet's investment in research and its client-facing work would deepen Altimeter's insights, with no changes to customer service post-acquisition.[1]
Altimeter rides the wave of digital transformation, where businesses grapple with evolving customer behaviors, data privacy, and tech like IoT—trends accelerating since its founding.[1][5] Its 2015 integration into Prophet timed perfectly with rising demands for customer-centric innovation amid disruptions from AI, analytics, and personalized marketing.[2][4]
Market forces favoring it include the shift from siloed research to applied consulting, enabling clients like automotive giants (Volkswagen, General Motors) to blend strategy with tech foresight.[3] Altimeter influences the ecosystem by deepening Prophet's human-centric growth model, helping firms build resilient brands and pipelines in a post-pandemic, data-rich world.[1][4]
Altimeter will likely expand its research into AI-driven customer experiences and privacy regulations, fueling Prophet's global projects as digital threats evolve.[1][2] Trends like generative AI and sustainable branding could amplify its role, potentially through further acquisitions or tech partnerships, strengthening Prophet's boutique edge against larger firms.[4]
Its influence may grow by embedding deeper analytics into transformations, positioning Prophet as a go-to for uncommon, sustainable growth—tying back to its core strength in turning research into client wins.[1][4]
