In 2009 EDAW AECOM produced a book documenting our practice vision and global portfolio. We called the book the Bigger Picture and the opening sentence of the book was “Climate change has emerged as the defining issue of our time”. When reflecting back 11 years, and then much further back to the beginning of my career, and the body of work I have completed during the past 38 years, there have been particular points in time, or projects, or insights, which have redefined for me how to create a more sustainable or resilient future for the people and places that we steward. This talk will examine scale and systems thinking and analytics, as ways to enhance our impact on the world. The leadership needed to accomplish this, in collaboration with multiple disciplines, will also be examined through two case studies.