“Walk a colourful path”

Benjamin J Butler is a former investor and now writer, futurist, and philosopher. He is an evangelist for our transition to a conscious ecological civilization based on the principles of nature: including a Bitcoin centred economic system.  

He advises the leadership of a number of organisations about the future including Zurich-based Horasis, the American Renewable Energy Institute , Ubiquity University, the UN’s Resilience Frontiers initiative (which uses collective intelligence to create desirable futures for 2030-2050). Benjamin is the founder of the Embassy of the Future. 

Benjamin regularly speaks at international conferences on global issues and long term futures and in the past has spoken at the World Knowledge Forum, United Nations, Schumacher College, , SOAS, World Economic Forum, Merrill Lynch Investment Forum, and more.

He left England 25 years ago and has been ‘on the road ever since,’ accumulating a unique international perspective to advise leaders on where the world might be heading.

Benjamin started his career on Wall St and in global finance and was a highly prescient sense maker and forecaster of the future. He worked with numerous investment banks predominantly advising Chief Investment Officers or with hedge funds. In 2011 he co-founded Mind Fund and was an early investor in Tik Tok. For several years he wrote the International Column of Dow Theory Letters with Wall St legend Richard Russell.

It was in his time working in macro investment he realised the limits to our current financial system and its inbuilt propensity towards inflationary collapse. A system based on the decentralised Bitcoin protocol, not central banking, would unlock and allow the natural state of healthy deflation which entrepreneurship and technology creates. 

He has been a long term practitioner of Zen and the Tao, having been based out of Asia for 22 years. In his early twenties he moved to Japan and learnt the Japanese language, culture and Zen.

The alternative resume is here.

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible”

Lawrence of Arabia

More formal resume is here on LinkedIn.

Bringing Soul Back into the Future


2018

Member, Global Future Council on Computing , World Economic Forum

2018

Faculty of Futur.io

2015-Now

Emerging Future Institute, Founder and Futurist

2011-2015

External Strategist to a macro hedge fund and family office , Blue Sky in Australia

2014-2017

Dow Theory Letters, Wrote about the future and financial markets with Wall St legend Richard Russell

2013-2014

Advisor to the School of Design, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, Co-Creation and Creativity

2011-2013

Mind Fund, Co-Founder and Managing Partner. Invested in California-based start ups and also early investor in Bytedance (most valuable start up in the world)

2009-2011

UBS, Executive Director, Equities, Hong Kong

2008-2009

Edge Capital, Portfolio Manager

2002-2007

Nomura Securities, Senior Executive Manager (Equivalent to a Managing Director),. Trusted advisor to CIOs and Fund Managers around the world. Tokyo and Hong Kong.

1999-2002

Morgan Stanley, New graduate program trained in New York City and sent to Tokyo. Equities Department.

1997-1998

Monbusho Scholar, University of Osaka – Wrote a Dissertation in Japanese about the Asian Financial Crisis

1995-1999

SOAS, University of London, Japanese and Economics

1993-1995

Kings College London, Dickson Poon School of Law

1987-1993

Embley Park School (now Hampshire Collegiate School)

How my experience helps you?

My experience is that many people are confused about the future as we face several tsunamis of change. Clearly as the age of Robots and AI is upon us many are fearful about their jobs. But its so much more than that. Exponential technologies will affect every facet of our lives and the world of 2030 is going to be very different from today. In addition, political and social tsunamis of change are upon us. Our old institutions are no longer capable of functioning in the emerging new world. 

My experience in exploring the future could be useful as you endeavour to look forwards and imagine tomorrow’s world. And perhaps more importantly, to guide you on your journey into the future. I have been coaching and advising leaders throughout my career on how to deal with uncertainty and the psychology of change. I have come to realise that finding your unique purpose and passion in life, is not merely a luxury but essential in these challenging times.

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