Meet the Futurians

Futurians gather at inflection points in time, using their leverage to shift the world to a more favorable axis.  Futurians are leaders, thinkers, and creatives with a vision for a bluer, greener future, and catalyze the actions needed to realize that future.

Welcome Futurians.  

You are home now.

Founding Futurians

Dave Hanley

Dave Hanley is a seasoned technology executive and serial entrepreneur with 15 years of P&L management and three successful exits. He has founded and scaled companies across AI, fintech, insurtech, healthtech, and digital media, selling ventures to Amazon, Deloitte, and Ethos Life.

Currently COO and Co-founder of Remitz, Dave has grown the company from concept to a 60-person organization with 100+ customers and $100M+ in potential revenue in just one year, raising $4M in pre-product funding and building scalable sales and operational systems.

Previously, he founded Tomorrow (acquired by Ethos Life), making financial security accessible to over 600,000 Americans, and led Banyan Branch, a social media marketing agency acquired by Deloitte, serving clients like Intel, Microsoft, Disney, and Porsche. He also grew Shelfari into a 2M+ user community before its acquisition by Amazon and held product leadership roles at RealNetworks’ Rhapsody Music Service.

A Stanford Business School graduate and Fulbright Scholar, Dave worked with Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus on global microfinance initiatives and was recognized as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. He serves on multiple boards and continues to drive innovation in technology, creating solutions that transform industries and deliver customer and shareholder value.

Georgie Benardete

Georgie Benardete is a global expert in impact investing, with extensive experience as an entrepreneur, investor, thought leader and executive.  She repeatedly acts as a catalyst, enabling partners and portfolio companies to access knowledge, capital and network to extend their global impact and improve the state of the world.

As CEO of Align17, she founded and leads a private digital platform where clients can access vetted Impact Investing opportunities alongside some of the world’s top investment groups. Align17 was founded in partnership with UBS Private Wealth, as part of their efforts to mobilize clients’ capital into achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Through Align17, she has invested millions into the industries of the future.

A Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum, Georgie is a globally respected impact thought leader. Her ability to mobilize her global connections to co-create global collaboration is unparalleled. A creative polymath, Georgie’s breadth of knowledge expands from deep finance and business, to entrepreneurship, technology, and sustainability. With a global trusted network that cuts across sectors, she uncovers future trends and supports their mass adoption. She has advised CEOs, governments, and banks in their climate-proofing strategies, and passionately helps leaders uncover their true purpose and potential.

Georgie’s career spans from Wall Street at JPMorgan Latin America Investment Banking, to the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and consulting at Coopers & Lybrand in the US and Argentina. She is Chairwoman of the Fourth Sector Group, and Board Emeritus of the Global Entrepreneurs Council of Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation. Benardete co-Founded Yesilist.com, Turkey’s largest green portal, and is part of Al Gore’s Climate Project as a speaker on climate change. 

Georgie is a founding member of the Fast Company Impact Council and sits on the Investment Committee of Belle Capital, an early-stage VC fund that promotes investments in companies with strong female leadership. She was part of the Advisory Board of the WEF’s Young Global Leaders and is a Founding Curator of the WEFs Global Shapers Hubs in San Juan and New York City.

Georgie is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and received her Masters in Science of Foreign Service, with honours, from Georgetown University. She has coursed executive programs in Harvard and Oxford.

Where does Futurian come from?

At the start of 2020, a group of Futurians gathered in Davos Switzerland to kick off a decade of incredible positive change.  From among the leaders of the world came those whose resources, experience, power, art and spirit can truly change the world.  Founding Futurian Georgie Benardete shared these words that night:

The time is now at hand, where those who are going to the future must gather together.  We must envision an Earth of resplendent natural beauty and create the path from today to that sustainable, rich destiny.
 
The Futurians have labored in worlds temporal and etherial, as artists, investors, creators, conjurers, conservationists, and leaders.  And now it is time for each of you to see one other eye to eye.  The time travelers, the eternal beings and the earthlings committed to positivity... come and see that you are not alone, but are instead united with fellow titans who are ready to build a greener, bluer world.

                          ~ Georgie

The year that followed was one of chaos and cocooning, hardship and wonder.  Now the Futurians emerge from that year with the selves centered, minds unleashed, and potential understood, allowing for the unfolding of the Renaissance that will heal the world and its inhabitants.  

And once again Georgie and Dave call upon the Futurians to unite in the common cause of forging that greener, bluer world.  And they are here to help you.