JUAN ENRIQUEZ

As the Future Catches You

March 18 at 7:30pm · Mountainlair Ballroom

Juan Enriquez is the director of the Harvard Business School Life Science Project, where he is building an interdisciplinary center focusing on how business will change as a result of the life sciences revolution. He lives at the intersection of science, economics, and public policy. Author of As the Future Catches You: How Genomics and Other Forces Are Changing Your Life, Your Work, Your Investments, Your World, Enriquez puts you face to face with a series of unprecedented political, ethical, economic, and financial issues, dramatically demonstrating the cascading effect of the genetic, digital, and knowledge revolutions on your life.

Enriquez examines the interplay between technology, economics, politics and the rise of “life sciences.” He has received the prestigious McKinsey Award for his article “Transforming Life, Transforming Business.” This award, judged by an independent panel of leaders in the business world, recognizes the two best articles published each year in the Harvard Business Review, which are likely to have a major influence on the actions of business managers worldwide.

Genetics, according to Enriquez, will be the dominant language of this century. Most countries and individuals remain illiterate in what is rapidly becoming the greatest single driver of the global economy. Enriquez’s main point is that technology is not kind; it does not say “please,” but slams into existing systems and destroys them while creating new ones. Countries and individuals can either surf new and powerful waves of change, or get crushed trying to stop them. Wealth will be more concentrated, and those with knowledge to sell will be the winners.

Enriquez has written more than a dozen Harvard Business School case studies as well as articles for various publications, including Science, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and Trends in Biotechnology. He is a contributing editor of The Journal of Biolaw and Business and has written op-ed pieces for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Boston Globe. In addition to his writing, Enriquez has held a number of positions at Harvard, including senior researcher at the Business School, fellow at the Center for International Affairs, and researcher at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

He has also served on many boards of various organizations, including the genetics advisory council of the Harvard Medical School. Enriquez was the CEO of Mexico City’s Urban Development Corporation and the coordinator of economic policy and chief of staff for Mexico’s secretary of state. He was also a member of the Peace Commission that negotiated the cease-fire in Chiapa’s Zapatista rebellion.