Mark Donohue Keynote Fireside Chat with Josh Constine, Editor, TechCrunch: "A Leading Pioneer in Impact Entrepreneurship Discusses the Future & History of Impact"

WASHINGTON and PARK CITY, Utah, March 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --Sundance Film Festival -- From its modern day roots in 60's cultural and environmental movement, the "Impact Entrepreneurship" and "Social Entrepreneurship" Megatrend has rapidly grown in breadth, such as Corporate Social Responsibility officers in enterprises (CSR), the Environment+Social+Governance (ESG) movement, the emergence of B-Corporations & Public Benefit Corporations, the "Giving Pledge" of many billionaires, and Climate Change awareness throughout all society. Mr. Donohue's 45-minute interview spanned areas like: the Past and Future of Sustainability, Impact Investing, meditation and "Appreciative Inquiry" as wise practices in business, and a broader "evolutionary perspective" on our current era in humanity's progress.

Mr. Donohue brings a seasoned perspective, having committed his life, as a student at Babson College in the late 80's, to specializing in "Triple Bottom Line" enterprise (People+Profit+Planet). Early in his career, he was mentored by visionary leaders, such as Dr. Hazel Henderson, Barbara Marx Hubbard, William Cruickshank Jr., Ram Dass and the Social Venture Circle community, which he joined in 1992 as it youngest member, then rose to Chair of the Membership Committee by 1999.

During the last five years, Mr. Donohue has focused on "exponential technologies" and their impact on solving the world's most pressing problems. Exponential technologies are those growing in power/impact at the rate of speed defined by Moore's Law, such as super-computing, AI, the materials genome, medical diagnostics, and communications. For 20 years, Mr. Donohue has envisioned that: "Rapid technological acceleration in our ability to track, repair and regenerate, the failings of human society, in areas like the environment, potable water for all, or access to education, will ultimately overcome the extraordinary breadth of crisis created by humanity." As he states, "In this era of Exponential Creativity, the key to a positive outcome for humanity is learning to use our new powers with wisdom and empathy." At the core, humans are fundamentally designed to "have purpose beyond self," and not be solely self-interested, so Mr. Donohue believes that "we can create a future commensurate with our full potential."

Given our societal imperative to accelerate empathy, reduce suffering and create more "Culture of Caring," Mr. Donohue founded LifeGuides, a Public Benefit Corporation, in 2016. The enterprise has the goal to reduce suffering/struggle for 1B within 15 years, as it becomes the largest for-profit accelerator of human empathy. The company's Mission Statement is: "Growing a Platform for Caring People to do Extraordinary Good."

During his interview with Josh Constine, Editor at TechCrunch, Mark asked, "How do we apply our new technologies, and our awakened states, to solve our biggest challenges?" In this respect, Donohue continued:  "Most human suffering, except for old age, in developed economies, come from significant 'Life Challenges,' such as dementia of a parent, natural disaster loss, divorce or opiate addiction of a loved-one. LifeGuides was created to use society's unlimited 'life experience,' and innate caring, to help each other through life's challenges." As Donohue's business partner, Will Bunker, founder of Match.com stated: "Like Match.com pairs people for love, LifeGuides pairs someone in the midst of a Life Challenge, to a 'Guide,' who has successfully navigated the identical life event."

LifeGuides uses existing exponential communication technologies to create extraordinary results, which are human to human, and not technology trying to replace humans. Mr. Donohue continued: "Life Experience is arguably the most valuable asset on the planet, yet we vastly under utilize it. Technology cannot replace our fundamental drive for human-to-human sharing of knowledge, empathy and connection, so LifeGuides creates well-matched and timely human connections in life's most challenging moments, which are supported by our cutting-edge Intelligence Assistance™ platform."

LifeGuides will primarily scale through adoption by leading businesses, that choose to affordably reduce Presenteeism Loss, Enhance Employee Retention, foster greater Creativity & Vitality, and advance a "Culture of Caring." 

In January 2019, LifeGuides was awarded the "Abundance Impact Challenge" Grand Prize from Peter Diamandis, the Abundance 360 leadership "mastermind" and Singularity University, which is a "Davos" for visionary leaders in exponential technologies. See press release: https://tinyurl.com/y5jl9p8q

A few of Mark's recent and forthcoming speaking engagements include:

• "Choosing Purpose and Playing Big -- During an Era of Exponential Creativity" presented at Nexus Global, March 7, 2019, at the Institute for Peace, Washington, DC. See: https://nexusglobal.org/usa2019/
• "Embracing the Future's Goals" conference at Babson College, March 29, 2019. This is the 13th annual Sustainability Forum, which Mr. Donohue Co-Founded. See: https://www.bseclub.org/babsonforum
• "The Future of Entrepreneurship: Living in Exponential Creativity" featured at: Singularity University's Global Executive Summit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS0CXxaziyc
• NEXUS Global presentation at the United Nations, New York City, July, 2018: "Scalable Learning Models of Regenerative Design"
• The Power of Exponential Entrepreneurship with Barbara Marx Hubbard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLerjJw5EvA  
• A panoramic interview by Barbara Marx Hubbard on the "Awakening of a New Species" series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r82Az1xm9b0&feature=youtu.be

To request more info about LifeGuides, or to connect further with Mark Donohue for speaking engagements or podcasts, please see below. 

Links: 
Please visit: https://lifeguides.com 

Video interview:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hTe5FLHw0sArx3WmC32pz-5ysE0V8yEr/view

About Mark Donohue
Mark has specialized in "impact" enterprises, "conscious capitalism" and "triple bottom line" economics for 30 years. His passion is to bring regenerative, healing and sustainable models to much-greater scale in our world.  He is an expert in sales, strategy, design, teaching, consumer products and finance.

He was Entrepreneur-in-Residence for over five years, and subsequently Senior Fellow in Social Innovation, at Babson College, which is consistently #1-rated in the world for Entrepreneurship education. In January of 2011, Mr. Donohue was honored as one of the "Top 100 American Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior," by the organization Trust Across America.

Mark's past roles have included: Chairman & Founder of a Silicon Valley $100M+ venture fund; Chairman & CEO of a 200-employee pharmaceuticals enterprise; President of a $100M revenue e-commerce company; CEO of a NASDAQ member Investment Bank, Professor of Entrepreneurship (adjunct) at Babson College, Technology Strategist for a $30B PE/VC fund group, and Board roles for a dozen businesses, including Chair of a 240-employee Internet-of-Things enterprise.

In the non-profit realm, he has served on Boards including: Babson College, the Social Venture Network, The Temple of Understanding (USA's oldest interfaith education organization), and as Treasurer of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution.

SOURCE LifeGuides