Keynote SpeakerJose Cordeiro

José Luis Cordeiro is a world citizen. He was born in Latin America to European parents, was educated in Europe and North America, and has worked extensively in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. He has studied, visited and worked in over 130 countries in 5 continents.

Mr. Cordeiro received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering, with a minor in Economics and Languages, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He later studied International Economics and Comparative Politics at Georgetown University in Washington, USA, and then obtained his Masters of Business Administration at the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD) in Fontainebleau, France, where he majored in Finance and Globalization. He started his doctoral work at MIT, which he continued later in Tokyo, Japan, and finally received his PhD at Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela.

For several years, Mr. Cordeiro served as an advisor for many of the major oil companies in the world, including Agip, BP, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, PDVSA, Pemex, Petrobras, Repsol, Shell and Total. Later, in Paris, he initiated his relationship with the international consulting company Booz-Allen & Hamilton, where he specialized in the areas of strategy, finance and restructuring. In Latin America, he has served as an advisor for some of the most important regional corporations and has taken part in the transformation and privatization of a number of oil companies in the continent. His experience and studies in monetary policy, currency boards, dollarization and monetary unions have taken him to participate in several monetary changes in Latin America and Eastern Europe.

At present, he is chair of the Venezuelan Node of the Millennium Project, Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies in Tokyo, Japan, and Energy Advisor and Faculty at Singularity University in NASA Ames, Silicon Valley, USA. He has lectured as an Invited Professor at several major institutions, from MIT in the USA and Sophia University in Japan to the Institute for Higher Studies in Administration and the Central University of Venezuela, where he created the first formal courses of Futures Studies (“Prospectiva”) and Austrian School of Economics in Venezuela.

Mr. Cordeiro is founder and president emeritus of the World Future Society (Venezuela Chapter, Sociedad Mundial del Futuro Venezuela), director of the Single Global Currency Association and the Lifeboat Foundation and co-founder of the Venezuelan Transhumanist Association and of the Internet Society. He is also board advisor to the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology and member of the Academic Committee of the Center for the Dissemination of Economic Knowledge.

Thanks to his extensive work in technological foresight, futures studies, globalization, economic integration, long-term development, energy, education and monetary policy, Mr. Cordeiro has authored and co-authored several books. El Desafío Latinoamericano, his first book, is a continental bestseller originally published by McGraw-Hill and is used in more than 100 universities in the hemisphere. His most recent books are Crisis: (Financial) Danger and (Monetary) Opportunity with Spanish economist Ramón Tamames and Latinoamérica 2030 with the Millennium Project. He has written more than 10 books and co-written over 20 more in five languages, including sections of the State of the Future with the Millennium Project.

Mr. Cordeiro has a fortnightly opinion column in the largest and most prestigious Venezuelan general newspaper (El Universal) and has also written and has been interviewed in major media (press, radio and TV) including ABC, BBC,CNN, El Comercio (Ecuador), El Comercio (Peru), El Tiempo (Colombia), El Universal (Venezuela), Los Andes (Argentina),O Estado de Sao Paulo (Brazil), Mainichi Shimbun (Japan Daily News), La Tribune (France), The New York Times. He has also filmed documentaries with Discovery Channel and the History Channel.