Marina Gorbis

Executive Director, Institute for the Future

Marina Gorbis is Executive Director of the Institute for the Future (IFTF), a 50-year old non-profit research and consulting organization based in Silicon Valley. She has brought a futures perspective to hundreds of organizations in business, education, government, philanthropy, and civic society. Marina’s current research focuses on transformations in the world of work and new forms of value creation. She launched the Workable Futures Initiative at IFTF with the aim of developing a deeper understanding of new work patterns and to prototype a generation of Positive Platforms for work. She has introduced the concept of Universal Basic Assets (UBA) as a framework for thinking about different types of assets and the role they play in economic security. The UBA framework also highlights at a variety of approaches and tools we can use to achieve wider asset distribution and greater equity.

Marina’s book, The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World explores many of these themes and draws connections between the changes in our technology infrastructure and our organizational landscape, from education to governance and health. She frequently writes and speaks on future organizational, technology, and social issues.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in public policy from University of California, Berkeley.