Peaceful isolation on the edge of a Nature preserve. For anyone, single, couple or small family seeking refuge from the mainland. After a 20-year journalism career, a 5,000-mile solo sail, and learning a futures-oriented approach to business that he applied for a decade on Wall Street, Eric founded Best Partners SC, to bring his unique style of research, thought and engagement to clients of all st
ripes. Eric began his sailing life in Penobscot Bay cruising and racing with his father along the New England coast. In 1988, Eric embarked on a 5000-mile solo sail from San Francisco to Hawaii and back aboard a 47-foot ketch that inspired two books: "Into My Father's Wake," chronicles his solo sailing journey to put his powerful father to rest; "The Deep," is a whimsical children's story about imagination and the ocean. Best joined the core group that developed Global Business Network from a startup in the early 1990s to the preeminent scenario-planning consultancy in the United States. Among the clients for whom he developed strategic scenarios were Motorola, Monsanto, Homestake Mining, Price Waterhouse, Andersen Consulting and the CIA. In 1996 Eric began a decade on Wall Street after Morgan Stanley, a global investment bank, asked him to apply his scenario approach to determine what the Internet might mean to financial services. He was subsequently hired to explore the futures of Japan, Europe, China, capital markets, hedge funds, and currencies for their impact on international capital markets. As a Managing Director he worked for a wide range of investment banking clients on specific strategic issues (asset management, Y2K, EMU, the future of warfare, terrorism, etc.) His approach was credited with saving Morgan Stanley $1.2 billion in one acquisition it avoided in Japan. In 2006 Eric founded Best Partners S.C. to apply his developed techniques for clients across a wide range of industries. Eric's engagement approach combines a journalist's research and in-depth interviews with executive coaching and scenario-based workshops. Best Partners SC has helped top executives, individuals, boards of directors and operating committees clarify strategic objectives in the face of complexity and uncertainty and move to concerted action. Most recently he has helped a global banking client shape its $1.4 billion transformation approach to information technology, consulted to the Pacific Pension Institute on global scenarios, and developed scenarios for a Swiss client to help understand the European sovereign debt crisis and its potential business impacts. In the wake of the 2007-8 financial crisis, Eric believes that many historical correlations are open to question and forces of change are unfolding faster than ever, requiring much greater flexibility and speed to survive. He considers US-China relations and leadership at all levels to be among the most important challenges facing US politics, corporate performance and global development. Eric attended the Stanford University graduate program in fiction and creative writing after completing his bachelors at Hamilton College (1970). His 20-year newspaper career included the Lowell Sun, the Stockton California Record, USA Today and the San Francisco Examiner. He won a 1983 Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, where he studied the nature of capitalism and economic behaviors. Eric divides his time between a home in Carmel, NY and aboard Feo at Liberty Park Marina in Jersey City, New Jersey, in the frequent company of his three children, Emily, William and Isabel. He is working on a new book on Wall Street capitalism. Eric Best is an author, speaker and strategic consultant - a professional intervenor in an organization's or individual's thinking process. What we think about influences what we talk about - and vice versa - and these engage with our deeper feelings to determine what we actually decide to do (or not to do.) An open inquiry into uncertainty - if undertaken with courage and candor - will lead to invaluable insights for individuals and enterprises. Your appetite for risk in thought and in action will significantly shape your future.
