About DAVID SHRIER
My Work
I focus on how technologies can solve big problems at scale in business and society. This is expressed across academia, private sector work, and government advisory.
My Background
David Shrier is a futurist and innovation catalyst with expertise in artificial intelligence, data/analytics, fintech, digital identity, cybersecurity, and collaborative innovation. He leads venture studio Visionary Future LLC, helping Global 2000 companies create breakout growth as well as incubating new technology-enabled businesses.
David is a Senior Advisor to Dandelion Science, an AI healthtech company that treats the brain as a data processing engine to address mental health issues. Via his foundry activities in Visionary Future, he serves as Chairman of Phorum.AI, a computational chemistry company optimizing pharmaceuticals manufacturing with generative AI and ORBU.AI, a prediction intelligence company;.
David previously led an oversubscribed SPAC IPO onto the NYSE, followed by its successful deSPAC onto the NASDAQ by merging with GRIID Infrastructure (GRDI), weathering one of the worst SPAC markets since the inception of the asset class, while operating within a rapidly-evolving and complex regulatory context. GRIID was sold to CleanSpark in October 2024.
David holds an appointment as Professor of Practice, Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London, and is a Visiting Scholar with the GEAR Lab at the School of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For Imperial, he leads the Trusted AI Alliance, a multi-institutional consortium dedicated to creating responsible and trustworthy AI, and teaches the AI Ventures and Fintech Strategy modules.
He previously was an Associate Fellow with Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and a Lecturer & Futurist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he also held positions as Managing Director, Connection Science and New Ventures Officer, MIT Sloan. David specializes in helping established organizations to build new revenue and new markets. Notable engagements include Kyriba, Dun & Bradstreet, Wolters Kluwer, Ernst & Young, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, GE/NBC, The Walt Disney Company, AOL Verizon, and Starwood, as well as private equity funds. He has led a number of private equity and venture capital-backed companies as CEO, CFO or COO, in either interim or full-time capacities, and has cofounded four AI-enabled MIT spinout enterprises.
David sat on the European Parliament's advisory committee for artificial intelligence, having provided input into the EU AI Act. He served as a founding member of the FinTech Industry Committee for FINRA, the U.S. securities industry's self-regulatory body; advisor to the European Parliament on distributed ledger applications and policy; a senior advisor to Revenue & Customs (UK HMRC), and on the Fintech Trade & Investment Steering Board for the Department of International Trade. He also informally engages with OECD, Bank of England, FCA, SEC, US Treasury, and FDIC on innovation, cybersecurity, digital identity, blockchain, and AI. David also served on the advisory board of WorldQuant University, a program offering a totally-free, accredited, online Master’s degree in financial engineering.
David has previously counseled the Commonwealth of Nations (the 53 countries formerly comprising the British Empire) on fintech and innovation policy, having served as principal author on their 2020 Commonwealth Fintech Toolkit; was a member of the European Commission-affiliated High Level Group on citizenship innovation; Copper Technologies (UK) Ltd, a markets infrastructure provider for institutional crypto trading, during its growth from Series A to Series C unicorn valuation; Millennium Advisors, a middle market credit liquidity provider, on founder succession, growth strategy, corporate culture, and technology trends; helped realign strategy for Mode Global Holdings plc (LSE: MODE), one of only three FCA-licensed crypto wallet providers, as a non-executive director; the Government of Dubai on blockchain and digital identity; the OECD, on blockchain policy and standards; and the European Commission on commercializing innovation across Europe.
His most recent book, Basic AI: A Human Guide to Artificial Intelligence (in the US, as Welcome to AI) was published in 2024 by Little Brown and Harvard Business Publishing.
David and MIT Professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland have published books including Global Fintech (2022 MIT Press; winner of Outstanding Academic Title from the American Library Association's Choice Awards), as well as Trusted Data (2019 MIT Press), New Solutions for Cybersecurity (2018 MIT Press), Frontiers of Financial Technology, and Trust::Data. David’s monographs include Basic Blockchain (2020), Augmenting Your Career (2021), both with Little Brown, and Basic Metaverse (2023) from Little Brown and Harvard Business Publishing.
David’s writing has appeared on the UN website, in CNBC.com, Newsweek.com, Forbes.com and Coindesk.com, and he also co-edits, together with Professor Pentland, the Connection Science imprint of MIT Press. He was named 2018 Global Fintech Person of the Year by Fintech Galaxy, a Refinitiv Top 100 Social Influencer in Financial Technology, and listed on One World Identity’s Top 100 People for both 2017 and 2019.
David Shrier was granted an Sc.B. from Brown University in Biology and Theatre, and worked professionally in theatre after college.
