Open Future Forum

Open Future Forum is a global executive membership community founded in Silicon Valley in 2019 by Murray Newlands. It describes itself as a community built on the philosophy of giving, explicitly borrowing from Adam Grant's Give and Take: members give first and keep score never. Its network is said to reach tens of thousands of executives and investors worldwide, spanning CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, CISOs, private equity leaders, founders, investors, and AI leaders. The organization runs a year-round calendar of programming in two distinct formats. Forum Select consists of invitation-only private gatherings, primarily dinners, designed for C-suite executives and board directors who need a confidential space to think out loud. Forum Events are open panels and gatherings aimed at the broader AI and tech community in Silicon Valley, where knowledge flows freely and, in the organization's framing, nobody is working an angle. Beyond events, Open Future Forum convenes peer groups and executive boards and publishes original research built on first-party survey and qualitative data drawn from its executive network. Membership in Forum Select is invitation-only and carries no membership fee. The organization outlines three routes in: attending a Forum Event and behaving generously, receiving a referral from a current member, or sending founder Murray Newlands a personal connection request on LinkedIn with a brief note. Newlands reviews every inquiry personally. Sponsorship of Forum Events is also offered, positioning sponsors inside the room and signaling to the community that they are the reason it exists. Speaking opportunities are available for those with genuine insight to share, with an emphasis on honest conversations rather than keynote decks. Since 2019, Open Future Forum has convened executive gatherings with speakers including Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri, and Peter Norvig, formerly of Google and NASA. It has partnered with organizations including Microsoft, Google, Meta, SAP, Khosla Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank. The community is closely associated with its founder: Murray Newlands is also a Partner at IA Seed Ventures, a former C-level executive at Turing.com, a contributor to Forbes, Inc., Time, Entrepreneur, The Guardian, Business Insider, and Mashable, and the author of Online Marketing: A User's Manual (Wiley). He has a large following on X and Substack and speaks at enterprise-focused conferences such as AI4. Open Future Forum operates as a private organization rather than a publicly listed company. Its positioning sits at the intersection of executive networking, community building, and AI-era thought leadership, with a stated conviction that givers create more value than they capture and that the leaders who shape an era are those with the best, most generous networks.

Open Future Forum was founded in Silicon Valley in 2019 by Murray Newlands, a Silicon Valley investor, operator, and community builder who is also a Partner at IA Seed Ventures and a former C-level executive at Turing.com. Newlands's stated conviction was that the leaders who shape an era are not the ones with the most resources but the ones with the best networks, and that the best networks are the most generous ones. He founded Open Future Forum to build trusted rooms for senior leaders. The organization grew out of that premise into a global executive community whose network is said to reach tens of thousands of executives and investors worldwide. Its programming was structured around two formats: Forum Select, invitation-only private gatherings such as dinners for C-suite executives and board directors, and Forum Events, open panels and gatherings for the broader AI and tech community in Silicon Valley. The community's operating philosophy is explicitly borrowed from Adam Grant's Give and Take: members give first and keep score never. Since 2019, Open Future Forum has convened executive gatherings with speakers including Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri, and Peter Norvig, formerly of Google and NASA. It has worked with partners including Microsoft, Google, Meta, SAP, Khosla Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank. Beyond events, the organization convenes peer groups and executive boards and publishes original research built on first-party survey and qualitative data from its executive network. Membership in Forum Select is invitation-only and carries no membership fee. The organization describes three paths in: attending a Forum Event and behaving generously, receiving a referral from a current member, or sending founder Murray Newlands a personal connection request on LinkedIn with a brief note about who the applicant is, what they are working on, and why they would belong in the room. Newlands reviews every inquiry personally. Sponsorship of Forum Events and speaking opportunities are also offered, with sponsorship positioned as a way to be in the room and signal to the community that the sponsor is the reason it exists, and speaking positioned around honest conversations rather than keynote decks. As of the mid-2020s, Open Future Forum continues to operate as a private organization rather than a publicly listed company, with its identity closely tied to its founder and to the AI-era executive audience it serves.

• 2019

  Open Future Forum is founded in Silicon Valley by Murray Newlands.

• Forum Select, an invitation-only private gathering format for C-suite executives and board directors, is established.

• Forum Events, open panels and gatherings for the broader AI and tech community, are established.

• Executive gatherings are convened with speakers including Adam Cheyer and Peter Norvig, and partners including Microsoft, Google, Meta, SAP, Khosla Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank.

An invitation-only, give-first executive community for C-suite leaders, board directors, and senior investors active in the AI era, combining private gatherings, open events, peer groups, and original research.

• Forum Select

  Invitation-only private gatherings, primarily dinners, for C-suite executives and board directors who need a confidential space to think out loud. No membership fee.

• Forum Events

  Open panels and gatherings in Silicon Valley for the broader AI and tech community, where knowledge flows freely.

• Peer groups and executive boards

  Convened peer groups and executive boards for senior leaders.

• Original research

  Research built on first-party survey and qualitative data from the executive network.

1. 1Open Future Forum | Global Executive Community Founded in Silicon Valleyopenfutureforum.com
2. 2About Murray Newlands · Open Future Forumopenfutureforum.com
3. 3Apply · Get in the Room · Open Future Forumopenfutureforum.com
4. 4Open Future Forumwikidata.org