Safi is a former public-company CEO, physicist, award-winning entrepreneur, author of the international bestseller Loonshots, and widely regarded speaker and advisor on innovation and strategy.
Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries - which combines physics, business, and history - has been translated into 18 languages and was the #1 most recommended book of the year in Bloomberg’s annual survey of CEOs and entrepreneurs. Loonshots was selected as a best business book of the year by Amazon, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, Inc., Newsweek, Strategy + Business, Tech Crunch, the Washington Post, and many others; and has been recommended by Bill Gates, Daniel Kahneman, Malcolm Gladwell, Tim Ferriss, Gen. (ret) Stanley McChrystal, and more.
Safi received his BA from Harvard summa cum laude, completed his PhD in physics at Stanford, and served for three years as a consultant at McKinsey and Company. In 2001, he founded a biotechnology company developing new drugs for cancer. He led the company's IPO and served as its CEO for 13 years. In 2008, he was named E&Y New England Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he worked with President Obama’s council of science advisors (PCAST) on the future of national research.
Testimonials from his keynotes at Fortune 500 companies include: "One of the best keynote speeches I have ever heard"; "The positive feedback we have received has been overwhelming"; "The best content, best delivered of all the sessions - the only one where totally immersed engagement was the default rather than something that took effort."