Partner
Forbes Banister
Mr. Friedman is a Partner at Forbes Banister, a new venture under the Forbes brand disrupting the search and recruiting landscape by fusing together a media and branding platform with talent acquisition. Mr. Friedman leads the focus at Forbes Banister on Family Offices (both single and multi), Private Wealth Platforms, Luxury Brands and Non-profits.
As a serial entrepreneur and pioneer in the wealth intelligence and data space, Mr. Friedman is considered one of the world’s leading experts and authority on the global ultra affluent and high net worth market. Mr. Friedman is a noted and sought after speaker on trends impacting the ultra affluent along with strategies for accessing and engaging them. Mr. Friedman has been and is frequently quoted in the media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, Investment News, Forbes and The Telegraph, and has been a frequent guest contributor on such broadcasts as CNBC, BBC, FOX, CNN, and Bloomberg.
Mr. Friedman Co-Founded Wealth-X, the world’s only global ultra affluent data and intelligence platform where he and his co-founder (former Chief Information Officer of Forbes Media) successfully sold a majority stake to Insight Venture Partners ($20B NYC based private equity fund) and where their clients included the top global brands in finance, luxury
and non-profits. WX is currently owned by Euromoney and is the center data piece of their people intelligence strategy.
Mr. Friedman subsequently started WealthQuotient to empower the same top global grands in implementing data-driven word-of-mouth referral based methodologies and systems for new ultra affluent client and donor acquisition.
Mr. Friedman invests, advises and operates a portfolio of venture businesses revolving around the high net worth and ultra high net worth market. The current Friedman Ventures portfolio includes: Luxus.co (IPO securitization platform for luxury items including diamonds backed by Christies, Veronica Beard, Belinda Johnson), Kinnect (family office
communications and data aggregation platform), Windfall Data (wealth data screening platform), SafeGraph (location based data platform), Uloop/YikYak (online social media platform for colleges and universities), Respada (family office deal and asset reporting platform representing over $200B in aggregate wealth) and Eclipse (data privacy platform for
ultra affluent in partnership with the leading security firm Concentric).
Prior to Wealth-X, Mr. Friedman spent several years as Managing Director of the Global Consulting Group at CB Richard Ellis advising global Fortune 500 companies on their location strategies as well as sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America on billion dollar real estate development projects related to economic growth strategies. His client portfolio included the Saudi Royal Family, Bahraini Government, Kuwait Finance House, the Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund, Jumeriah Capital and the Government of Puerto Rico.
Mr. Friedman started his career at Oxford Analytica, the world’s leading geopolitical analysis and declassified intelligence firm founded by his mentor Dr. David Young, former special assistant to Kissinger in the Nixon White House. Mr. Friedman also currently serves on their Advisory Board and Oxford Analytica was recently acquired by
FiscalNote, a unicorn technology company based in DC. Mr. Friedman continues to serve on the Advisory Board.
Mr. Friedman graduated magna cum laude from Wheaton College with a bachelors in Political Science and received High Honors with his Masters Degree in Philosophical Theology and Ethics from Yale Divinity School where he completed his thesis on the ethics of public discourse and the role of religious arguments in the public square.