Mark Beam

As the youngest EVP at Sanwa Bank in New York, I was responsible for managing big egos and billion dollar trading portfolios. It offered me an extraordinary vantage point for understanding our international financial system, how wealth is created and destroyed and how a powerful culture influences lives. In 1994 I departed Wall Street in search of other key levers, disciplines and cultures for creating a more positive impact. 

I started in San Francisco just as the Web was born where I produced a pivotal event series drawing technology’s greatest innovators across disciplines to focus on the impact technology would have on society and culture (New Minds, San Francisco 1997-98); seeing then how important interdisciplinary collaboration was in the innovation process, I started two art-science-technology networks in both the US (Creative Disturbance (1998-present), and Canada (Circuit4 (2000-2005); 

Understanding how business really can improve lives and be a pillar for a new economy, I then co-founded the largest gathering of social entrepreneurs and impact investors in the world - the Social Capital Markets Conference (SOCAP 2008-present); and helped make the case to the White House and government agencies to accelerate the supply of impact investment capital. This work helped catalyze the formation of Startup America and the creation of a billion dollar SBA Impact fund. (Enterprise Innovation Fund - Obama Administration 2008-10). 

Finding myself at the center of a growing movement, I became an impact investor and co-designed and co-developed a pioneering philanthropic and impact investment organization with a portfolio in the U.S. Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, India & Africa (Halloran Philanthropies 2008-present); Working from an emerging market context in southern Mexico, I also co-founded a co-working space for social entrepreneurs, now one of nearly 100 international Impact Hub spaces and an 11,000 member global network in 48 countries (Impact Hub Oaxaca 2009-present);  

My experience in Mexico solidified my belief that culture is the most powerful catalyst for change. As an entrepreneur this led me to form a music & arts festival and platform for social innovation in Mexico to inspire youth to solve their own communities challenges (CATAPULTA 2013-present). 

Today I am focused on co-creating the field of Future Architecture as we usher in the “era of regeneration,” a contemporary cultural renaissance, rebirth and a return to the land beneath us. Here Native Peoples have never wavered in aligning their way of life and the rituals of the every day to the principles revealed by nature. In the era of regeneration this means renewing ourselves - an act of transformation - while creating the scaffolding and social fabric for the new regenerative systems that will sustain us.

Working with mentor and partner Bob Berkebile we created Heartland P5 in Kansas City employing urban acupuncture and regenerative approaches to renewing vital resources and community assets in our local and global environment to rebuild our soil, restore our earth’s water and carbon cycle while increasing the vitality, diversity and resilience of our bioregions. Our first interventions center on regenerative food & agriculture and eco-industrial resiliency in the Blue River Valley watershed working to support and complement the work of our community partners.

beaming is a future architecture studio.

We integrate the creativity and experimentation you find in an art studio with a laboratory for regenerating systems. We do this by co-creating “studio’ lab” environments with partners and clients to co-create the conditions for systems change. By establishing a regenerative culture working directly with individuals, groups and communities to co-design and build shared futures, we allow innovation to emerge from the essence and potential of the stakeholders involved. Our vision is ultimately to build a network of StudioLabs in university adjacent environments, partnering with a local university, local leaders and organizations, corporations, financial institutions - bridging ecological, community, business and financial scales. 

I am a founding partner in One Thriving Planet, member of the Board of Directors and leadership team of the Guild of Future Architects and former Board Member of the Buckminster Fuller Institute and the Leonardo Journal.

We call Kansas City and Oaxaca Mexico home.