Yobie Benjamin is an Ernst and Young, LLP general partner and Chief Technology Officer responsible for providing strategic technology directions to E&Y's most significant clients.
He was formerly an Ernst and Young Distinguished Fellow responsible for eCommerce, capital markets, new business models and venture capital. Yobie was also the former chief of global strategy for Ernst and Young LLP's (Consulting Services now known as Cap Gemini / Ernst and Young) eCommerce and and emerging technologies practice. Yobie's expertise is in the areas of emerging technologies, the internet, distributed computing, information security, business models, and electronic commerce. He is responsible for providing strategic technology, business direction and advice to Ernst and Young's largest clients.
Yobie's clients include: AOL/Time Warner, First Data Corporation, General Motors, Sprint, AG Edwards, Merrill Lynch, Coke, SBC, Fleming Foods, BP/Amoco, GE (Honeywell / formerly Allied Signal), Boeing, Walt Disney, Ford, GE, AAA, Barnes and Noble, Hospital Corporation of America and several others. Some recent work involves advising corporations on B2B, new business models and eCommerce spinoff opportunities.
Yobie's most recent work involves building the theoretical and quantitative frameworks for the valuation of companies in today's modern economies. This framework is called the Net Future Expectations valuation model. Briefly, it involves identifiying a company's current valuation using traditional discounted cash flow models and building three indices that explain valuation. The indices are: Innnovation Index, Flexibility Index and the Execution Index. The resulting index numbers are derived from a set of decision trees that can be further extrapolated into Net Future Opportunities that explain market valuations. In short, NFE = DCF + NFO.
His current work includes the design and deployment of cutting edge payment systems using wireless technology and the delivery of digital information to any device, at any time, anywhere in the world and allowing for secure payments. He has a ground breaking patent before the US Patent and Trademark office that includes over 50 unique claims in the area of distributed computing and disparate device communication.
Yobie has been involved in the internet since the early 80s. He is considered to be one of the internet's most thought provoking personalities. A sought after and electric speaker, Yobie has spoken in several industry events including Build Brand Value, iB2B, Net Returns 2000, Personalization Conference, Internet Commerce Exposition, COMDEX and Java World. Yobie has written and/or quoted, cited or featured in Business 2.0, @Markets, Business Week, Fortune, Upside Magazine, Byte Magazine, Intelligent Enterprise, Information Week, Computer World, Wired, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, San Francisco Examiner, St. Petersburg Times, Seattle Times, USA Today, New Media News, Silicon Valley Business, ABC News 20/20, C|net, NBC News, CNN and a host of other media outlets. A prolific writer, Yobie was the press officer and principal speech writer for former San Francisco Mayor, the Honorable Frank Jordan.
Prior to Ernst and Young, Yobie was Chief Knowledge Officer of Cambridge Technology Partners' Management Lab and Director of Technology for Cambridge's Enterprise Security Services division. Yobie was a co-founder of gamers.com, now the world's largest internet game information site. Yobie also worked as emerging technology architect for the American Automobile Association of Northern California, Nevada and Utah. Prior to AAA, Yobie worked for Lotus Development Corporation.
After graduation with a degree in Broadcast Communications from the University of the Philippines, Yobie worked for the World Bank's Educational Projects Implementing Task Force where he designed distance education programs in science, English, social studies, Filipino and math to teach Filipino children and train teachers using a combination of print materials and radio dramas aired via AM radio. After the World Bank, he joined the US Department of State / International Catholic Migration Commission / United Nations High Commission on Refugees' educational training programs working in the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia. Yobie built a full blown television studio production facility in the refugee camps and pioneered the use of TV, radio and print in the education and training of refugees bound for final resettlement in the US. The programs developed were used to train and educate refugees from Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ethopia. Under the auspices of the UNHCR, Yobie assisted in the repatriation of AmerAsian children from Vietnam directly to the United States.
Since January 2000 and through the Benjamin Family Ventures fund, Yobie has nutured and invested seed capital and/or time in several young technology startups. Yobie Benjamin is a member of the board of advisors in several companies where he serves in a nongovernance/advisory capacity: Gamers eXtreme (world's largest internet game site; www.gamers.com. Yobie is also co-founder of gamers.com), Tripwire Security (Internet Security; www.tripwiresecurity.com), virtualgiveaway.com, Cenzic, Inc. - developers of the groundbreaking Hailstorm security technology, Habama.com, Fulcrum Microsystems (a microprocessor design company - www.fulcrummicro.com). He is a former board level advisor to Finjan Software. Yobie also has deep relationships with several world class venture firms.
Yobie Benjamin is a member of the Association for Computational Machinery and the prestigious Distributed Coalition (www.distributedcoalition.org), a world-class organization of leading scientists and thought leaders in the areas of the internet, distributed computing and emerging technologies. He currently has patents pending before the US Patent and Trademark Office on several ground-breaking distributred computing technologies.
Yobie is a board member of the CARE (Cardiac Research and Education) Center Foundation, a non-profit organization of world class cardiologists and cardio electrophysiologists dedicated world class research and education. He also sits on the Board of Advisors for Business 2.0 Magazine and Line 56, the best magazine dedicated to the business to business space.
Yobie is a frequent lecturer in the executive education programs of the following leading universities and institutions: American Accounting Association/Ernst and Young education programs, UC Berkeley - Haas Graduate School of Business, UCLA - John E. Anderson Graduate School of Business, Babson College's Olin Graduate School of Business and Houston Baptist University's Graduate School of Business. Yobie sits as a curriculum advisor for the eCommerce programs of UC Berkeley Extension. Yobie graduated with a BA in Communications from the University of the Philippines.
For more information on Yobie Benjamin, follow this Google link: http://www.google.com/search?q=yobie+-fork+-firewalls&num=100&hl=en&start=100&sa=N