E. Benjamin Skinner

Benjamin Skinner is founder and president of Transparentem. Recently, Skinner co-founded TAU, a private equity firm. 

Previously, he was senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism of Brandeis University. He was named one of National Geographic‘s “Adventurers of the Year 2008.” His first book, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery (Free Press; 2008), was awarded the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction, a citation from the Overseas Press Club in its book category for 2008, and a finalist for the Ryszard Kapuscinski International Award for literary reportage in 2011. Also in 2011, the World Economic Forum recognized Skinner as a Young Global Leader.

Previously he held a fellowship at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, served as special assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and worked as a research associate for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. His 50+ chapters, monographs, and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Bloomberg Businessweek, Time, Newsweek, Travel + Leisure, Los Angeles Times, and Foreign Policy. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.