Ben Bingham officially joined Benchmark at the start of 2007 after six years of mentorship with Sam Folin while developing a unique portfolio management strategy for socially conscious investors at Legg Mason and Citigroup/Smith Barney. He began by advising a network of social entrepreneurs and philanthropists who were dissatisfied with the lack of imagination and direct positive impact found in mutual funds or screened portfolios. Changing the emphasis to positive screening, Mr. Bingham has found it beneficial, financially, socially and environmentally to look for companies that, by their numbers seem to be undervalued by the market, not followed by Wall Street, and with positive stories that meet current problems with long term solutions.
Mr. Bingham is a Fellow of Economists for Peace and Security (EPS). He is a member of the Investor’s Circle and the Social Venture Network, and, as a social entrepreneur/investor/money manager, draws on broad experience from hands on management experience at two technology start-ups, one in biological healthcare, and the other a global workflow solution provider.
Ben is a Certified Financial Planner, with a background in philanthropy. In the seventies and early eighties he was a founder of a mixed use residential community with special needs students and apprentices, raising approximately $1M to fund a start up furniture production and housing. His understanding for the ecology of how things work was also schooled by 10 years of work as a trained bio-dynamic farmer in the 70’s and 36 years of marriage, with five grown children and four granddaughters. His training in Gestalt Psychology may also help in understanding the psychology of the market! He attended Groton School, Yale University and Emerson College in England. He is working on two books and writes regularly for New View magazine in the UK.
