About Barry Rutherford
Portrait courtesy of Griffin Rutherford
Fifty years building businesses across four continents. I graduated at 21 with an English Literature degree, became CEO of a design and manufacturing company by 23, and spent decades in boardrooms from Texas to Hong Kong to El Salvador to the Netherlands — growing companies, managing global operations, and navigating every kind of disruption the business world could produce.
Now 74 and based in Santa Fe, I am living my Third Phase in public.
I write and podcast with my son Griffin about the civilizational and personal shifts reshaping our lives. I consult with organizations navigating artificial intelligence and strategic crossroads, and pursue the creative work I never had time for when I was running things.
I am a lifelong motorcyclist, developing artist, and English Literature graduate who took a fifty-year detour through global business and came out the other side with better stories.
My current work includes Malestrum: The Third Phase, Breakwater Operations, books and screenplays in progress, and welded-steel sculpture.