Bennet A. Zelner is Associate Professor of Business and Public Policy at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. His work sits at the intersection of regenerative economics, leadership, and psychedelics, exploring how inner shifts may give rise to new ways of living and working together.
Bennet began his career studying businesses and markets using the tools of applied economics, earning his PhD from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and holding prior faculty positions at Georgetown and Duke. His work evolved toward organizational theory, and over time he came to see that the economic paradigm driving much of his research was itself part of the problem.
This realization led him to regenerative economics, which looks to natural systems for principles of economic organization. It also led him to psychedelics research and to questions about leadership that his earlier training would never have produced: not just how to lead, but where to lead — and what makes the shift from extractive to regenerative patterns possible at all.
Bennet pursues these questions through his research, through real-world initiatives such as The Inner Edge, a transformational leadership program he co-created, and through service to purpose-centered organizations such as Usona Institute, Innermost, Denizen, Brooklyn Psychedelic Society, and Heresy.