Jeff Leifer is an impact advisor, community architect and economic reformer with over 30 years experience at the intersection of finance, strategic management and the study of consciousness.

Jeff founded and leads Circadian Lab, a values-driven strategic consultancy and experience lab that builds scalable, transformational projects across the digital and social landscape. Jeff's work with Circadian brings a systems-thinking approach to initiatives that build creativity, innovation, and regenerative practices.

With Circadian, Jeff recently led the strategic development and launch of Kindred Trust, a multi-year philanthropic initiative which supports the integration of wisdom into society by catalyzing high-impact psychedelic and indigenous initiatives. He currently serves as Kindred Trust's founding director.

Prior to launching Circadian, Jeff had an extensive career in finance, pioneering issuer reforms to safeguard taxpayers before establishing his own investment banking firm. Jeff spent the next decade working with local governments to increase transparency and fortify public finance accountability before his firm was acquired by a large commercial bank. Following the acquisition, Jeff formed a boutique venture advisory firm (Sustainable Capital Group), providing resources and strategic mentoring to aligned high-tech start-ups.

For the past two decades, Jeff has worked to support the stewardship of traditional ecological knowledge and practice, including through work with Indigenous communities in the Amazon basin. He has worked extensively with groups in the Global South to support the embodiment of plant medicine lineage and forest-based, economic resiliency. Jeff also serves as ‘ambassador’ for the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund, and has led expeditions with groups like Amazon Watch and the Pachamama Alliance.

To support and advance the ethical plant medicine ecosystem, Jeff co-founded the Psychedelic Research, Education and Policy (PREP) funding program at the Threshold Foundation and has served on the board of directors for the Ketamine Research Foundation. He serves on the faculty of Mind Medicine Australia’s Psychedelic Certificate program together with pioneers Bill Richards, Bessel van der Kolk and Gabor Mate. Jeff is also a member of the Psychedelic Science Funder’s Collaborative where he is an active participant in affinity cohorts Ecology and Psychedelics as well as Psychedelics, Religion and Spirituality.

Along with his work on land stewardship and sacred medicine, Jeff acts as a strategic and development advisor to numerous psychedelic healthcare startups, nonprofit organizations, including as Executive Council member of the Rana Creek Initiative, a development facility for psychedelic residential care. Additionally, Jeff has served as an advisor to numerous impact and venture investors and is a member of the investor networks TONIIC, Social Venture Circle and the Threshold Foundation. 

Jeffʼs passions have drawn him all over the world in connection with global initiatives, working alongside internationally recognized dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov, negotiating nuclear non-proliferation accords as a State Department liaison, and helping to develop new international markets. The latter, as a visiting teacher to Brazilʼs leading business school (Fundação Getúlio Vargas), grew out of his work with indigenous peoples in an ongoing effort to preserve the Amazon rainforest.

Jeff is a committed educator, advancing his belief that the new generation of young leaders will be pivotal to advancing more integrated economic models. He continues to mentor next-gen leaders, and developed an interdisciplinary practicum to develop next generation leadership that truly values the health and wellbeing of individuals, communities, and the planet. 

He has guest lectured at Stanford Business School, Yale School of Management and University of California, etc. His leadership development retreats are recognized for promoting transformative change from young change makers to pioneering business leaders.

Jeff serves on the boards of nonprofits committed to the environment, arts and meaningful change in the culture. Previously, Jeff served on the board of Harvard Divinity Schoolʼs Business Leadership Program on Public Values working alongside storied iconoclasts from Norman Lear to Cornel West and co-founded the Southern California branch of Business for Social Responsibility.

Jeff holds an MBA from Yale University and a BA from the University of California, San Diego where he also served as President of the student body.