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Erik Townsend was a software entrepreneur in his first career, then went on to manage a global macro hedge fund. Throughout his career, Erik has capitalized on his ability to understand complex systems and anticipate paradigm shifts far in advance of the mainstream. Since fully retiring in 2018, he continues to host MacroVoices, the weekly podcast he launched while still a professional hedge fund manager. He now produces it as a retirement hobby, for the intellectual stimulation and the opportunity to engage regularly with some of the smartest minds in the world.

A teenage computer prodigy, Erik spent most of his high school years at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where he taught himself several programming languages. At 17 he became an independent software consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation's Manufacturing Engineering Information Systems group. He consulted for DEC for nearly ten years.

Beginning in 1985, Erik and his longtime business partner Mike Ronayne developed a new approach to distributed system design that later became known as Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). Erik and Mike were never publicly credited with inventing SOA, and others arrived at similar ideas independently in the same era. To the best of Erik's knowledge, however, their work dating back to 1985 is likely the earliest example of what is now called SOA.

In 1991, Erik founded The Cushing Group, a boutique consultancy created to bring object-oriented distributed computing to corporate information systems. Mike left DEC and joined Erik as a partner in 1993. The Cushing Group's first big win was a project for Wells Fargo Bank that encapsulated many of the bank's legacy information systems as distributed object servers.

Those servers later enabled Wells Fargo to become the first bank to offer customers online access to their account balances, in 1995. By 1998, The Cushing Group had grown to nearly 40 employees and more than $10 million in annual revenue, with an exceptional 28% net operating income. It was sold that year to Ciber, Inc. (NYSE: CBR).

After the sale, a disappointing experience with a well-known investment bank prompted Erik to teach himself macroeconomics and futures trading. He went on to become a member of the New York Mercantile Exchange, where he traded crude oil time spreads using a systematic strategy of his own design. In July 2013, he launched a small global macro strategy hedge fund, which he ran until he retired completely in June 2018.

Erik launched MacroVoices in February 2016 for professional finance and sophisticated investors. His concept was the first investing podcast intentionally not dumbed down to a retail level. He has since become a vocal advocate for advanced nuclear energy, which he writes about at eriktownsend.substack.com. Erik is also a published author: his book Beyond Blockchain anticipated the rise of central bank digital currencies years before they became a mainstream topic.

Erik earned his private pilot's license at age 20 and, within the next 18 months, added his commercial pilot and flight instructor ratings. He has held an Airline Transport Pilot certificate since 1990.

Erik lives a very international lifestyle and has lived in numerous countries around the world. He still has homes in both Hong Kong and the United States.

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