abstract energy crystal

Energy Healing:
The Next Health Frontier

An interactive discussion with Jeff Walker, Jason Yotopoulos, Lorenzo Cohen, Elliott Donnelley, and Peggy Dulany
Wednesday, June 17th • 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM ET


Subtle Energy and Biofield Healing has been used for millennia to heal significant health conditions and enhance human well-being.

In other cultures this energy is known as prana, chi, elan vital, mana and many other monikers. Until recently, scientific study of energy medicine has been hindered by cultural and institutional barriers. However, rigorous clinical research at tier-1 institutions is now validating the power of energy medicine to treat chronic conditions and root causes often not addressed effectively by modern medicine. This scientific validation is laying the groundwork for a movement to integrate energy medicine into mainstream healthcare and wellness, just as mind-body medicine has become integral to our lives and healthcare in recent decades.

This interactive session introduced Subtle Energy and Biofield Healing—what it is, some of its remarkable frontier science and its opportunity for major impact on mainstream health and flourishing in the near future.

Participation in this event was by invitation only; contact your Synergos relationship manager or collaborate@synergos.org for more information.


Our speakers

Jeff Walker

jeff-walker.pngJeff Walker is Chairman of New Profit, a social change investment fund, and Vice Chair in the WHO/CHAP Venture focused on front line health. He also currently serves on the boards of The Grammys Music Education Coalition, the African Philanthropy Forum, Chair of the UVA Center for Contemplative Sciences, Giving Tuesday, the Aspen Management Partnership for Health and the University of Virginia’s Undergraduate Business School, where he was President for ten years. He is a partner in Bridge Builders investment fund for Mindful Wellness. Jeff was on the board of the University of Virginia, Chairman of The Council of Foundations at University of Virginia (UVA), served on the Berklee College of Music Board, the Harvard Business School Dean’s Board of Advisors, was on the Visiting Committee and is on the Advisory Boards of MIT Media Lab and the Harvard School of Public Health. He has been on numerous other for-profit and non-profit boards.


Previously, he served as the Chairman of Millennium Promise, partnering with the United Nations and Columbia University, an incubator to eliminate extreme poverty. He also served as Chairman of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello), where he is as an Emeritus Trustee. Jeff Co-Founded and was Chairman of Npower, an organization that provides shared technology services to nonprofits.


Jeff co-authored the book, The Generosity Network, about new approaches to gather resources to address causes each of us are passionate about. He also received the John C. Whitehead Award for Social Enterprise from the Harvard Business School Club of New York City. For twenty-five years, Jeff was CEO and Co-Founder of JPMorgan Partners. He also served as Vice Chairman of JPMorgan Chase. He is currently teaching, researching and writing on the issue of systems entrepreneurship and systems change. He received the John Whitehead award for philanthropy from the NYC HBS Club.

Jason Yotopoulos

jason-yotopoulos.pngJason Yotopoulos is CEO of the Emerald Gate Foundation. He is Founder and Board member of Mach49, the premier incubator and accelerator of new businesses for the world’s largest corporations based in Silicon Valley. Jason has over 25 years of international business experience as a corporate executive and venture capitalist. He was previously with software giant SAP, as a member of the company’s global senior leadership team for 10 years, managing an 800-person innovation organization across 32 countries.


As Executive Vice President and Head of Global Research at SAP, Jason ran the global R&D and innovation unit of SAP. His group explored emerging IT trends and transformed applied research into tangible prototypes, customer pilots and game-changing solutions. Previously, Jason was head of SAP’s Global Business Incubator, which he proposed, designed, and established building new lines of business and launching internal startups from idea through to commercialization. He also served as Vice President of the Corporate Strategy Group and created and ran the M&A Strategy Group.


Jason spent a decade in venture capital, first at Patricof & Co. (now Apax Partners) and later as a General Partner at Technology Partners. Jason was a Management Consultant with the MAC Group / Gemini Consulting and has held product management and business development positions at several Silicon Valley technology companies, including InfoSeek, Raychem and Sun Microsystems.


Jason Yotopoulos holds a BS in Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D.

lorenzo-cohen.pngDr. Lorenzo Cohen is the Richard E. Haynes Distinguished Professor in Clinical Cancer Prevention and Director of the Integrative Medicine Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston) and Distinguished Clinical Professor at Fudan University Cancer Hospital, Shanghai, China. Dr. Cohen is a Founding Member and past President of the International Society for Integrative Oncology.


Dr. Cohen is passionate about educating others on how to prevent cancer and maintain optimal health across the lifespan. As the majority of cancers are preventable, Dr. Cohen is conducting research to demonstrate that lifestyle factors can influence cancer outcomes.


Dr. Cohen leads a team conducting NIH-funded research and delivering clinical care of integrative medicine practices such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, massage, diet, exercise, acupuncture and other strategies such as stress management, music therapy, emotional writing and more aimed at reducing the negative aspects of cancer treatment and improving quality of life and clinical outcomes.

Peggy Dulany

peggy-dulany.pngPeggy is Chair of Synergos, a global organization helping solve complex issues around the world by advancing bridging leadership, which builds trust and collective action. Drawing from her experience living and working in Rio de Janeiro as a young woman, she realized that the people most affected by adverse living conditions also have the greatest energy and motivation to solve their problems. The resources they lack are connections to the economic and political realms where necessary changes can affect whole communities.


Peggy founded Synergos in 1986 to promote trust and collaboration among grassroots groups and government or business leaders and organizations, people who otherwise would not have access to each other, so that they can develop long-term relationships and forge new paths in overcoming poverty. In 2001, she co-founded Synergos’ Global Philanthropists Circle with her father, David Rockefeller, to support philanthropic families in using this approach.


Her career has included heading a public high school program for drop-outs and consulting with the United Nations and the Ford Foundation on health care and family planning, and with the National Endowment for the Arts on nonprofit management and planning. She was Senior Vice President of the New York City Partnership, where she headed the Youth Employment, Education and Community Affairs programs.

Elliott Donnelley II

elliott-donnelley.pngElliott is a Founding General Partner of the White Sand Investor Group, LP, a fifth-generation investment partnership of the Chicago-based RR Donnelley family. He is also a founder of KD Venture Partners, a seed-stage Impact and InvestTech investment fund based in Silicon Valley.


Elliott is a member of the Synergos Global Philanthropist Circle, the advisory board of Stanford’s Global Project Center and a member of the board of trustees of the LGT Venture Philanthropy Foundation - the venture philanthropy platform of the Royal Family of Lichtenstein and the LGT Bank. Elliott also serves on the board of trustees of the Philanthropy Workshop and the Long-Term Investment Organization, an affiliated entity of the Institutional Investor Round Table, whose members include some of the world's largest institutional investors. Elliott is a key advisor to the China Global Philanthropy Institute, which was founded by Ray Dalio, Bill Gates and three prominent Chinese philanthropists in 2015 and he has also been instrumental in helping to launch the China Philanthropy Forum, which was one of the highest-level convenings on philanthropy in China from 2012-2015.


From 1989-1991, Mr. Donnelley lived and worked in Beijing, teaching at the University of Aeronautics and Astronautics; he now travels to China and Europe regularly, where he works to promotes best practices in philanthropy and impact investing. Mr. Donnelley graduated from Yale University in 1988 with a B.A. in History.