Forum Select is the private invitation-only tier of Open Future Forum. Off-the-record dinners held throughout the year in San Francisco and Palo Alto for C-suite executives and board directors. 10 to 25 guests per dinner. No membership fee. Membership is by invitation from Murray Newlands or by referral from an existing member.
Everything below is a longer answer to the same question.
A Forum Select dinner is 10 to 25 guests at a private venue in San Francisco or Palo Alto. Drinks first, dinner served by the venue, conversation throughout. No name badges. No presentation. No agenda printed on a card.
Murray opens the room with a single question or theme. Sometimes a member leads off with a five-minute thought. Then the room talks. No one moderates beyond the lightest touch needed to keep one person from holding the floor too long.
Dinners typically run 2.5 to 3 hours. People leave when they need to. The conversations that started at the table often continue in smaller groups afterward.
Forum Select runs strict off-the-record norms. Not off-the-record norms (where you can repeat what was said without attribution). Not Vegas Rule (where the norm is informal). Strict off the record: nothing said in the room is repeated, attributed or paraphrased outside it.
The reason is functional. The most useful conversations for senior leaders right now are about decisions that have not been announced yet: AI org restructures, Chief AI Officer hires, contested board calls, model evaluations that did not go as planned, regulator conversations that have not been written down. None of that gets said in a room with a weaker norm.
The norm is enforced socially. People who break it do not get invited back. People who hold it tightly become part of the long-term core of the community.
Forum Select members are CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CTOs, CISOs, CMOs and board directors. Most are at companies with $100M+ in revenue or post-Series B with significant AI exposure. Some are board directors at public companies. Some are senior investors.
The common thread is not industry. It is how members behave in a room. The unspoken rule is to lead with what you can give: share what you know, make the introductions that matter, leave the room better than you found it. Members who behave that way get invited to more dinners. Members who do not behave that way quietly stop being invited.
Specifically, members tend to be:
Forum Select is convened by Murray Newlands, founder of Open Future Forum and Partner at IA Seed Ventures. Murray attends every dinner. He decides who is invited, what the theme will be, and who speaks first.
This is not a delegated operation. There is no event team running it independently. The selection of who is in the room is the central act of community-building, and Murray does it himself. The trade-off is real: Forum Select grows more slowly than a community run by a larger team. The compensating advantage is that the room remains worth being in.
The framework is Adam Grant's Give and Take. Givers create more long-term value than takers or matchers. A room full of them compounds. Forum Select is built to attract that kind of leader and to keep the conversations they have with each other private enough to be useful.
The informal selection question is always: would this person make the room better? Would they share what they know, make introductions without being asked, behave generously even when no one is watching? If yes, the invitation comes. If no, it does not.
Forum Events are open and public. Murray attends most of them. The best guests receive a quiet personal invitation to something more private. This is the most common path in.
See upcoming events →Existing Forum Select members can recommend others. A referral from someone already in the room is the highest-signal path in. Members refer people they know will hold the off-the-record norm and contribute generously.
Reach out via the apply page. Murray reviews every inquiry personally. Selection is based on seniority, generosity and how the candidate would contribute to the room.
Apply for Forum Select →The calendar runs year round rather than on a fixed cycle. Themed dinners for a particular seat, such as the Public Board Member, CISO, CFO and CEO series, recur through the year. Published gatherings are listed on the events calendar.
Sometimes, with prior approval. Seats are extended to a person, not to a company, so a colleague cannot simply take your place. If you want to bring someone, suggest them in advance: that suggestion is treated as a referral and they are considered on their own merits.
YPO and Vistage are large peer-advisory organizations with annual dues, standing forum groups and a structured curriculum. Forum Select is smaller, has no membership fee, is centered on Silicon Valley, and is organized around single-evening conversations rather than a standing group. A fuller comparison is here.
A host question rather than a presentation, and a conversation the room carries. No panels, no slide decks, no name badges, no recordings and no sales agenda. Dinners are generally 10 to 25 seats, small enough that everyone is introduced and everyone gets heard. More on the format.
Forum Select does not require a fixed monthly commitment. Private dinners and role-specific gatherings take place throughout the year, with timing varying by executive community and location. Invitees choose the gatherings most relevant to them.
Guests are selected based on seniority, relevance to the discussion, potential contribution to the room and alignment with Open Future Forum's Give and Take philosophy. Each gathering is assembled individually rather than filled in application order.
No. Participants attend when the subject, location and people in the room are relevant to them. There is no requirement to attend every Forum Select gathering.
Traditional peer-advisory groups generally bring the same participants together on a fixed schedule. Forum Select convenes carefully selected C-suite executives, board directors and investors for private, off-the-record discussions focused on specific leadership and business questions.
Forum Select is not designed for people seeking sales leads, purchased access to executives or large-scale networking. It is intended for senior leaders who are willing to contribute their experience, insights and relationships to a trusted room.
If Forum Select sounds like the right room, the next step is simple. Attend a Forum Event or apply directly.