When Capital Meets Consciousness and Strategy Responds: Why Evolved Beyond+ Had to Be Born

A shared origin story, told from two perspectives

By Deniz Erkus & Liliana Domingues

When Capital Meets Consciousness and Strategy Responds: Why Evolved Beyond+ Had to Be Born

A shared origin story, told from two perspectives

By Deniz Erkus & Liliana Domingues

Deniz’s journey: when success stopped being enough

In early 2018, I found myself walking along the river in Zürich, asking a question that had been quietly forming for the last few years surfaced: What do I truly need next? At that moment I had no idea what to do with my life.

After more than 25 years in senior leadership roles within large corporations, working with asset managers, I had achieved what many would define as success. Responsibility. Recognition. Financial security. Titles. Yet my internal reality told a different story. Long hours, constant pressure, endless expectations of delivery and chronic stress had taken their toll, manifesting in chronic sickness and medication. When I lost my role following the financial crisis, it felt as though I had lost my identity itself. Disorientation turned into a deep, heavy depression.

At my lowest point, a simple question was posed to me during an event: “Are you lost?”

The answer was immediate and honest: Yes.

That moment marked the first time I truly listened. ‘Consciousness’ surfaced, not as a philosophical concept, but as a genuine necessity. Although I had previously encountered meditation and awareness practices in Dubai, I was still anchored in the past. This time was different.

In April 2018, I committed to a one-year inner journey. I watched as resistance slowly gave way to presence. Presence evolved into awareness. Awareness became transformation. This journey did not end after one year, it became a way of being that continues to this day and will continue with learning and new experiences for the rest of my life.

Bridging investment and consciousness

Alongside this inner work, my new professional reality began to mirror my internal shift. I continued my advisory activities, but through a new lens. My path led me deeply into impact investing through a project in Africa that became a catalyst for my evolution. Through this project focused on water, agriculture and innovation, I realised that it was not just a few SDGs that mattered, it was the interconnectedness of all 17 SDGs. They resonated immediately as a single, unified system. I felt a clear sense of direction for the first time: this is where my work and my energy must go.

However, as I explored the field, I noticed a persistent pattern:

●      Early-stage companies were searching for investors

●      Investors were searching credible opportunities and returns

●      Many impact projects did not fit traditional financial models

●      Stagnant momentum existed between talking and action taking

●      Impact was treated as philanthropy, often blurred by greenwashing

The funding gap remained, not because of lack of intention, but because conscious investment had not yet evolved.

At the same time, my teacher training in conscious embodiment prompted deeper questions: What is my purpose? What is my essence?

I found myself standing between two worlds: complexity of investments on one side, depth of consciousness on the other. My path became clear, my inner compass was guiding me to become the bridge between them.

It was demanding. But it was the only path that made sense.

A new paradigm was required which brings investment deeply connected with nature and humanity.

I am here to facilitate that connection.

Liliana’s perspective: when strategy reached its limits

My journey, as Liliana toward Evolved Beyond+ began elsewhere. It was not from burnout, but from working deeply inside complexity.

For years, I have worked with CEOs, boards, and leadership teams across industries on strategy, sustainability, governance, and resilience. I was often called in at moments of transition: growth, regulatory pressure, ESG demands, or strategic inflection points. On the surface, the work was rigorous and impactful.

Yet over time, I began to see something unsettling.

Leaders were increasingly aware that the existing economic and organisational models were under strain. Sustainability became a board-level topic. But when decisions were made under pressure: capital allocation, acquisitions, portfolio priorities, the same short-term logic prevailed.

This was not a lack of intelligence or goodwill.It was a decision-making gap.

Strategy was being designed without inner clarity.Capital was being deployed without systemic awareness.Sustainability was treated as an add-on rather than an expression of how decisions are made.

I realised we were not facing a strategy problem. We were facing a consciousness problem at the heart of capital and leadership.

What troubled me the most was the absence of spaces where these questions could be explored seriously, especially among investors and senior decision-makers.

Consciousness was often dismissed as “soft”. Investment conversations were stripped of reflection on values, ethics, and long-term consequences.

The two worlds rarely met with depth and credibility.

From my vantage point, it became clear: no framework can compensate for unconscious decision-making. No amount of data can replace presence, discernment, and systems thinking.

Something new was required.

 

Where the paths converged

In 2023, at a Horasis Global Meeting in Gaziantep, Türkiye, our paths converged.

One journey had travelled deeply inward moving through the landscapes of finance, governance, consciousness, embodiment, and lived transformation. The other journey had navigated the outer systems of strategy, capital, and organisational change.

We realised we were circling the same truth from different directions: The future of capital requires a different way of being, thinking, deciding, acting and leading.

And Evolved beyond+ was born.

 

Why Evolved Beyond+ had to exist

From our joint perspective, Evolved Beyond+ was born from our realisation that  we stand at a systemic crossroads.

Capital shapes industries, communities, ecosystems, and futures. Yet, it is often deployed from fragmented thinking, a mindset that separates financial performance from societal impact, strategy from values, and leadership from inner awareness.

What was missing was a community where investors, executives, and organisations could step out of the noise. We saw the need for a space to explore, to foster curiosity, co-create and relearn the art of genuine leadership.

This is not just another leadership programme. This is not another investor programme or network

It is a conscious journey that integrates strategy, capital, governance, consciousness, and purpose.

 

What Evolved Beyond+ truly is

Evolved Beyond+ is a premium ecosystem for executives, investors, and organisations who sense that a  deeper level of engagement is required and are ready to engage with it.

At its core, this journey is about alignment:

• between strategy and capital

• between purpose and decision-making

• between inner clarity and external action

The programme combines:

• online learning

• immersive retreats in high-energy, ancient, powerful locations such as Turkey (Cappadocia), Egypt, Morocco, and the Sacred Valley

• peer-learning communities

• conscious embodiment practices integrating reflection, presence, and intentional awareness

  
  

There are no conference rooms filled with slides. Nature becomes the teacher. Silence becomes a tool. Dialogue replaces debate.

Participants explore impactful investment approaches beyond the ESG compliance checks, engage with systems thinking and innovation, and cultivate the awareness required to navigate complexity.

This is not about slowing down business.It is about mastering better decision making and governance in uncertainty and unpredictability.

The shift from optimisation to stewardship

One of the most powerful shifts Evolved Beyond+ invites is the movement from optimisation to stewardship.

Optimisation asks: How do we maximise returns within existing constraints?Stewardship asks: What are we responsible for sustaining and regenerating over time?

That single shift changes everything.

How risk is understood. How innovation is evaluated. How growth is defined.

How success is measured.

The journey  also changes leaders themselves.

Through reflection, presence, and intentional awareness, participants begin to notice how urgency, fear, and unconscious patterns shape their choices. They learn to create space, sometimes just a breath and/or embodiment, between stimulus and response.

That space is where wiser, more resilient strategy emerges.

For investors and organisations navigating volatility, this level of consciousness is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity.

 

 

A shared vision for systemic impact

The impact of Evolved Beyond+ is measured by the quality of decisions that follow.

Decisions that:

• allocate capital toward governance and regenerative outcomes

• build resilient, adaptive organisations

• foster collaborative ecosystems with shared vitality rather than extractive competition

• create measurable financial, organisational, and societal value

Our shared commitment is to contribute to a generation of leaders and investors who recognise that consciousness is not separate from performance, and that regeneration is not opposed to profitability, but essential to it.

Evolved Beyond+ exists because the old separations are dissolving: artificial divides between strategy and consciousness, capital and responsibility, leadership and humanity no longer hold.

If you are an investor, executive, or decision-maker who feels the weight of this moment, who senses that incremental change is no longer enough, this work is for you.

Not to provide answers, but rather to cultivate the clarity, awareness, and courage required to ask better questions.

This is about evolving beyond what has worked, toward what the future now requires.

The future of capital will not be shaped by speed alone, nor by compliance or optimisation. It will be shaped by those willing to pause, reflect, and take responsibility for the systems their decisions influence.

This work is not meant to be done alone.

It is a journey best taken together.

With vision,

Deniz Erkus (Founder & CEO @ Dunyaura )

Liliana Domingues (Founder & CEO @ AMARNA Vida)