John Coates is author of the financial bestseller The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk-Taking, Gut Feeling and the Biology of Boom and Bust. He is a former Research Fellow in Neuroscience and Finance at the University of Cambridge, and previously traded derivatives for Goldman Sachs and ran a trading desk for Deutsche Bank.
Coates now researches the biology of risk taking and stress. Companies are increasingly eager to understand the biology underlying their employees’ risk taking, fatigue and stress; how these differ between men and women and how they can be managed; meaning that there is a growing interest in the science that Coates is conducting in the workplace.
Coates covers topics such as the biology of exuberance and pessimism and how this challenges risk management; wearables in the workplace and also explores how neuroscience can predict a company’s profitability.
His book, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, was short listed for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year, and the Wellcome Trust Science Prize. It was also chosen book of the month by the British Army. The books reveals the biology of financial boom and bust, showing how risk-taking transforms our body chemistry, driving us to extremes of euphoria or stressed-out depression
His research on risk taking has attracted interest from business, medicine, the military, as well as elite sports teams. The journal, Foreign Policy, named him one of the most influential thinkers of the year. Tom Stoppard’s latest play, about a hedge fund manager who turns to neuroscience, is based on Coates’s research.
