Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Robert Lawrence Kuhn, PhD, is an American public intellectual, international corporate strategist, and investment banker with over four decades of experience bridging science, philosophy, and U.S.-China relations. He is chairman and president of The Kuhn Foundation, and the creator, executive producer, writer, and host of Closer To Truth, the long-running PBS/public television series and leading global resource on science and philosophy: Cosmos (cosmology/physics, philosophy of science), Life (philosophy of biology), Mind (consciousness, brain/mind, free will, philosophy of mind), and Meaning (theism/atheism/agnosticism, global philosophy of religion, critical thinking). Peter Getzels is Closer To Truth co-creator and producer/director. Read Striving to Get Closer To Truth.
In 2018, Robert was awarded the China Reform Friendship Medal by Chinese President Xi Jinping, China’s highest award honoring foreigners who contributed to China’s reform and opening up over four decades. He is one of only two Americans among five living recipients of the medal. Read Who are the 10 foreigners awarded reform friendship medals by China’s president?, and Lee Kuan Yew among foreigners honoured for helping China to open up.
In 2019, Robert received the Chinese Government Friendship Award at the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. Read Xi’s speech on China’s reform and opening-up sets trajectory for new era: expert, and American expert on China Robert Kuhn: China’s development is an epic story. Robert is a columnist for South China Morning Post and China Daily.
Robert is the author of over 30 books, including The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin, the first biography of a living Chinese leader published in China and China’s best-selling book of 2005 and again in December 2022 (after Jiang died), and How China’s Leaders Think: The Inside Story of China’s Past, Current and Future Leaders, featuring President Xi Jinping. Read History will be kind to the meticulous and curious Jiang Zemin. Robert’s forthcoming book is Xi Jinping’s New-Era China: The Inside Story. Read Inside Man, an in-depth investigative report of Robert’s China activities.
Closer To Truth premiered in 2000 and has broadcast continuously for over 30 seasons, producing more than 350 episodes featuring candid, in-depth conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars on topics including cosmology, physics, consciousness, philosophy of science, and philosophy of religion. See the Closer To Truth website with over 5,000 videos and Closer To Truth YouTube channel (subscribers: >650,000). Watch Asking Ultimate Questions.
In 2024, Robert published a seminal paper, A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations and Implications in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology which presents a comprehensive taxonomy of over 225 theories of consciousness, ranging from physicalist to nonphysicalist explanations. Read Seeing the Consciousness Forest for the Trees.
In 2025, Robert expanded and extended his work on consciousness in the Landscape of Consciousness website, which contains over 350 theories of consciousness that can be accessed in five ways: Landscape Grid, Landscape Categories, All Landscape Theories, Landscape Map, and Interactive Visualizations. The Landscape of Consciousness is a work-in-progress – permanently.
New Scientist, one of the world’s premier science magazines/websites, published a feature on Robert’s work, titled What 350 different theories of consciousness reveal about reality, which organizes these theories across ten categories from materialism to idealism, and analyzes their implications for AI consciousness, virtual immortality, free will, and even life after death.
Robert has authored or edited over 30 books on corporate strategy, finance, science, and philosophy, including The Mystery of Existence: Why is there Anything At All? (with philosopher John Leslie), Closer To Truth: Challenging Current Belief, Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future, The Library of Investment Banking (seven-volume set, Dow Jones-Irwin), and The Origin and Significance of Zero: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (with Peter Gobets). Read Virtual Immortality, Why This Universe?, and Levels of Nothing. Listen to Does God Exist?
For more than 30 years, Robert, with his long-time partner Adam Zhu, has worked with China’s state leaders and advised the Chinese government. He spoke at the launch ceremony of President Xi’s book The Governance of China at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2014 and provided live commentary on CNN for Xi’s policy address during his U.S. state visit in 2015. For over 35 years, Kuhn has worked with China’s leaders and has advised CEOs of multinational corporations in formulating and implementing China strategies by applying his “politico-strategic framework”.
Between the 19th CPC National Congress in October 2017 and the 13th National People’s Congress in March 2018, Robert was interviewed extensively, including over 20 times on CNN and BBC during this period alone. He is one of only two Americans, alongside Henry Kissinger, named as Shanghai Media Group’s first “China Visionaries”. Read Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream, Historical starting point for new stage of development, New Era on the road to 2050, and Why China needs Xi Jinping as its core leader. From the 20th CPC National Congress in October 2022, read China’s New Leaders and Xi’s Deep Message.
Robert is the creator, host, and writer of the Emmy Award-winning documentary series China’s Challenges, co-produced with Shanghai Media Group and broadcast on PBS stations and in China (produced by Adam Zhu and directed by Peter Getzels). The series won a Los Angeles Area Emmy in 2016, Telly Awards in 2018, and China News Awards (first prize in 2013 and 2018, second prize in 2015).
He also created and hosts The Watcher, short commentaries on China for CGTN. The documentary Voices from the Frontlines: China’s War on Poverty, co-produced by The Kuhn Foundation and PBS SoCal, and directed by Peter Getzels, was nominated for a Los Angeles Area Emmy in 2020 and won Telly Awards in 2020.
Between 1991 and 2001, Robert was President and Co-owner of The Geneva Companies, then the largest mergers and acquisitions firm in the United States, representing privately owned, middle-market companies. Under his leadership, Geneva initiated and closed over 1,200 M&A transactions and conducted thousands of corporate evaluations, with transaction sizes ranging from low millions to over $500 million. In 2000, Robert sold The Geneva Companies to Citigroup for $200 million. Read Citigroup to Acquire Irvine-Based Geneva Group for $200 Million.
Between 2001 and 2005, Robert was Managing Director at Salomon Smith Barney, a subsidiary of Citigroup, where he worked on M&A, liquidity strategies, and wealth management for business owners. During the 1980s, he represented large Japanese companies, including Nissho Iwai, in formulating and implementing strategic expansion through M&A. He is a commentator on CNN, BBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business, and other major media outlets. He has written for Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Chief Executive, and The New York Times. Read Xi Jinping’s ‘Four Comprehensives’ show the depth of his leadership.
Robert earned his B.A. in Human Biology (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1964 from The Johns Hopkins University. He earned his PhD in Anatomy and Brain Research in 1968 from the UCLA Brain Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. He earned his M.S. in Management (MBA) as a Sloan Fellow in 1980 from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Between 1981 and 1989, Robert was Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York University. For many years, he was Research Fellow in Creative and Innovative Management at the IC² Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. In the 1980s, he served as International Adviser in Finance and High Technology to the governments of the United States, Israel, Germany, and China. Robert is a Member of the International Society for Science and Religion. In 1990, he was Executive-in-Residence at the University of Southern California.
The Kuhn Foundation produced the award-winning documentary Khachaturian on the life and music of the Armenian-Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian. Directed by Peter Rosen with Robert and his wife Dora Serviarian-Kuhn as executive producers and with Dora as featured pianist. The film was inspired by Dora’s deep connection to the composer’s music. Gramophone magazine called her recording of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto the best in 50 years. The documentary won the Best Documentary award at the Hollywood Film Festival in 2003. Read Film about Aram Khachaturian screened at Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
Robert was born on November 6, 1944, in New York. He is married to Dora Serviarian Kuhn, a renowned concert pianist born in Beirut, Lebanon, regarded as the leading living interpreter of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto. They married on June 23, 1967, and have three children: Aaron, Adam, and Daniella. Robert resides in New York.
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