Family

Paul Sutherland is married to Amy and is the father of six children.

Interests and Focus

Paul is especially interested in the complex interplay of environment, love, communication skills, empathy, curiosity, character development, virtue, values, mindfulness, emotional, co-operative and relationship intelligence, literacy & language mastery as they relate to happiness, success, and building sustainable, healthy communities intentionally built on justice, equanimity, and love. He believes intentional outcome-oriented education is the key to influencing cultural DNA and creating a world where every person feels responsible and empowered and goes to bed happy, feeling safe, well fed, loved, connected, and optimistic about tomorrow.

Current Activities

Paul is an active Chairman and a founding board member of Utopia Foundation. He is also founder, director and actively involved in managing Squaring the Education Pyramid Institute (STEPi), a program of Utopia Foundation, that works to create trainings, seminars, books and other products to help parents, educators, NGOs, churches, religious leaders, government education ministries, and others in their work to create programs that support the nurturing of literacy; a love of books, character development, creativity, empathy, curiosity, art, learning and story; inspiring a child’s natural active, curiosity, happy, emotional, cooperative, and relationship intelligences. Paul is also a member of the Education Faculty at Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

He is a shareholder of Good Harbor LLC, which is part owner of Spirituality and Health Media, LLC, the publisher of Spirituality & Health magazine, part owner of SmartwiredLLC, owner of The Smart Parenting Revolution, which provides educational tools for parents, and educators and Forward Reviews an USA based company that helps librarians, booksellers and consumers find great books from independent presses. He has other investments and activities that are engaged in education, training, entrepreneurship, technology, and job creation.

Paul serves on the Board of Directors for GAIA, a publicly traded conscious media company streaming educational, transformation, inspirational and healthy living content to 180 countries. He currently serves GAIA as audit chair and sits on the compensation committee.

Paul served on the board of directors of the Utopia Funds, a registered investment company, between December 2005 and March 2009. Paul was the founder of the Utopia Funds and was the CIO of FIM Group the Utopia Funds investment manager.

Paul is the author of various adult nonfiction and fiction books including: Zenvesting: Virtue of Wealth, Creating life success the Zenvesting way; Emmanuel’s Prayer, The AMA guide to Financial Planning and others. He is an author of many children’s books, including Smelly Fish Island, When I Slow Down, Congazori, Finding Utopia, Mani and Pitouee, Amani the Boda-Boda Rider, Sharon’s Song, Do You Like Grasshoppers & Chapati?, Fatima’s Race, Happy Girl Happy Boy, A Boy Named Justice, Pantone, the adult illustrated fiction book D R A G O N and others. Paul writes The Heart of Happiness Column for Spirituality and Health Magazine. He has written parenting articles for Families 1st magazine.

Paul has created three parenting manuals: Discipline with love, which was created for the Uganda Law Society; Parenting with Love, East Africa/South Africa and West African (French) editions, created for parents, teachers, community and religious leaders throughout Africa; and Interfaith Parenting with Love created for the Parliament of World Religions conference in Toronto Canada in 2018.

Paul entered the investment and financial advisory business in 1975. He is the founder of Financial & Investment Management Group, Ltd. (“FIM Group” founded in 1984), a registered investment adviser that managed ethically constructed, values-based investment portfolios on a discretionary basis for individuals, trusts, foundations, churches, and retirement plans. FIM Group was acquired by Mercer Advisors, and Paul became an employee of Mercer Advisors in Dec/2018. He ended his employment at Mercer Advisors in 2019. Paul is still an active private investor.

Paul holds an MBA from Lake Superior University and has completed the University of Pennsylvania Positive psychology courses through Coursera; Character Grit and Research methods, by Dr. Angela Duckworth and Dr. Clare Robertson-Kraft; and Positive Psychology, Martin E.P. Seligman’s visionary science taught by Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman. Paul Was enrolled to complete his Master’s in Education and curriculum through Concordia University with emphasis on leadership, curriculum, and early childhood development. He dropped his studies when the school closed in 2020. He Has received the TEFLorg Teaching Young Learners course’s Advanced Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and from Childhood Education International he completed the Understanding the Impact of Trauma on Early Childhood Development course.

Paul has worked as an Adjunct Faculty member for the College of Financial Planning for students pursuing their CFP (Certified Financial Planning) certificate. Paul helped found Yen Yoga and Fitness LLC, the largest yoga, spinning and fitness studio in Northern Michigan, which is now run as a Community Non-Profit business. Throughout his life he has been interviewed, quoted and had his opinions sought by large and small news organisations like The Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine, Wall Street Transcript, Financial Times and others. He has held seminars, been on panels, participated in, and/or given talks at various universities and venues throughout the world including the World Futurists conference, Omega Institute, Parliament of World Religions, Makerere University, and Kenyatta University, World Economic Forum, and Central Michigan University to name a few. Paul was Chairman of Safe Passage, a Guatemalan Charity that provided education to the children that lived on the Guatemala Dump (until 2007). Paul served on the Leelanau School board of directors, is a past president of the Suttons Bay Michigan Rotary club and is a non-attending member of the Traverse City, Michigan, Rotary club.

Paul and his family have travelled extensively. They held formal residency status in Uganda and Nicaragua, have had extended stays in Argentina, and have explored much of Central America. As a global investor, speaker, and tourist Paul visited many countries in Asia, East and Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He and his family have visited 49 states in the USA. They have homes in Paul’s childhood village of Glen Arbor, Michigan, USA and near the campus of Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, South Africa.