An Interview With Ankur Jain, Founder And President, Kairos Society (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Ankur: Today, in this interconnected world, you can have a Chinese entrepreneur start a company with an American entrepreneur. You can take the best of both countries to create a single company that’s inherently multinational and multicultural.

This product can be, from day one, sold in two completely different markets without having to replicate all your resources because it’s not an American company trying to enter a foreign market and having to re-do everything from scratch, or vice versa.

So, you’re able to create a higher growth venture with GDP growth in two different countries tied to a single entity. What’s exciting about this is that you’re forcing foreign policy in a positive direction because economic growth in two countries is now tied to a single entity.

In a way, audacious as this might sound, you’re trying to privatize diplomacy. I bring this up because you asked about how Kairos was founded and how it really grew.

Kairos, in and of itself, is in many ways a multinational startup. Our team is me, heading up the United States and the global effort, but we have a chair in Europe, a chair in Asia, and a chair in India.

These are entrepreneurs who are building this organization together, from the ground up, all virtually. We meet maybe a few times a year, but the entire team is operating this organization as students, and doing it virtually. The ability to work together from anywhere in the world is something that has taken off with this generation.

Irina: Do you have any co-founders?

Ankur: I founded the organization. I’ve got a great group of people who have been part of the team from the beginning, an incredible group.

Our current board of directors includes the earliest people – Jake Medwell, Jaclyn Noble, Ryder Fyrwald, David Wyler in Europe, and me.

Irina: Are the chairs of Asia and Europe based in those regions?

Ankur: Yes. Our chair of Asia is back and forth between China and London. He’s from China and is currently studying at Oxford. His name is Leon Chen. Our chair of Europe is David Wyler, and he is based in Amsterdam. Our chair of India is Hemant Sahal. Then there’s me, chairing things out of Philadelphia.

Irina: How did you recruit your team?

Ankur: Initially, it was a group of 10. We went to all of the departments to learn the stories of students at the University of Pennsylvania who were doing entrepreneurial things. From this, we created the first membership base that I invited to be a part of the effort.

The interesting story is that Kairos as we know it, as a national and global organization, was born at a conference known as Entreprelliance.

Before Kairos, all of the universities had separate clubs of entrepreneurs. They would meet, and it was a local thing that they would get together and talk about entrepreneurship.

Entreprelliance would bring together the heads of all of these organizations to talk about what they were doing. The problem was that there was never really a united feel.

It was at Entreprelliance that I pitched the concept of shutting down a lot of these organizations and re-opening as one united brand that crosses campus borders and creates a community of top young entrepreneurs who want to change the world.

We started from there, and that’s how we expanded in the beginning to many major universities.

Irina: How do you fund your activities?

Ankur: The Kairos Society is funded entirely by sponsors, donors, and partners.

We’re fortunate to have a fantastic mentor base of incredible CEOs, political leaders, and science leaders who come in to help these young entrepreneurs create the next generation of companies, both through mentorship and by supporting the organization. We’ve also got incredible corporate partners who work with us closely.

Irina: What are your goals, and what are your methods for achieving those goals?

Ankur: The question here is, Can we shift the incredible energy of this next generation of young leaders? Can we focus this energy on creating high-growth ventures that tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges? If you can do that, you’re creating jobs. You’re creating wealth in society, but you’re also doing something beneficial to humanity without having to sacrifice profit.

This segment is part 2 in the series : An Interview With Ankur Jain, Founder And President, Kairos Society
1 2 3 4 5