Adam Braun is the Founder and CEO of Pencils of Promise, an award-winning nonprofit organization that has opened more than 150 schools across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and delivered more than 10 million educational hours in its first five years. PoP was founded with just $25 using what Adam coined as a “For-Purpose” approach to blending nonprofit idealism with for-profit business principles. In 2012, he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List. Pencils of Promise has been identified as one of the world’s most impactful new nonprofits by luminaries such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Bill Clinton, Richard Branson, and Barbara Walters.
Adam began working at hedge funds at the age of sixteen, hurdling towards a career on Wall Street, until he met a young boy begging on the streets of India and asked him what he wanted most in the world. The answer—”A pencil.” Adam eventually left a dream job at Bain & Company to launch Pencils of Promise, which in 2013 was awarded “Education Organization of the Year” through the Empact 100 showcase held in the United Nations General Assembly Hall.
Adam graduated magna cum laude with a triple major from Brown University and has been featured at Clinton Global Initiative, Google Zeitgeist and Wired magazine’s “2012 Smart List of 50 People Changing the World.” He was selected as one of the first ten World Economic Forum Global Shapers and now speaks often on leadership, innovations in education, managing millennials, and the rise of purpose-driven lives and careers.
He is a leader in social media as well, having amassed over 300,000 personal followers. His blogs are regularly shared by thousands of readers, and his debut book, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change, was released in March 2014.
Alternate Bio:
Adam Braun is a New York Times bestselling author and the Founder of Pencils of Promise, an award-winning organization that has broken ground on more than 200 schools around the world. In recent years he has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List, Wired Magazine's "50 People Who Are Changing the World," and was selected as one of the World Economic Forum's first ten Global Shapers. He has also been a featured speaker at The White House, United Nations and Clinton Global Initiative.
Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just sixteen years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. He started his college career as a Division 1 basketball player, but while traveling abroad he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked him what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, "a pencil."
This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave Bain & Company several years later to start with just $25 on his twenty-fifth birthday. Using his unique "for-purpose" approach, he meshed for-profit business acumen with non-profit idealism and in doing so created a leading organization in the global education space, proving that anyone can start a movement that matters.
Braun graduated from Brown University and is now a frequent speaker at conferences, colleges and Fortune 1000 companies. He avidly engages with his social media following of over 500,000 people and currently resides in New York City. His book The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change debuted at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller list
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