Adam Braun

Founder & Executive Director, Pencils of Promise 

Adam Braun is the Founder and Executive Director of Pencils of Promise, the nonprofit organization that has opened more than 50 schools around the world and delivered over 1.5 million educational hours in just over three years. PoP was founded with just $25 and a birthday party in October 2008 using what Braun describes as a "For-Purpose" approach to blending nonprofit idealism with for-profit business principles.

PoP has since raised millions of dollars to build schools in Asia and Latin America and deliver nearly 250,000 hours of domestic training to a new generation of social entrepreneurs in the United States.

All of this began as a college student on the path towards a career in finance. He met a young boy begging on the streets and asked him what he wanted most in the world. The answer-"A pencil." Braun then backpacked through 50+ countries, engaging in conversations and living amongst the world's best NGO's to develop a best practice model for global education created through the hands of locals.

Braun now speaks often on global education, finding one's passion and purpose, youth empowerment, international development and the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit spaces. He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, previously worked at leading consulting firm Bain & Company, and has been featured at the Clinton Global Initiative, Google Zeitgeist and Wired Magazine's 2012 Smart List of 50 People Changing the World.