2015_Endeavor_Hero

About Endeavor

Founded in 1997, Endeavor fosters economic growth in countries worldwide by selecting, mentoring, and accelerating high-impact entrepreneurs. Endeavor’s entrepreneurs lead fast-growing businesses that generate jobs in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Endeavor provides its entrepreneurs with a network of seasoned business leaders who provide key ingredients to entrepreneurial success: mentorship, networks, strategic advice, and inspiration. Over the past 17 years, Endeavor Entrepreneurs have created more than 400,000 high quality jobs, directly reaching more than two million people across the world. Endeavor has achieved tangible results, with individuals working for Endeavor companies doubling their income over baseline or previous jobs, and Endeavor companies growing revenue 2.4 times faster than comparable firms over three years.

Current Operations of Endeavor

Endeavor is dedicated to high-impact entrepreneurship. Its main operations focus on identifying and supporting the continued growth of a select group of entrepreneurs, creating jobs, and adding revenues to foster entrepreneurship in those societies. Endeavor currently works in 21 countries across the world. In recent years, Endeavor’s operations have expanded into several countries; Endeavor launched in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Greece in 2012, Miami (US), Malaysia, and Morocco in 2013, and Peru and Spain in 2014.In 2011, Endeavor launched Endeavor Catalyst, a passive co-investment pool that uses donated funds to support Endeavor Entrepreneurs’ professional funding rounds and to provide funding for Endeavor’s growth and financial sustainability. Endeavor Catalyst has raised approximately $15 million to date and has made its first nine investments.

Approach and Distinguishing Features

Endeavor is an organization of, by, and for entrepreneurs. Endeavor believes that entrepreneurship is vital to economic growth and job creation, and recognizes the reality that entrepreneurs in growth markets face obstacles that inhibit successful scaling of businesses, such as limited management expertise, lack of role models, contacts, investors, etc. To this end, Endeavor provides immense support to rising entrepreneurs and acts as a springboard to catalyze their success with business establishment and job creation. Over 80% of Endeavor’s entrepreneurs give back to their local affiliates and commit to mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Endeavor’s entrepreneurs lead fast-growing, typically for-profit businesses that generate jobs and create revenues in growth markets. Endeavor looks for businesses with the potential to scale and become world-class ventures and industry leaders. Endeavor is distinct from many other organizations in its focus on high-growth, high-impact, for-profit companies that can scale. Academic research demonstrates that high-impact entrepreneurs generate a disproportionate number of jobs over other entrepreneurs.

2015 Kravis Prize


Jordan’s queen leads event in praise of Injaz Al-Arab’s success

A recent celebration of INJAZ Al-Arab’s efforts to stimulate entrepreneurial growth among Arab youth featured Jordan’s Queen Rania, who has long been a key supporter of this organization, which was awarded a Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership in 2012. The Queen chaired a discussion earlier this month in Qatar that brought together several of the organization’s leaders, including Soraya Salti — who was honored three years ago with the Kravis Prize for raising Amman-based INJAZ Al-Arab’s impact from a local to a regional force affecting the lives of millions of students in surrounding countries. According to the Reuters news site Zawya, job creation and employment opportunities are the two biggest challenges facing Arab youths today — they have also been Salti’s twin priorities for her organization over the past ten years. The successful expansion of INJAZ Al-Arab, Salti noted during the discussion, has been possible because of government supporters, especially advocates like Jordan’s Queen. “We would not be here today without the support of Her Majesty,” Salti told an audience of listeners, who also heard inspiring success stories about 14 young entrepreneurs based in Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Palestine, and elsewhere in the Arab world. What has been instrumental to the non-profit’s success, Salti added, is the Queen’s “belief in our mission to plant the seeds of entrepreneurship and promote it among our youth to encourage self-employment and the creation of more jobs.” RELATED: Visit here to read more about Soraya Salti’s work at the Kravis Prize website. Visit here to read more about Queen Rania’s participation in the event at Qatar’s The Peninsula new...

An exciting year ahead for the Kravis Prize: Milestones, anniversaries, and key student deadlines

The Kravis Prize team would like to extend warm wishes for a Happy New Year to all of the members of the Kravis Prize and Claremont McKenna College communities. We look forward to kicking off the spring semester at CMC with a number of exciting upcoming events. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership at CMC, an important milestone that we will celebrate in April alongside another important event: the twentieth anniversary of the College’s Kravis Leadership Institute. In recognition of these events, we are so excited to host the past ten Kravis Prize recipient organizations, including early recipients like Fazle Abed’s Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (pictured above) as well as more recent ones like Helen Keller International (decorated for the holidays, pictured below) for their upcoming retreat as we welcome them back to Claremont McKenna College. DON’T FORGET: Students who are interested in having social impact during their undergraduate years should remember: The Kravis Prize team is looking forward to welcoming student applications for partnered summer internship positions with past recipient organizations. Deadlines for these applications are February 2, 2015 (for international internships) and March 2, 2015 (for domestic internships). For more information on the application process, please go to the embedded link here. Or see our recent posts on the Kravis Prize blog for more information. CURRENT PRIZE UPDATE: At the moment, the Kravis Prize is moving along the selection process and we look forward to announcing the eleventh recipient of the $250,000 Prize soon! Stay in the loop, follow us on social media Facebook, Twitter, and...

Missed the Kravis Prize internship fair? Don’t worry, there’s still time to make an impact next summer!

Strong turnout marked the recent Kravis Prize Internship Fair, which opened its doors to CMC freshmen, sophomores, and juniors interested in summer internships at home and abroad with several Prize recipients. The internship fair also sparked student interest across the 7Cs to learn more about the College’s Kravis Prize, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2015. On Thursday, Dec. 4, KLI’s Sherylle Tan and CMC’s Alia Kate and Karan Saggi ’14 welcomed interested undergraduates to learn more about upcoming Prize internship opportunities.  The Kravis Prize internships, both domestic and international, will offer students a valuable chance to receive work experience in various development sectors (including micro-finance, education, public health, and women empowerment). Students also had a chance to talk to past interns Anthony Contreras ’15, Alexandra Ruark ’15, Juetzinia Kazmer ’15, and Samantha LaPierre ’15 about their experiences and hear more about what it’s like to work on the front-lines of the non-profit, social impact sector. The Kravis Prize recognizes extraordinary leaders in the nonprofit sector with a $250,000 prize, celebrates their accomplishments, and shares their best practices with others. For CMCers, the Prize also provides summer internships with Prize recipient organizations around the world. Internships with partner organizations challenge interns with meaningful responsibility and leadership development as well as expose the student intern to organizational leadership dynamics. The following internships are available for summer 2015: BRAC USA (New York), Helen Keller International (New York), Right to Play (Canada and one country in Africa TBD), Escuela Nueva (Colombia), FAWE (Tanzania), INJAZ Al-Arab (Jordan), and Pratham (India). Interested?  For application instructions, go to this embedded link for information. The...