Yancey Strickler

Fee Band

  • Conference Speakers£10k to £25k
  • Branding & Marketing, Business Strategy, IT & Online Business, Social Responsibility

Kickstarter has become synonymous with crowdfunding; enabling ordinary people to fund creative projects they care about. As well as disrupting a range of industries, Kickstarter is also a model of how to combine business with social responsibility. Yancey speaks about lessons from taking Kickstarter from idea to a global, game-changing company. He explains his four lessons for leading an innovative, disruptive organisation, and takes a determinedly optimistic view of the the commercial, social and political effects of the tech sector and business more broadly.


Biography

Yancey is the co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter, the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects. The company raised nearly $3 billion in less than a decade and has become both one of the best known tech startups and a by-word for a new form fundraising.

Kickstarter was founded with a simple principle: to help the people behind creative projects to raise funds from those that believe in them. Projects from films and albums to food and technology businesses have been funded by fans and potential customers. In the process Kickstarter has disrupted not just the likes of the music business, but also traditional investment models.

Despite being a part of the digital boom that has seen many companies grow exponentially and make billionaires of their founders, Kickstarter has remained true to their founding principles. Yancey and his partners established the company to help bring creative projects to life without the constraints of finance or big businesses. This has inspired a conversation about companies’ principles, the influence of their peers, and how they contribute to society

After a period as Editor in Chief of eMusic, Yancey and his co-founders Perry Chan and Charles Adler started Kickstarter. Initially serving as Head of Community and Head of Communications, Yancey then became CEO. Under his leadership Kickstarter became a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), a designation which means the company must put ethics and social good at the heart of the business, on at least equal footing with its financial obligations to shareholders.

Yancey considers the lessons learned in taking Kickstarter from an idea to a global company. He explains his four rules for leading a disruptive, innovative business as well as where new ideas come from and how they can take on a life of their own. Encompassing the commercial, social and political he reflects on the future of the tech sector, whilst being defiantly optimistic in the face of doom-laden views from all sides.

Having left Kickstarter after more than a decade, Yancey now writes, works with startups, and advises organisations, including the Tokyo Olympics. He is the author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, a positive look at the serious limitations of the current economic and social systems, and how they could be refocused to enable greater opportuinty and equality. He has been named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People, listed among Vanity Fair’s New Establishment, appointed a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and received a Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award from the Tribeca Film Festival.

© Copyright 2024 JLA. All rights reserved.

Videos

Yancey Strickler Conference Speaker

More Details

Book

Book written by Yancey Strickler (US)

Contact

We’re on hand to help you find the perfect speaker, presenter or performer for your events. Call or email our London office and use our agents' experience to expertly match you with the right person for your programme!


From time to time we send out emails announcing new speakers and free tickets to our showcase events including Speakers Breakfasts and the JLA Real Variety Show. Please tick the box below if you would like to receive these emails.

Don't miss anything!

We will never share the data you submit here with a third party. Information is stored in a database in order to service your enquiry, but is deleted once it is no longer required. You may request to have this data removed at any time.

JLA Presents


Event - 30/04/2024 - 9:00 am

Speakers Breakfast

Understanding AI Now

Speakers
Priya Lakhani, Anne-Marie Imafidon, and Neil Lawrence

Please join us in our JLab studio near Oxford Circus at 08:30am on Tuesday 30th April for our next speaker’s breakfast event. Following our sell-out event for IWD back in February, we will be joined by three fantastic speakers for an exploration of the uses, myths and concerns surrounding AI.

Location

JLA, 14 Berners Street, London

WATCH

Event - 06/02/2024 - 9:00 am

Speakers Breakfast

Looking Ahead to International Women’s Day

Speakers
Samira Ahmed, Eniola Aluko, Julia Gillard, and Alex Mahon

We were joined by four fantastic speakers to look ahead at International Women’s Day. With the theme of this year’s event being #InspireInclusion, we were lucky enough to hear from four women who have each blazed a trail in their respective fields: CEO of Channel 4, Alex Mahon; the former Australian Prime Minister and Chair of Kings’ Global Institute of Women’s Leadership, Julia Gillard; one of the leading voices in football, Eniola Aluko MBE; and broadcaster and journalist, Samira Ahmed.

Location

Bishopsgate Institute, London

WATCH