Student celebrates immigrant CEOs on website

Jordan Gonen, BSBA’19, has created a new website that features founders of some of the most famous and successful companies in America and the founders all have one important trait in common: they are immigrants.

Jordan told Mashable what inspired him to create the website called, Celebrate Immigrants:

My dad came [to America] from Israel after the army. I always looked up to what immigrants have done. Everyone was posting that stat of 40 percent of the Fortune 500 was founded by immigrants.

—Jordan Gonen, BSBA’19

Gonen, from his dorm room at Washington University, began doing some research on Google and soon discovered what founders and CEOs on his Twitter timeline were referencing. But there was no in-depth roundup, other than a few listicles.

“‘We have to build this,'” Gonen said to his friend Henry Kaufman, a high school student in Denver. “Now.” While thousands of protesters flooded the largest airports around the country Saturday evening, Gonen and Kaufman put together a website that lists almost 70 immigrant company founders.

Link to the entire story on Mashable.

Link to a longer interview with Jordan on WashU’s The Source.