From Monk to Crypto: A look at our Co-Founder, Paul Rodney Turner
When we think of CEOs of emerging technology companies, we typically think of young graduates of Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, MIT, etc. But then we have the unusual example of Paul Rodney Turner, a former monk, vegan chef, long-time humanitarian, author, and spiritual coach, who leads up a newly dressed entrant into the crypto space, The Kindly Ecosystem (Kindly).
Kindly is not your average DeFi startup, and Turner is not your typical social entrepreneur.
Kindly is a purpose-driven social enterprise that aims to make it easy for anyone to be kind. They plan to achieve this noble feat by embedding measurable social impact into every product they release to the market.
What gives Turner cred in this space is his 39-year career as a humanitarian, who currently directs the world’s largest food relief network, Food for Life Global, which consists of 290 projects in 65 countries serving over 1 million vegan meals daily. To date, the US-based 501 c3 has served over 8 billion meals!
Turner is also the author of 6 books on spirituality. His philosophical approach to life will serve Kindly well, giving it the story and meaning often lacking with other Defi projects.
However, Turner has a technology background, beginning with coding the first website for his charity in 1995, well before many fortune 500 companies even considered the world wide web. He later consulted for The World Bank for ten years as a lead developer, building over 50 websites for the institution.
Turner, surveying the aftermath of the great Tsunami that hit Sri Lanka.
More importantly, when it comes to the mission of Kindly, there are only a few more qualified than Turner, who has traveled to 72 countries, directing and training volunteers within the non-profit network. “I have led many first responses to some of the world’s greatest natural disasters, including the Asian Tsunami of 2004,” he said. “I have also cooked for presidents and dodged bullets in war zones,” he explained.
Turner believes kindness and profitability are not mutually exclusive but can co-exist to help a company thrive in this new caring economy we are seeing emerge. “This approach to business resonates with my values, and I have assembled a world-class team that aligns with this vision,” he says.
“I believe at our core, we are all naturally kind. The soul is a spark of God’s splendor. However, life can harden us over time and cover this natural inclination.”
Our goal at Kindly, therefore, is to extract this kindness naturally through embedding social impact into products and services we use daily. It’s cool to be kind, and maybe, in the example of Turner, we are witnessing a new kind of business leader who truly cares about the world and not just the bottom line.
About Kindly
Kindly is a purpose-driven social enterprise co-founded by one of the largest food relief charities in the world. With its existing infrastructure and strategic partners, Kindly is bridging the gap between social impact and Web3 as it creates innovative consumer and business-related products that help make it easy to generate, track and process measurable social impact.
To learn more about Kindly visit:
Website | Twitter | Telegram | YouTube
