Introducing Obvious Champions

Bringing together the values-driven leaders of today with the entrepreneurial visionaries of tomorrow

Since our launch in 2014, the mission has remained the same: back founders building transformative solutions to the systemic environmental and social challenges of our time. We call these companies and founders world positive.

Our belief that these companies would outperform has gained traction over the years, and our community of investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders across sectors has grown with this shared belief.

Today we are turning that shared belief into shared purpose with the announcement of Obvious Champions, a community of leaders we are teaming up with to seek out and support these world positive entrepreneurs.

Through roundtable discussions, 1:1 connections, our CEO Summits and more, these Obvious Champions are engaging with Obvious portfolio CEOs and teams today, and will be in the years to come.

These visionaries have been building world positive companies their entire careers. They understand they are a part of something bigger than themselves, creating new businesses across sectors including healthcare, food and wellness, climate, industrials, fintech, and work.

They meet with us regularly to talk about these themes, help us identify disruptive trends, and disruptive startups tackling big challenges. And they have much to teach the ascendant entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Here they are:

• Glenn Kelman is the long-time CEO of Redfin (Nasdaq: RDFN), a technology-powered real estate brokerage.
• Cathy Zoi is currently CEO of EVgo (Nasdaq: EVGO), the leading electric vehicle fast-charging infrastructure company in the United States.
• Dr. Yet-Ming Chiang is a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and co-founder of Desktop Metal, Form Energy, and more.
• Rodney Brooks is currently CTO and co-founder of Robust.AI, having previously co-founded five companies including iRobot and Rethink Robotics.
• Aneesh Chopra is currently the President of CareJourney, an open data and analytics platform, and was previously the U.S.’s first CTO in the Obama Administration.
• Sachin Jain is currently President and CEO of SCAN Group and Health Plan, having previously served in C-level roles at CareMore, Merck, and the Obama Administration.
• Sue Siegel has served for 20+ years for ~20 public and private companies, currently serving on the boards of Illumina, Align Technologies, and Nevro.
• Eric Ryan is the co-founder and has exited multiple consumer businesses including Method, Olly, and Welly.
• April Underwood is a founding partner of the angel investing collective #Angels, a Board Director at Zillow, and the former Chief Product Officer at Slack.
• Joanne Bradford is currently the Chief Marketing Officer of Bolt, having previously served as President of Honey and COO/CMO of SoFi.

A new kind of company is fueling the growth of the global economy, with purpose at the core. The entrepreneurs building these companies need guidance like never before given the increasing challenges they face, both in what they’re building and how they do it — and these Obvious Champions are here for just that, within the Obvious family and beyond.