Neri Karra Sillaman - What 46% of Fortune 500 Founders Have in Common (And What You Can Learn From Them)

Neri Kara Silliman's journey from refugee camp to global entrepreneur will stop you in your tracks. At just eleven years old, she fled ethnic persecution in Bulgaria with nothing but two hastily packed suitcases. Standing at the border, she made a decision that would shape her life: "My childhood just ended. I need to get a good education."

That determination carried her through living in a refugee camp, sharing a small apartment with multiple families in Istanbul, and watching her parents take any job they could find. While most children her age were playing, Neri helped her family navigate a new language, culture, and economic reality. But it was her father's entrepreneurial spark that transformed their situation.

Armed with a single business card from a chance encounter and keen cultural insight, he spotted an opportunity: after the fall of communism, people in former Soviet republics were carrying their belongings in plastic bags because leather goods simply weren't available. The family built a business that bridged worlds, capitalizing on what Neri calls "the luggage trade." When teenage Neri suggested creating their own brand using leather offcuts from suppliers to luxury houses, Neri Kara was born; A brand that would eventually produce for Prada and Miu Miu.

This episode reveals the principles that have helped immigrant entrepreneurs build some of the world's most innovative companies. From "frying in your own oil" (making the most of limited resources) to viewing rejection as the beginning of negotiation rather than the end, Neri unpacks why immigrants are twice as likely to become entrepreneurs and why their businesses tend to last longer. Her grandfather's wisdom, her family's resilience, and her own journey from refugee to Oxford entrepreneurship teacher offer a masterclass in building businesses that create lasting value.

Your idea might seem crazy now, but as the immigrant founders of Google, Moderna, and countless other transformative companies have shown, sometimes it's the wildest visions that change the world. What's yours?