Pete Kadens is a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, currently serving as Chairman of The Kadens Family Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to igniting pathways out of poverty through equitable access to education. Pete is also the Chairman of Katalyst Capital, a family owned and run private equity firm. Pete retired in August 2018 as co-founder and CEO of Green Thumb Industries (GTI), one of the largest publicly traded, legal cannabis operators in the US with a current market capitalization of over $3.5 billion. Prior to that, in 2008, Pete started one of the largest commercial solar companies in the US, SoCore Energy, named one of Chicago’s most innovative businesses by Chicago Innovation Awards. He employed over 4,000 people and created billions in shareholder value over his 18-year career as a CEO. Pete was named one of the Crain’s Chicago Business “40 Under 40” in 2012, and in 2019, he was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, a fellowship that accepts roughly 20 individuals from around the world each year to create ventures that solve society’s intractable problems. Pete is the chairman emeritus at StreetWise and sits on several other boards in the for profit and nonprofit space including the YMCA, the YWCA and National Louis University. Pete also served on the board of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center from 2003-2010 and he founded the Holocaust Remembrance Board in 2002. In 2019 Pete founded HOPE Toledo in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, to ensure that Toledo Public School children, and a parent, could go to post-secondary school for free. He also founded, and serves as Co-Chairman of the Board, of HOPE Chicago, the largest place-based scholarship program in the country that will spend $1B over the next decade sending underserved Chicago families to college. HOPE Chicago was twice featured on 60 Minutes in 2022. Pete earned his BA in political science from Bucknell University, where he was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus for Citizenship. Pete was inducted into the Hall of Fame at his high school, Ottawa Hills HS, in Toledo, OH. Pete was also the 19th person inducted into the Chicago Innovation Hall of Fame in 2022. In 2023, Pete was named the winner of the Humanitarian Award by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, the highest honor the Museum awards each year. Pete and his wife Amy have known one another for 40 years and share three beautiful school age children.