When Everette Taylor takes the stage at the Greater Richmond Convention Center on May 10, it will be a homecoming. The Richmond native and CEO of Kickstarter has been named keynote speaker for Virginia Commonwealth University’s spring commencement ceremony.

Taylor, 35, leads the Brooklyn-based crowd-funding platform, which supports creative proj- ects across the globe. Before joining Kickstarter in 2022, he held executive roles at companies including Skurt and Artsy. By the age of 30, he had founded four companies that reached multimillion dollar valuations.

His path to success was far from conventional. Raised in Richmond’s Broad Rock neighborhood on the city’s South Side, Taylor was brought up by a single mother and experienced periods of homelessness as a teenager. He briefly attended Virginia Tech before leaving to pursue business ventures full time.

“Richmond made me the man I am today because it kept me hungry. It kept me ambitious,”Taylor says. “I grew up on a rougher side of the city so I saw the gangs, I saw the drugs, I saw the assaults and all those things, but at the same time, I saw really hard-working people and hard-working families in the South Side.”

Since becoming CEO, Taylor has led several changes at Kickstarter, including the addition of new features such as payment installment plans. He has also focused on improving company culture and customer engagement.

Sean Leow, the company’s chief operating officer, called him “one of the most impactful leaders” he has worked with.

“Now we’re focusing on customers and making sure that we’re empathetic in everything we do,” Leow said. “There was some complacency in the past towards growing the company, and Everette really is a shot in the arm in terms of wanting to bring that energy that this thing matters to the world.”

The VCU appearance will be Taylor’s second commencement address. He previously spoke at Shaw University, where he received an honorary doctorate in recognition of his contributions to society and public welfare.

Taylor said he’s still shaping what he plans to say to VCU’s graduates, but hopes to leave them with a message of resilience.

"I want the people in the room to feel the power,” Taylor says. “To feel like no matter what the obstacles in life that will come, because they surely will come, anything that they really want to do is possible.”

Taylor will deliver the commencement address for Virginia Commonwealth University on Saturday, May 10, 2025, at 10 a.m. at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.