About Kahlil Byrd (KB)

Founder and CEO

From the beginning, Shur is making it possible for younger Americans to create and maintain wealth. 

In an era when colleges and companies must show students, new employees, and consumers how they encourage economic security, Shur is building market-based Insurtech/Fintech products to promote economic freedom for America’s next generation – 18 to 30 years old. Partnering with corporations and universities we successfully guide student loan borrowers from college through their early professional lives – the financial period that is crucial to get right. Our products promote generational wealth by helping users eliminate early mistakes, build financial plans, and adopt deep understanding of prime credit-building tools.

Shur uses an ecosystem approach, building solutions for borrowers in collaboration with cities, corporations, colleges, college access organizations, data & insights providers, and impact investors.

Co-Founder and CEO (Fmr.)

Chief executive of this national start-up, which had the twofold mission of re-imagining, through technology, the U.S. presidential primary system and placing a bipartisan presidential ticket on all 50 state ballots. Structured, raised the capital, and stood up a fully functioning and fully funded start-up company with over 150 paid staff, 5,000 contractors, and 3,000 volunteers nationwide. Delivered award-winning, highly secure, scalable technology-based nominating platform. Directed all aspects of finance, operations, and legal. Built and sit on its nationally renowned Board of Directors and 130-member Board of Advisors.

Winner of the 2012 People’s Choice Award at South by Southwest, one of the country’s largest interactive technology conferences, the Campaigns & Elections 2012 CampaignTech Innovator Award, and two 2012 CLIO Awards for content and interactive excellence.

Founder and CEO

Invest America guides individuals, family offices, and publicly traded and venture-backed private companies in developing initiatives, strategy, and coordinated efforts linking their business and investment approach to solving major societal challenges. Our distinctive methods optimize resources and impact by combining bold national talent, smart technology, operating expertise, and research and data insights.

Clients include leaders and organizations whose aspirations have the potential to reach and improve the lives of 150+ million American citizens and their communities. Over a decade, we have worked with more than 100 clients and partners building products and organizations that sourced and deployed more than a billion dollars.

An Invest America & Ipsos Initiative

With Ipsos Public Affairs, Invest America drove a sustained national discussion and a public-private engagement called “Our Age of Uncertainty.” We seek to understand how this moment of political, policy, and popular unrest is affecting the work and lives of non-political leaders who must create and optimize value for citizens through their efforts and organizations. This partnership aims to directly shape the knowledge and understanding of non-political CEO leaders about the variable political environment in this country, and throughout the world.

Over the next several years, we will continue fostering a substantive public and private conversation about how to navigate today’s hardest societal, economic and political challenges—and defining a clear path forward.

Board Director and Advisor

Voatz is an award-winning, venture-backed technology company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Backed by state-of-the-art security, biometrics, and a blockchain-backed infrastructure, Voatz enables smartphone voting to increase accessibility and security in elections. Voatz has successfully served more than 1.9 million voters across 81 private and municipal elections. In 2020, Voatz became the first smartphone app and blockchain-based election system used for voting in the US Presidential Election.

Voatz is backed by Medici Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners, Edridge Industries, Urban Innovation Fund, and others. The company has raised $11 million + in venture financing.

An Invest America & Equifax Partnership

Invest America is partnering with Equifax to analyze various stressors impacting those most at risk of student loan default. To obtain a comprehensive understanding of student loan borrowers and to gain insights into the student loan experience over a defined time period, particularly of those 7 million borrowers in delinquency and default, we are executing a baseline study and market sizing.

Our goal is to garner greater understanding of the pain points student borrowers endure and then to identify opportunities to minimize student loan delinquency and default to help student loan borrowers first by building services and products and then through advocacy, education, support, and policy changes.

A report for FixUS by Wes Bricker, Kahlil Byrd, and Jamie Gamble

Polarization and gridlock in Washington have prompted more corporations to step forward to help address a range of societal problems. CEOs are increasingly aware that a corporation’s purpose must go beyond shareholder value and include concern for a variety of stakeholders. Yet while much has been written about why a more stakeholder-engaged capitalism is necessary, less has focused on how businesses can meet this new core objective.

In this essay, we — as experts in corporate governance and politics — discuss how businesses can build stakeholder engagement into their governance and reporting. This essay was part of an ongoing effort by FixUS to bring attention to a variety of ideas on how best to address our polarized governing environment.