About

Wes Kao is an entrepreneur, coach, and advisor who writes a newsletter at newsletter.weskao.com.

She is co-founder of Maven, a platform that empowers the world’s experts to offer live courses directly to their audience. Maven has served more than 25,000 students and helped instructors earn over $14M in course sales. In 2022, Maven was named by Fast Company as the #1 most innovative company in education.

Previously, Wes co-founded the altMBA with bestselling author Seth Godin, creating the category of cohort-based courses. She grew the altMBA from zero to thousands of students in 550 cities in 45 countries in three years.

She works with high-performing leaders in tech and speaks to teams about managing up, thinking rigorously, and building hype for your ideas.

Her work has been featured in TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Inc, Fast Company, and The Information. In 2021, she was selected by Entrepreneur magazine for the 100 Women of Impact list. She has spoken at SXSW and guest lectures at UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School.

Short bio (40 words): Wes Kao is an entrepreneur, coach, and advisor who writes at newsletter.weskao.com. She is co-founder of Maven, an edtech company that raised $25M from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz. Previously, she co-founded the altMBA with bestselling author Seth Godin.

Shorter bio (20 words): Wes Kao is co-founder of Maven and an executive coach. Her writing reaches 300k people through social media and newsletter.weskao.com.

 
Wes Kao in Entrepreneur Magazine 100 Women of Impact (2021)