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In this episode Alan asks serial entrepreneur Henry Kaestner about his business journey and how he started a movement of God-honoring entrepreneurs across the world. Expect to be challenged and inspired in this one! If you are an entrepreneur make sure to check out the Faith Driven Entrepreneur book or their groups across the country About Henry Kaestner Henry Kaestner co-founded the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor ministries, and has been a catalyst behind both movements. He and his team seek to serve faith driven entrepreneurs, investors, funds, partners, and advisors through content, community, and connections. Henry is also a Co-Founder and Partner at Sovereign's Capital, a private equity and venture capital management company that invests in faith driven entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia and the U.S. from its offices in Silicon Valley, Durham, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Prior to co-founding Sovereign's Capital, Henry was Co-founder and previous CEO, and then Chairman, of Bandwidth (NASDAQ:BAND) and its sister company, Republic Wireless (which spun out of Bandwidth in 2016). Together the companies have grown from $0 to more than $600 million in revenue. The founding values of Bandwidth are: Faith, Family, Work and Fitness (in that order). Prior to co-founding Bandwidth.com with David Morken, Henry founded Chapel Hill Brokers (a predecessor to ICAP Energy), an institutional energy derivatives broker that became the top ranked electricity broker in the country. Henry has been involved in a number of other ministries and philanthropic activities. He co-founded DurhamCares, was a founding Board Member of Praxis, and sits on a variety of business and ministry boards including Valley Christian Schools where his 3 boys attend. Go Warriors! Henry is a member of the broader Church in the Bay Area, attends Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos, CA and serves as an elder in the Presbyterian Church of America. Henry lives in Los Gatos with his wife Kimberley and their three sons. Connect with Henry LinkedIn Twitter Faith Driven Entrepreneur Podcast
In this episode, Jeff, Jeff, Alan, and Henry discuss: Building businesses with thriving employees in a faith-driven movement. Living your faith without playing small in business and investment.Being fully activated in faith and with God. Bringing the right people along with you on the journey. Key Takeaways: One of the greatest things you can do is provide someone with a job where they can thrive, innovate, and discover the joy of generosity. Funds can grow incredibly quickly when built on Biblical principles and help other like-minded businesses thrive. If your children know your faith story, they will better understand God's glory and understand their Savior and be able to build their own faith story. Lean into the joy of generosity and doing so in the community. Living God's truth and God's way is not done by the sole individual. "Business can be run really well, not at the expensive of Biblical values, but because of them." — Henry Kaestner About Henry Kaestner: Henry Kaestner co-founded the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor ministries, and has been a catalyst behind both movements. He and his team seek to serve faith-driven entrepreneurs, investors, funds, partners, and advisors through content, community, and connections.Henry is also a Co-Founder and Partner at Sovereign's Capital, a private equity and venture capital management company that invests in faith-driven entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia and the U.S. from its offices in Silicon Valley, Durham, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Prior to co-founding Sovereign's Capital, Henry was Co-founder and previous CEO, and then Chairman, of Bandwidth (NASDAQ:BAND) and its sister company, Republic Wireless (which spun out of Bandwidth in 2016). Together the companies have grown from $0 to more than $600 million in revenue. The founding values of Bandwidth are: Faith, Family, Work, and Fitness (in that order). Prior to co-founding Bandwidth.com with David Morken, Henry founded Chapel Hill Brokers (a predecessor to ICAP Energy), an institutional energy derivatives broker that became the top-ranked electricity broker in the country.Henry has been involved in a number of other ministries and philanthropic activities. He co-founded DurhamCares, was a founding Board Member of Praxis, and sits on a variety of business and ministry boards including Valley Christian Schools where his 3 boys attend. Go Warriors!Henry is a member of the broader Church in the Bay Area, attends Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos, CA, and serves as an elder in the Presbyterian Church of America. Henry lives in Los Gatos with his wife Kimberley and their three sons. Connect with Henry Kaestner:Website: https://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/Website: https://www.faithdriveninvestor.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hkaestner/Twitter: https://twitter.com/henrykaestner Connect with Jeff Thomas: Website: https://www.arkosglobal.com/Book: https://www.arkosglobal.com/trading-upEmail: jeff.thomas@arkosglobal.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/ArkosGlobalAdv Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arkosglobal/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arkosglobaladvisorsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/arkosglobaladvisors/
Henry Kaestner cofounded the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor ministries, and has been a catalyst behind both movements. He and his team seek to serve faith-driven investors, funds, partners, advisors, and entrepreneurs through content and community. Henry is also a co-founder and partner at Sovereign's Capital, a private equity and venture capital management company that invests in faith-driven entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia and the United States from its offices in Silicon Valley; Washington, DC; and Jakarta, Indonesia. Prior to cofounding Sovereign's Capital, Henry was cofounder, CEO, and then chairman of Bandwidth (NASDAQ: BAND) and its sister company, Republic Wireless (which spun out of Bandwidth in 2016). Together, those companies have grown from $0 to more than $400 million in revenue. The founding values of Bandwidth are faith, family, work, and fitness (in that order). Prior to cofounding Bandwidth with David Morken, Henry founded Chapel Hill Brokers (a predecessor to ICAP Energy), an institutional energy derivatives broker that became the top-ranked electricity broker in the country. Henry has been involved in a number of other ministries and philanthropic activities. He cofounded DurhamCares, was a founding board member of Praxis, and sits on a variety of business and ministry boards, including Valley Christian Schools, where his three boys attend. Henry is a member of the broader church in the Bay Area, attends Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos, California, and serves as an elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. Henry lives in Los Gatos with his wife, Kimberley, and their three sons. You can follow his work at https://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/ and follow his adventures on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/hkaestner/ and buy his books online.
David Morken from High Tech Prayer Breakfast
Kingdom Capitalists : For Christians Called to Start and Scale Successful Businesses
Other topics discussed: the identity crisis of faith driven entrepreneurs that keeps us from creating truly impactful venturesthe different tensions faith driven entrepreneurs experience vs secular entrepreneurswhat Henry says every faith driven entrepreneur must know and must do in order to thrive in faith and businessgetting rid of the artificial secular vs sacred divideTrust me, listen to this episode! - Ellis Guest Bio: Henry Kaestner is a co-founder and managing principal of Sovereigns Capital, an investment fund that invests in faith driven entrepreneurs in the United States and Southeast Asia. Previously, Henry was the Co-Founder and previous CEO, and then Chairman of Bandwidth.com (NASDAQ:BAND), along with Republic Wireless he grew with his best friend and business partner, David Morken. The values of Bandwidth have always been: Faith, Family, Work and Fitness (in that order). Bandwidth was the 4th fastest growing privately held company in the country from 2003 through 2007, a position it achieved without acquisition or institutional funding. Prior to co-founding Bandwidth, Mr. Kaestner founded Chapel Hill Brokers (a predecessor to ICAP Energy), an institutional energy derivatives broker that became the top ranked electricity broker in the country. Mr. Kaestner has also been involved in a number of ministry and philanthropic activities. He co-founded Faith Driven Entrepreneur, Faith Driven Investor, DurhamCares, and most recently, Generosity: Bay Area. Additionally, Henry serves as an elder in the Presbyterian Church of America, serves on various ministry and business boards along with the board of Valley Christian Schools in San Jose. Henry lives in Los Gatos, CA with his wife Kimberley and their three sons. Guest Links: LinkedInhttps://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org/https://www.faithdriveninvestor.org/
In Part Two with David Morken, the team discusses more thoroughly about what it means to be mission ready both individually and corporately. David talks about the importance of obedience to God and avoiding the pitfalls of both willfulness and passivity and Henry leads the discussion into practical applications of how their company’s HR policies intentionally reflected kingdom values as they target the whole person for impact. This commitment led them to institute chaplaincy roles as a force multiplier to help them steward the whole person policies they wanted to instill. David shares further on a few other ways the company has and continues to innovate in the area of ensuring the whole team is mission ready. If you’re committed to growing healthy, impactful organizations that walk out the values of the kingdom, then this is the episode for you. If you are innovating in the areas of employee well being and engagement and are seeing the results directly impact your organization’s reach and bottom line, by all means share those wins with us at faithdrivenentrepreneur.org. Until next week!
In this edition of the FDE Podcast, we get a peek into the longtime friendship and partnership (let’s just call it what it is – a bromance) between David Morken and Henry Kaestner, co-Founders of Bandwidth and Republic Wireless. They share with us the divine origins of their relationship (Henry was a direct answer to David’s prayer) and how their relationship translated into a successful business where people are promoted as much as the product. They talk about the need to be able to work through conflict in healthy ways and the conscious effort needed to incorporate others into this dynamic mix to create high functioning, mission ready, people-centric organizations. And who doesn’t want that? Part One of this discussion focuses on the friendship and partnership rooted in Christ that launched the company while next week's episode gets into how together they created a culture that reproduced kingdom concepts and principles in the lives of their employees. You don’t want to miss any of this. We serve a Trinitarian God who does everything in community and Who tasks us to follow suit. We’d love to hear your stories about those important relationships in your life directly impacting your faith driven entrepreneur pursuits at faithdrivenentrepreneur.org. It will encourage us all!
On this episode, Henry Kaestner shares how his faith impacts his investment decisions as a Christian venture capitalist in the startup funding world. Henry is a Managing Principal at Sovereign's Capital LLC, a private equity fund helping faith-driven entrepreneurs building great businesses in both consumer and business software-as-a-service, tech-enabled consumer good/services, and healthcare technology, in both the U.S. and Southeast Asia. To date, they've invested in 36 companies. He's the co-Founder and previous CEO, and then Chairman of Bandwidth.com, a company that together with his business partner, David Morken, he has grown to $250 million in revenue. The values of Bandwidth.com have always been: Faith, Family, Work and Fitness (in that order). Bandwidth.com was the 4th fastest growing privately held company in the country from 2003 through 2007, a position it achieved without acquisition or institutional funding. http://sovereignscapital.com/ http://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org Theology of Business is the show that helps marketplace Christians to partner with God in business to make disciples, transform the marketplace, and make an eternal impact. If you want to learn more about how to do business for the glory of God, this show is for you. | Entrepreneurship | Marketing | Nonprofit | Church | Author | Startups | Marketplace | Ministry | Business as Mission | Faith and Work | Faith | Success | Leadership | www.TheologyofBusiness.com
On this episode, Henry Kaestner shares how his faith impacts his investment decisions as a Christian venture capitalist in the startup funding world. Henry is a Managing Principal at Sovereign's Capital LLC, a private equity fund helping faith-driven entrepreneurs building great businesses in both consumer and business software-as-a-service, tech-enabled consumer good/services, and healthcare technology, in both the U.S. and Southeast Asia. To date, they've invested in 36 companies. He's the co-Founder and previous CEO, and then Chairman of Bandwidth.com, a company that together with his business partner, David Morken, he has grown to $250 million in revenue. The values of Bandwidth.com have always been: Faith, Family, Work and Fitness (in that order). Bandwidth.com was the 4th fastest growing privately held company in the country from 2003 through 2007, a position it achieved without acquisition or institutional funding. http://sovereignscapital.com/ http://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org Theology of Business is the show that helps marketplace Christians to partner with God in business to make disciples, transform the marketplace, and make an eternal impact. If you want to learn more about how to do business for the glory of God, this show is for you. | Entrepreneurship | Marketing | Nonprofit | Church | Author | Startups | Marketplace | Ministry | Business as Mission | Faith and Work | Faith | Success | Leadership | www.TheologyofBusiness.com
On this episode, Henry Kaestner shares how his faith impacts his investment decisions as a Christian venture capitalist in the startup funding world. Henry is a Managing Principal at Sovereign's Capital LLC, a private equity fund helping faith-driven entrepreneurs building great businesses in both consumer and business software-as-a-service, tech-enabled consumer good/services, and healthcare technology, in both the U.S. and Southeast Asia. To date, they’ve invested in 36 companies. He’s the co-Founder and previous CEO, and then Chairman of Bandwidth.com, a company that together with his business partner, David Morken, he has grown to $250 million in revenue. The values of Bandwidth.com have always been: Faith, Family, Work and Fitness (in that order). Bandwidth.com was the 4th fastest growing privately held company in the country from 2003 through 2007, a position it achieved without acquisition or institutional funding. http://sovereignscapital.com/ http://www.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org Theology of Business is the show that helps marketplace Christians to partner with God in business to make disciples, transform the marketplace, and make an eternal impact. If you want to learn more about how to do business for the glory of God, this show is for you. | Entrepreneurship | Marketing | Nonprofit | Church | Author | Startups | Marketplace | Ministry | Business as Mission | Faith and Work | Faith | Success | Leadership | www.TheologyofBusiness.com
Hot technology companies tend to be based in Silicon Valley. They tend to be founded by eager undergrads or Harvard or Stanford business school alums. And these days, their leadership tends to lean strongly to the left politically. Bandwidth is different. Bandwidth is a business communication software company based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Co-founder and CEO David Morken served in the Marine Corps and went to law school. And he doesn't hide his Christian faith – while he says he also encourages his employees who have different belief systems to be authentic at work, too. Bandwidth had its IPO on the Nasdaq on November 10, the day before Veterans Day and birthday of the Marine Corps. Morken timed it intentionally. The company is worth more than 300 million dollars, and Morken is determined to keep it independent and based in North Carolina. We talked about how the Marines prepared him to be an entrepreneur, why he believes student debt is a drag on the country's future, and how he handles today's divisive culture wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
David Morken, CEO, Bandwidth.com How can a middle-market telecom provider compete successfully against industry giants such as Verizon and AT&T? Join us as David Morken explains how Bandwidth.com’s two operating divisions, Republic Wireless and Bandwidth Business Solutions, are growing remarkable value from mobile and IP networks. Listen Now.