Karen Mok

Co-Founder and COO, The Cosmos

San Francisco

I'm the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of The Cosmos, a community for Asian women to flourish and thrive. I identify as a child of immigrants. There are many nuances to the immigrant experience, and I can only speak for what it has taught me:

• Live with integrity and for the causes you care about. That can never be taken from you.

• We are far more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for.

• The chance to navigate multiple worlds and identities is a gift, not a burden.

• People are always worth knowing and they are always worth believing in.

Because of my identity, I'm drawn to work with and for organizations that enable underrepresented and underestimated entrepreneurs and creators. I've led global expansion for Stripe, a $9B Fintech company with a mission to empower entrepreneurs globally with the tools to build online businesses, and prior to this, I worked in venture capital in Asia and trained over 200 technology entrepreneurs across 14 countries. I have consulted for Google, The Omidyar Network, The Rockefeller Foundation, and The Inter-American Development Bank on the economic impact of supporting SMBs and entrepreneurs in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

I created my first company at age 16 because of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, a non-profit providing entrepreneurship education to youth from low-income communities. This changed the course of my life, and it is the root of why I care about community, entrepreneurship, and identity today.