The Promise of a Pencil

Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was sixteen years. He graduated from Brown University and worked for Bain & Company. While traveling abroad, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked him what he wanted most in the world, he answered, "a pencil." This experience became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would start with just $25 on his twenty-fifth birthday. He is the CEO of Pencils of Promise, which has broken ground on more than 200 schools around the world. His first book, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change, was published in 2014.

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