Entrepreneur of the Year honorees stepped through a wormhole of fate: Here’s what they found in KC

The ultra successful all share one common influence, said Peter Mallouk: luck. And for the president and CEO of Creative Planning, good fortune has revolved around Kansas City.

It all started when his parents left Egypt and ended up in Brookside, he told a crowd Wednesday evening during the 39th University of Missouri-Kansas City Entrepreneur of the Year Awards at the H&R Block Headquarters.

Peter Mallouk, Creative Planning, accepts the Kansas City Entrepreneur of the Year award from Tom Bloch during the University of Missouri-Kansas City Entrepreneur of the Year Awards at the H&R Block Headquarters; photo by Taylor Wilmore, Startland News

“That is the luck that happened before I was even here, and the luck just continues to roll,” continued Mallouk, who was honored as the Kansas City Entrepreneur of the Year and a Bloch Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame Inductee.

“If I look at this series of events, a big one is obviously being in America,” the acclaimed wealth management executive continued. “And the really big one is being in Kansas City, where this probably is an idea that does not gain traction early on in a city like New York or L.A.”

“So I’m very, very thankful for the good fortune I had to be born and raised in Kansas City,” he added, “and to stay here and have this idea be able to begin here and now spread to over 100 offices all over the country.”

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Since 2004, Mallouk has led Creative Planning — which oversees more than $309 billion in assets — and its family of companies in providing comprehensive wealth management services to clients in all 50 states and abroad, including investment management, financial planning, tax planning, retirement plan consulting, estate planning services, and charitable planning.

“Peter is clearly in the top tier of the most successful and innovative entrepreneurs who started their business right here in Kansas City,” noted Tom Bloch, who presented the award to Mallouk. “He has made an enormous impact on the economic growth and development of Kansas City.”

Creative Planning started with the idea of keeping the financial advisor and the products separate, Mallouk said.

“The advisor and the commission should not be in the same place,” he continued. “The advice should always be unbiased from someone that’s not making more money if they sell something. It’s just a really weird profession.”

“We were going to have a firm that didn’t do that,” he added, “and we were going to customize things for people. We were going to do planning for them. And this was back before people would do planning, before they built portfolios. We were going to solve all the problems — not just investments, but wills and trusts and tax returns and all those things — all under one roof, and try to keep it really simple. And it really took off.”

Mallouk is also a philanthropist focused on financial education and youth opportunity through such organizations as KC CAN! and Pathway Financial Education.

“He has leveraged his success to educate and lift up people in the community in fundamental, effective ways,” Bloch said.

Father Justin Mathews accepts the Marion and John Kreamer Award for Social Entrepreneurship from Bob Regnier, banking executive and trustee of the Regnier Family Foundation; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

Marion and John Kreamer Award for Social Entrepreneurship

Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, shared Father Justin Mathews, CEO of Reconciliation Services and founder of Thelma’s Kitchen.

“It is a creative act of justice forged in the imagination of great entrepreneurs from every single sector,” he continued after receiving the social entrepreneurship award. “This isn’t idealism. I don’t believe it. I believe that this love of our neighbor is the first principle of American democracy, and frankly, the very enduring greatness of any human achievement that outlasts us.”

Father Justin Mathews, CEO of Reconciliation Services and founder of Thelma’s Kitchen, speaks while accepting the Marion and John Kreamer Award for Social Entrepreneurship; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

“This love of our neighbor and this belief in a better way,” he added, “an evolved way of meeting our city’s greatest challenges, this is exactly what has inspired the expansion of Reconciliation Services to what it is today and the founding of Thelma’s Kitchen, Kansas City’s first social venture cafe and catering company.”

Mathews, an Orthodox Christian priest who also co-founded the Social Venture Studio with LaunchKC — a four-month accelerator program for social entrepreneurs located in the Crossroads Arts District — has centered his efforts on Troost Avenue, long known as Kansas City’s racial dividing line.

“To me, this is the enthralling possibility of social entrepreneurship,” he said. “It is not a charitable version of business. It is a better way of building and generating prosperity, one that recognizes the inherent dignity and worth of every human being that our work touches. It is more than the old saying, ‘Doing well by doing good.’ It is doing right while doing what matters most.”

For more than 25 years, Mathews has blended mission driven leadership with entrepreneurial creativity, noted Bob Regnier, who presented the award.

“Father Justin is obviously a social entrepreneur,” he explained, “but he’s also a bridge builder, a community leader, a visionary, a man of faith who reminds us that innovation can move hearts, as well as markets.”

J. Craig Venter gives remarks after accepting the Henry W. Bloch International Entrepreneur of the Year
honor; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

Henry W. Bloch International Entrepreneur of the Year

Science is based on entrepreneurism, said J. Craig Venter, founder, chair and CEO of J. Craig Venter Institute.

“You have to have an idea and you have to find a way to pursue it,” he continued. When you have a bigger idea, you have to find bigger ways to pursue it. We have to find funders, whether donors or research grants when the government wouldn’t fund any of these ideas.”

A biologist and entrepreneur known for sequencing the first draft human genome and creating the first synthetic cell, Venter founded the J. Craig Venter Institute and has launched multiple biotech ventures with a current focus on advancing women’s health through genomics and artificial intelligence. 

“I think I’m the first scientist to receive this award amongst a very impressive list of people over the last few decades,” he noted.

Venter said he had a surprisingly wonderful time while he was in Kansas City to accept the award.

“I actually felt like I stepped through a wormhole into a different part of the universe,” he explained, “where I was met with so much enthusiasm from high school students, college students, university students, professors, deans, presidents. All enthusiastic about science with some of the most thoughtful questions and people just exhibiting natural curiosity, A community that supports that, you’re all very fortunate.”

He was totally unaware this community existed, he noted. 

“Maybe it is just a wormhole I stepped through,” he added, “and it only exists in my imagination right now, But I’m going back with new inspiration to continue to do this work for the next 20 years or so, until somebody pulls my plug.”