Kenneth Alan Howery is an American entrepreneur and diplomat. He is currently serving as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Sweden and is a co-founder of PayPal and Founders Fund.
The same year he graduated, he co-founded PayPal with Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, Elon Musk, and Max Levchin. The group of founders became known as the PayPal Mafia, which included other peers and early investors. From 1998 to 2002, Howery served as PayPal’s CFO. Following PayPal's acquisition by eBay in 2002, Howery served as eBay's Director of Corporate Development until 2003. Howery then rejoined Thiel in 2004 at Clarium Capital Management, where he served as vice president of private equity, as well as a member of the research and trading teams. In March 2012, the World Economic Forum named Howery a Young Global Leader, a community of “socially-minded men and women selected under the age of 40, who operate as a force for good to overcome barriers that elsewhere stand in the way of progress." He is also a member of the Selection Committee for the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers Program. In 2005, Howery and Thiel, along with fellow PayPal alumnus, Luke Nosek, started Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm with over $3 billion under management, where he served as co-founder and partner. He has served on the boards of Quantcast and ZocDoc. In 2010, Venture Capital Journal named Howery one of the Top 10 VCs under 36. He has lectured on entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School and Stanford, and has helped students at UC Berkeley and the McCombs School of Business develop business models. Howery is a member of The Explorers Club, a non-profit group that promotes scientific exploration. Howery serves as an advisor to Kiva, a 501 charity organization which enables people to lend money via the Internet to low-income entrepreneurs and students in over 80 countries. He is a member of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, which has a stated goal of increasing the United States' economic competitiveness in the global marketplace. Howery's net worth stands at $1.5 billion.
Diplomacy
On January 16, 2019, Howery was nominated by President Donald Trump to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Sweden. Following a confirmation hearing on May 16, 2019, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee favorably reported Howery’s nomination to the Senate, which confirmed Howery on September 17, 2019 by a vote of 62–32. In his confirmation hearing, Howery stated his priorities as Ambassador would include pursuing expanded economic and trade relationships, advancing mutual security commitments, and promoting science, technology and entrepreneurship opportunities.
