Pete Stavros

Pete Stavros is the founder and chairman of Ownership Works, a nonprofit group advocating for employee ownership across corporate America, with a goal of creating $20 billion of wealth for working families within the next decade. He is also Co-Head of Global Private Equity at KKR, overseeing one of the largest private equity platforms in the world, covering $165 billion of assets across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Stavros' interest in employee ownership began at home with his father, who worked as an hourly construction worker for 40 years and experienced what most Americans do -- a lack of incentive alignment with his employer and no opportunity to create wealth. His passion deepened when he worked with an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) nearly 25 years ago, and later had the opportunity to study the topic in-depth at business school. He has been experimenting with different models of employee ownership ever since. In addition to Ownership Works, he also founded Expanding ESOPs, a coalition of employee ownership advocates and ESOP experts who are pursuing legislation in the United States to make ESOPs easier and faster to form, particularly among larger businesses.

Prior to his current role at KKR, Stavros served as Co-Head of the firm's Americas Private Equity platform and earlier, led the Industrials industry team, where he pioneered an innovative employee engagement and ownership model. This approach has been successfully implemented at a number of companies and has positively impacted tens of thousands of employees. Before joining KKR, Stavros was an investor with GTCR Golder Rauner, where he was an investor in the healthcare sector.

Stavros is a member of several investment and management committees at KKR and has also served as Co-Chair of the firm’s global Inclusion and Diversity Council. He holds a BS in Chemistry from Duke University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.