People – Rachel Kohler
Charting a New Course
Rachel Kohler is a social entrepreneur and investor. Most recently, she was CEO and Co-Owner of STEAMe, an impact technology company headquartered in Chicago, that pioneers a multi-sided platform to make it easy for individuals to acquire skills and apply to high-demand jobs not requiring a four-year degree, so they can increase their lifelong earnings.
“Having done it once, you can see why people are serial entrepreneurs.”
My dad was horrified, nearly disowned me, when I told him after college that I was going to be an investment banker. I had the self determination to chart my own course, but it really did start this pattern of pursuing hard and lonely experiences.
Rachel has had a lot of professional chapters. Whether working on junk bonds for companies that are hard to finance, restructuring broken processes to create greater efficiencies as an operations consultant, or at Kohler trying to make money in the luxury home furnishings portfolio – challenges have always attracted her.
Problem-solving is the thread that has informed the arc of her career. It helped her to take risks, to be bold when needed and to really have the confidence, ultimately, to leave Kohler Co. after two decades.
For her, building the social care referral platform NowPow – a startup she led as CEO and co-owned following her time at Kohler was “joy”. NowPow was incredibly relied upon during the pandemic to help connect people to food resources, housing resources, and financial assistance. Some of the nation’s largest health departments, health systems, and health plans are using NowPow technology to connect people in need to the resources of their community. For her and 140 “NowPowers”, being able to create a community-wide infrastructure that filled an important gap was an experience of a lifetime.
