User:Davidatcompass/Robert Reffkin

Robert Reffkin is the founder of the non-profit America Needs You and CEO of real-estate technology company Compass. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Brooklyn College and was a White House Fellow. Reffkin is known for running marathons to raise money for charities.

Early life and education
Reffkin grew up in Berkeley, California. His father died when Reffkin was 11, so he was raised by his mother. In middle-school, Reffkin started a non-profit with his mother called "A Better Chance" that helped low-income students get into prestigious universities. In 1994, at age 15, Reffkin started a DJ business, earning $100,000 by the time he graduated high school. Reffkin attended a high school in San Francisco before getting two degrees from Columbia University.

Career
Reffkin spent two years at the business consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Then, he went back to college to get an MBA from Columbia, before spending two years at the financial advisory firm Lazard. At age 25, he became a White House Fellow. He spent a year working under John Snow, who was the U.S. Treasury Secretary at the time. This was followed by six years at Goldman Sachs.

While working at Goldman, Reffkin ran marathons to raise $1.3 million in order to support the opening of a new school in the Bronx. In 2007, he started working on starting his own nonprofit, America Needs You (originally called New York Needs You), which he launched officially in 2009. The nonprofit provides career advice and mentorship to low-income students.

Reffkin returned to for-profit work in 2012, when he co-founded Compass, a real-estate technology company where he serves as CEO. By 2017, it had grown to more than 30 offices and $1 billion in revenue. As of 2019, the company had a valuation of $4.4 billion.

Personal life
Reffkin is married with children. Reffkin recently ran a marathon in every U.S. state, raising another $1 million for educational charities.