Ben Wright never planned to be an entrepreneur. Then, in 2012, an interaction at the law firm where he worked in business development prompted a light bulb moment that highlighted “a huge market opportunity.”
“I was sitting across from an executive, and they said, ‘I need to hire this person in Saudi Arabia. Can you help?’” says Wright. “I said, ‘Here’s how you set up a company in Saudi Arabia,’ and they said, ‘Whoa, I’m not looking to set up a company. Can’t you just employ them for me?’ I looked around and there wasn’t a single company on the planet that offered a service like that.” So he founded it.
Fast-forward a decade, and Wright’s startup, Velocity Global, provides a platform through which employers can hire, manage, and pay workers in 185 countries without having to establish a foreign entity. Wright’s initial aim was to help companies seamlessly employ diverse teams, while simultaneously giving employees the freedom to work from anywhere.
Unsurprisingly, business has boomed since the pandemic normalized distributed work. In February, the company announced that it had surpassed the $200 million annual recurring revenue threshold. Despite this, Wright says that sourcing fresh talent remains a challenge in many countries.
Hiring “still happens to go through who you know or if you have a LinkedIn profile, but that’s very limiting,” he explains. “If you’re in a major city—maybe you’ve already worked for some Western high-tech companies—you can be found.”
Wright, through Velocity Global, said he’s working to crack the job market wide open by finding equally talented but less visible candidates around the globe.
“That’s what we’re working on right now,” he says. “That’s the next frontier that truly makes this world a better place.”
In April, Wright stepped back as CEO while remaining as chairman, handing the reins to Frank Calderoni, a veteran software executive. “The primary reason was family demands,” says Wright, a father of two. “I told the board, and after a bit of hand-wringing, they got on board, and we all decided, ‘Let’s see if we can topgrade this position.’ And the individual we got to lead this organization has been an absolute star.”
An accomplished athlete, Wright recently completed the 2023 World Marathon Challenge: seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. He was still CEO at the time. “I sacrificed a lot of sleep,” he said, laughing. “I’ve signed up for my first hundred-mile race, and the training for that will be much easier to do given my new role.”
The Fortune Founders Forum is a community of entrepreneurs chosen by Fortune’s editorial team to participate at the annual Brainstorm Tech conference, which took place in Deer Valley, Utah, in July. Our inaugural cohort was selected based on a variety of factors, including the potential impact of their companies, and reflected a diversity of geographies, sectors, and demographics.
