About — Kunal Chopra

Story

From a one-way ticket
to a NASDAQ turnaround.

I grew up in Mumbai. When I finished my engineering degree, I borrowed $10,000, bought a one-way ticket to the United States, and enrolled at Clemson on the waitlist for a scholarship I didn't yet have. Two weeks after I landed, the scholarship came through.

Everything since has been built the same way — on hard work, clear goals, and a refusal to wait for permission. I started as a software engineer at Microsoft, got curious about the business behind the technology, and spent the next two decades moving from building products to building companies: an MBA at Chicago Booth, hypergrowth at Groupon, GM roles at Microsoft and Amazon, a NASDAQ turnaround at Kaspien, a 25x private-equity valuation at Beckett, and now an AI company at Certivo.

The throughline never changes: find the inflection point, set the vision, build the team, and create lasting value.

Also founder of Coursetake, an AI-powered interview preparation platform.

Companies Built or Led

CertivoBeckettKaspienMicrosoftAmazonGroupon

02 — How I Lead

How I lead.

The operating principles I bring into every room — and the framework my teams run on.

Single-threaded leadership

One accountable owner per outcome. Clear ownership beats shared ownership every time.

Disagree and commit

Debate hard, then align completely. Once we decide, everyone supports the call — even the people who argued the other way.

Decisive over perfect

A wrong decision you learn from and pivot beats waiting for certainty that never comes.

Insights over opinions

Data makes the decision — not the loudest voice in the room. I'm relentlessly insights-driven.

Bias toward owners

Hire owners, give them real autonomy, and manage to outcomes — not activity.

Growth mindset

There's no comfort in the growth zone and no growth in the comfort zone. I'm a lifelong learner and I build teams of them.

My framework

C.E.D. — Communicate, Escalate, Debate.

Communicate

Early and often — good news and bad. An aligned team marches in one direction.

Escalate

If you see something, say something. Push the red button; don't wait for it to grow.

Debate

Push back, ask the hard questions, keep it centered on the customer's goals — never personal.

By the Numbers

Three companies. Three different ownership structures. One repeatable pattern: turn a services business into a technology platform, and create measurable value doing it.

Three modes of value creation — a turnaround, a transformation, and a 0-to-1.

$1B

Marketplace Sales

+6 pts

EBITDA Margin

20x+

EV / EBITDA

4 Qtrs

Consecutive Profit

The Situation

Recruited to lead the turnaround of a public e-commerce company in decline — revenue contracting, EBITDA negative, stock languishing near $2, and no defensible growth engine.

What I Did

Built an entirely new business — a tech-enabled agency and software platform distributing brands across Walmart, eBay, and Target — that became the margin engine driving EBITDA from red to black.

Re-engineered the cost structure through outsourcing, automation, and organizational redesign, cutting SG&A margin 20%+.

Deployed a new digital customer-acquisition strategy that drove an 8:1 LTV:CAC ratio, tripled the customer base, and cut churn below 5%.

Funded the growth plan through both debt and public equity, partnering closely with the board on capital strategy.

Rebuilt the company from the inside out — HR function, leadership principles, compensation structure, career paths — earning back-to-back "Best Places to Work" recognition (2020, 2021).

The Results

Took the stock from ~$2 (end of 2019) to a $52 peak (Q1 2021), with four consecutive profitable quarters.

Reversed revenue from -28% YoY to +20%+; EBITDA from negative to positive within the first year.

Grew the business past $1B in marketplace sales; enterprise value drew acquisition offers at ~20x adjusted EBITDA.

Why a board should care: Public-company command under real scrutiny — earnings calls, analyst relationships, proxy execution, and capital-markets decisions with shareholders watching every quarter.

Read the full case study →

$40M

ARR Built (SaaS)

5%→20%

Recurring Rev Mix

$200M+

Capital Secured

Market Share

The Situation

A private-equity-owned, three-company platform (Beckett Collectibles, Southern Hobby, Arcane Tinmen) anchored by a 40-year-old grading and services business. The mandate: turn the flagship into a technology platform — Bloomberg + Amazon for the collectibles industry — and unlock synergies across the portfolio.

What I Did

Set a new mission, competitive strategy, 3-year operating plan, and 10-year vision — repositioning Beckett from a services company into a technology platform with clear, defensible differentiation.

Launched five new products: a data & analytics platform, a rebuilt beckett.com, the Beckett Collect SaaS product, Beckett Vault, and a patent-backed NFT product.

Relaunched beckett.com as a modern, Amazon-like eCommerce experience — lifting revenue 20% in just three months.

Recruited a product-first leadership team — CFO, CTO, Chief Product Officer, Chief People Officer, Head of Design, and Chief of Staff — and rebuilt the culture around it.

Secured $200M+ in financing from HPS Investment Partners and Freedom 3 Capital to fund the transformation and strategic acquisitions (Due Dilly, NoXX) — institutional capital that publicly validated the thesis.

The Results

Valuation multiple lifted from 10x to 25x EBITDA, positioning the company for PE exit.

Built a ~$40M ARR SaaS business — recurring software revenue grew from 5% to over 20% of the mix.

Doubled market share from 5% to 10%.

Why a board should care: The PE value-creation playbook executed end to end — thesis, product transformation, M&A, debt structuring, team build, and exit positioning.

$200M+ figure and lender names confirmed in Beckett's February 2023 press release (HPS Investment Partners + Freedom 3 Capital).

Read the full case study →

$350B

Annual Compliance Spend (TAM)

80–90%

Manual Work Eliminated

1/10th

Cost vs. Traditional

The Situation

Manufacturers spend over $350B annually on compliance — roughly 12% of the sector's value-add to GDP. Without the right certifications and constant regulatory vigilance, products can't launch and revenue is lost. Certivo, a Pioneer Square Labs spinout built in partnership with Fortive, was founded to solve this with AI.

What I Did

Leading 0-to-1 company building across product, go-to-market, team, and fundraising.

Built the platform around CORA, a 24/7 AI compliance assistant that parses BOMs, validates documents, monitors regulatory change (REACH, RoHS, PFAS, TSCA, Prop 65), and manages supplier and customer communications.

Automating certificate collection, supplier engagement, and global regulatory tracking — eliminating 80–90% of manual work at roughly 1/10th the cost of traditional methods.

Secured backing from Suffolk Technologies, Pioneer Square Ventures, Fortive, and the AI Studio Fund (a PSL/Mayfield partnership).

Why a board should care: A sitting AI CEO brings real-time, hands-on AI and regulatory expertise into the boardroom — the single most-requested director skill of 2026.

Read the full case study →

Operating Chapter

Before the CEO chairs — proof I can scale a business, not just fix or found one.

SCALE

Scaling a Global Platform

General Manager · Operating Role

Microsoft — Worldwide Learning

General Manager · 2018–2019 · 100-person team · 15K+ accounts

2×

Top-Line Growth

Global Regions Entered

−20%

Operating Cost

15K+

Accounts Served

The Situation

Microsoft's jobs, skills, and employability business was generating revenue but had stalled — no new products in two years and flat growth. The mandate: reignite it and take it global.

What I Did

Consolidated fragmented, custom-built offerings into a single platform — Microsoft Learn — driving down per-unit development cost.

Expanded distribution into new B2C (free) and B2B segments: government, secondary education, higher education, and corporations.

Launched a new “Employability” product and shipped the first new product in six months, after a two-year drought.

Stood up a product-management function and a startup-style innovation lab, and leveraged the gig economy to cut operating cost 20%.

Took the business international across the US, UK, Africa, and Australasia.

The Results

Doubled a previously flat $100M+ business — 100% top-line growth.

Cut operating costs 20% while expanding into new segments and regions.

Won two company Gold Star Awards for innovation.

Why it matters: Pure scale execution — taking a stuck, no-growth business and doubling it through platform consolidation, new segments, and global expansion. Not a turnaround, not a 0-to-1: proof of growing a business at scale, the complement to the three CEO chapters above.

04 — Career

The full record.

Two decades from software engineer to three-time CEO — every role, every degree, and every board seat, in one place.

$270M+

Raised across debt and equity

Strategic acquisitions

Ownership models

Public markets · private equity · venture.

2024 — Present

CEO

Certivo

CEO

$6.3M raised · AI-native 0-to-1

Building CORA, a deterministic AI compliance assistant for manufacturers — REACH, RoHS, PFAS, TSCA, Prop 65. A PSL spinout backed by Suffolk Technologies, Fortive, and the AI Studio Fund.

Read the case study →

2022 — 2023

CEO

Beckett Collectibles

Chief Executive Officer

10× → 25× EBITDA valuation

Transformed a private-equity collectibles platform from a services business into a technology company — building roughly $40M of SaaS ARR and lifting valuation from a 10× to a 25× EBITDA multiple.

Read the case study →

2019 — 2022

CEO

Kaspien

Chief Executive Officer · NASDAQ: KSPN

$2 → $52 stock

Joined as CEO of etailz in 2019; named CEO of the NASDAQ-listed parent, Trans World Entertainment, in 2020 — divesting FYE's 2,000+ retail stores and rebranding the company as Kaspien. Led the public-market turnaround from a $2 low to a $52 peak, with four consecutive profitable quarters and $1B+ in lifetime marketplace sales.

Read the case study →

2018 — 2019

Operating · GM

Microsoft

General Manager, Worldwide Learning

Doubled a flat $100M+ line

Took over Microsoft's jobs, skills, and employability business. Centralized fragmented offerings into Microsoft Learn, doubled a previously flat top line, and expanded into new B2C and B2B segments across the US, UK, Africa, and Australasia.

2016 — 2018

Operating · GM

Amazon

General Manager, Amazon Fashion

$400M business · 20% EBITDA

Ran the Shoes business inside Amazon Fashion — rebuilt how customers shopped for shoes on Amazon, drove new-brand development, and built a partnership with Zappos, all while holding operating margins.

2014 — 2016

Operating · COO

Unikrn

Chief Operating Officer

$0 → $10M revenue

Venture-backed eSports platform. Promoted from GM of Operations to COO within six months; built the operating org across four countries, took revenue from zero to $10M, and helped raise two rounds of growth capital. (Investors included Ashton Kutcher.)

2012 — 2014

Product

Groupon

Director of Product Management

Launched in 34 countries

Joined during Groupon's hypergrowth era to consolidate 34 acquired systems into a single global marketplace — rolling the platform out across 34 countries, on time and 70% under budget.

2006 — 2012

Engineering · Product

Microsoft

Software Engineer → Engineering Manager

$500M+ combined product revenue

Started straight out of grad school and grew into engineering management across Office, Dynamics Online, and the Windows Store — shipping products through three platform shifts. Won two company innovation awards.

Education

2015