Jim McKelvey
Co-Founder of Square (w/ Jack Dorsey), Founder & CEO of Invisibly
- Jim McKelvey co-founded payments firm Square after he had trouble selling an art piece from his studio.
- The company, co-founded alongside Jack Dorsey — also the co-founder of Twitter — has more than 2500 employees and is now valued at over $30 billion.
- McKelvey remains on Square’s board, but has started a new company, Invisibly, which powers micropayments for journalism and publishing.
- A serial entrepreneur, he has started at least seven companies, ranging from a CD cabinet maker to a glass-blowing studio.
- He also sits on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and started a nonprofit, LaunchCode, to teach people how to program.
Full Profile
Jim McKelvey is a visionary entrepreneur, co-founder of Square, and an acclaimed speaker renowned for helping organisations drive innovation, digital transformation, and problem-solving in disruptive business environments. As the driving force behind the creation of Square – now Block, Inc. – McKelvey helped empower small businesses globally by making card payments accessible to anyone, closing critical gaps for entrepreneurs and creative professionals shut out by traditional finance systems. McKelvey remains on Square’s board and continues to redefine industries through ventures like Invisibly, which puts individuals in control of their data and online identities, and LaunchCode, a non-profit creating pathways for diverse talent to enter the technology workforce.
Jim’s entrepreneurial journey spans seven unique companies, including Square, Invisibly, LaunchCode, Third Degree Glass Factory, and FINTOP Capital. His ventures consistently address major business challenges such as digital inclusion, workforce reskilling, technological empowerment, and creative access to markets. From building tools to help creators and sellers get paid, to advocating for consumer rights in the digital economy, his work delivers scalable impact across payments, publishing, art, and beyond.
Expertise and Topics
McKelvey’s keynotes equip business leaders to overcome:
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Market disruption and competition from major players (including how Square outmaneuvered Amazon)
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Scaling innovative ideas from startup to sector leadership
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Building resilient teams and open-source solutions to close digital skills gaps
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Innovating business models to unlock new revenue streams and customer value
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Navigating regulatory and economic change, informed by his directorship at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
He brings practical insights drawn from hands-on experience across payments, scientific publishing, software, manufacturing, and digital media. His talks, including “The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time,” inspire audiences to challenge norms, embrace experimentation, and solve seemingly impossible problems with creativity and persistence.
Publications and Recognitions
Jim is the author of multiple books, most notably “The Innovation Stack,” a guide to building world-changing companies that thrive in competition-proof markets. He is also a sought-after commentator on entrepreneurship, digital fairness, and the future of work.
Why Book Jim McKelvey
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Unique founder perspective on innovation and entrepreneurship
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Proven success across technology, art, and social impact initiatives
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Actionable strategies for future-proofing your business
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Captivating storytelling that motivates corporate and creative audiences alike
For any organisation aiming to thrive in an age of rapid change and digital disruption, Jim McKelvey offers insight, frameworks, and inspiration that drive results.
Talks
Just as Square was taking off, Amazon launched a similar product, marketed it aggressively, and undercut Square on price. For most ordinary startups, this would have spelled the end. Instead, less than a year later,
Amazon was in retreat and soon discontinued its service. How did Square beat the most dangerous company on the planet?
Square co-founder Jim McKelvey reveals the strategy that led to the company’s success: the Innovation Stack
McKelvey’s fascinating and humorous stories of Square’s early days are blended with historical examples of other world-changing companies built on the Innovation Stack to reveal a pattern of ground-breaking, competition-proof entrepreneurship that is rare but repeatable.
The Innovation Stack is a thrilling business narrative that’s much bigger than the story of Square. It is an irreverent look inside the world of entrepreneurship, and a call to action for all of us to find the entrepreneur within ourselves and identify and fix unsolved problems–one crazy idea at a time.
What’s stopping you from doing what you would like to do? We no longer need to ask anybody permission to do anything. The tools that exist today thanks to the Internet allow you to get started by ourselves and to learn as we go along, at our own pace.
Jim noticed a very talented artist who was living in his beat up car and wondered why. He was a talented artist who could be getting paid well for his work. Why wasn’t he? Jim realized the artist had no access to the systems that paid him. As he built Square, Jim always kept this one artist in mind and thought about how he was solving this one artist’s problem.