How Immigrant Entrepreneurs Build Lasting Businesses

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's a common story: an immigrant arrives in a new country, sees a need, and works hard to build a successful business around it. Think of Chobani, Google, or Tesla. Indeed, 45 percent of Fortune 500 companies had immigrant founders. While most research focuses on why these people launched their businesses, perhaps more interesting is how they achieved lasting success. Neri Karra Sillaman is an entrepreneurship expert at Oxford University and the founder of luxury leather goods company Neri Karra. She's studied these entrepreneurs and shares her findings, which offer lessons for anyone in the corporate world. Sillaman wrote the book Pioneers: Eight Principles of Business Longevity from Immigrant Entrepreneurs.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, I'm Amy Bernstein, HBR's editor-in-chief.
0:04.0	And I'm Amy Gallo, a long-time contributing editor to HBR.
0:07.7	Along with Amy B, I host our Women at Work podcast, which now releases episodes every other Monday year-round.
0:14.2	That means more practical advice and more insights to make you feel seen and supported in your career.
0:20.7	Subscribe to Women at Work wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:42.0	Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Alison Beard.
0:54.5	The story of the successful immigrant entrepreneur, moving to a new country, seeing a need, and working as hard as possible to build a business around it, isn't a new one. In the U.S., it's a big part of what we
0:59.1	call the American dream. But the stats on this still might surprise you. While immigrants make up
1:04.3	14% of the U.S. population, they own about a fifth of new businesses. 45% of Fortune 500 companies
1:10.8	had immigrant founders,
1:12.4	four in five founders or top executives at billion-dollar startups or first- or second-generation
1:17.0	immigrants, and the research shows that immigrant-founded companies grow faster and survive longer
1:21.7	than those founded by natives, contributing trillions of dollars to the economies of their adopted
1:26.5	countries.
1:32.1	Our guest today has talked to many of these entrepreneurs, studied their strategies, and pinpointed the common principles that have propelled them to long-term success.
1:35.9	She says that any leader can learn from their examples.
1:39.0	And at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise around the world, we wanted to ask her
1:44.0	what impact-related policy changes sentiment is on the rise around the world, we wanted to ask her what impact
1:44.7	related policy changes might have on entrepreneurial innovation. Neri Kara Silliman is an
1:50.6	entrepreneurship expert at Oxford University, a founder herself of the luxury leather goods company
1:55.8	Neri Kara, and the author of the book Pioneers, Eight Principles of Business Longevity
2:00.5	from immigrant entrepreneurs. Neri, welcome. Thank you very much. and the author of the book Pioneers, Eight Principles of Business Longevity from Immigrant Entrepreneurs.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 20 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Harvard Business Review, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Harvard Business Review and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.