Thais Rezende

Thais Rezende is the President of Build, an organization whose mission is to inspire the next generation of innovators to become the economic engines of their communities.

Prior to that she spent eight years as the CEO of BizWorld, where she led the organization to become the largest teacher-led entrepreneurship education non-profit in the world, serving over 850,000 students worldwide.

In 2019, she launched the innovative YES! Program developed to support young entrepreneurs gain access to the tools, mentorship, and capital needed to make their entrepreneurial dreams a reality. Thais has an unwavering commitment to making available the economic opportunities offered by entrepreneurship education to all students, particularly minority youth.

She started her career in the non-profit world, focusing on micro- enterprise development. For eight years, she led the growth of innovative programming and the organizational expansion at Women’s Initiative for Self Employment. As the lead developer of the successful business propulsion program “SuccessLink,” she set a new national standard for entrepreneurship support services that became a national model.