Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School
Former CEO, Spire
Janet Kraus leading a session at the PBLN Fall 2009 Summit
Janet Kraus is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at the Harvard Business School. She will be teaching Building Businesses in the Context of a Life (BBCL) in the Winter Term of the 2010/2011 academic year.
A two time business founder, Janet has been involved in every stage of the entrepreneurial process including idea generation, product development, building teams, fund raising, identification of key strategic partners, business development and direct sales, operational scaling, crisis and recovery, buying and exiting companies.
After graduating from Yale in 1988, Janet started her career in consulting in the technology practice at Temple Barker and Sloane. In 1991 Janet spent a year in Brazil working for a non-profit educational organization before returning to attend the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 1992 to 1994. After matriculation she directed the social marketing and fair trade initiatives at The Body Shop.
In 1997, Janet co-founded Circles, a concierge and events company. By utilizating innovative strategies to help its clients cultivate powerful bonds with their employee and customers, Circles quickly grew to be a $50 million company, with nearly 1000 consultants in both Boston, MA and Burlington, Ontario. Circles was sold to Sodexo in October 2007, and has since expanded its base of operations into five countries.
In November 2007, Janet left Circles to lead Spire, a company designed to create social resource sharing platforms specializing in travel and leisure. Janet sold Spire to Perfect Escapes in 2010.
Janet is a recipient of Boston’s 40 under 40 and was a finalist of Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year. Circles was awarded the Small Business of the Year Award by the Chamber of Commerce.
She and the companies she has lead have been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Fortune Small Business, the New York Times. She has been a speaker at conferences and educational institutions on the subjects of entrepreneurship, innovation, building teams, as well as vision, values and leadership.
Janet sits on advisory boards of six start-up companies and serves as the Co-Chairman of The Capital Network (TCN) a non-profit that helps companies raise early stage capital. She is proud to be on the Board of Big Sisters Association of Greater Boston, Massachusetts’ largest mentoring organization for girls and young women. She currently lives outside of Boston with her husband and twin 3 year old daughters.
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