Kylee’s Story
Kylee Guenther is a resilient entrepreneur and the Co-Founder and CEO of Pivot Materials and Co-Founder of Loopy Products , as well as an International Keynote Speaker.
She grew up immersed in the plastics industry. Her dad was on the founding team to create the first plastic bottles with handles incorporated – The gallon milk jug we all use. She was always amazed at what her dad could do with plastics, but mortified by the amount of waste that was created.
Her passion for the environment and a deep belief that everything we need on this earth is already here, we just have to learn how to use it inspired her to create Pivot Materials with her Co-Founder Raju Patil. They named their company Pivot because the word pivot means change and that’s exactly what they are doing to do to the plastics industry.
Pivot Materials provides composite materials that upcycles agricultural waste including bamboo fibers, rice, and coffee hulls to make sustainable alternatives to traditional plastics. This material can be used in place of traditional plastics in most applications, including the automotive, housewares, and consumer packaged goods industries.
Pivot Materials was named one of the top 50 cleantech companies to watch globally by CleanTech Group. Kylee was also the first sustainable packaging Fellow in Sephora’s Accelerate program and made the 2021 Forbes Next 1000 List.
Her journey, however, came with a lot of adversity. As a young, female tech entrepreneur, she struggled daily and now shares her story – The good, the bad, and the fugly with audiences around the world. She doesn’t sugarcoat her experience. Instead, she shares what it’s like to be told over and over that you can’t do something, only to turn around and do it well.
Kylee has spoken to audiences of all shapes and sizes, including at Ford Field in Detroit, in Silicon Valley, and internationally as well. She wants her audience to know that a scrappy little start-up from Detroit really can pivot the plastics industry and you too can do it.
“I worked with Kylee on our North American Biopolymer Summit in Chicago, IL, during November 2019 where she chaired the second day of the event. In addition to her undoubted expertise and experience in the field of biopolymers, Kylee also brought a great deal of enthusiasm and care to her preparation for the role. I definitely hope I have the opportunity to work with Kylee again in future.”
“It was an absolute pleasure to host Kylee as the Keynote Speaker for our Social Enterprise Summit. Kylee is exceptionally creative and intuitive with her audience. She left her audience feeling uplifted and energized, and most importantly, they leave equipped with information and techniques that enable each attendee to better pursue their social enterprise ideas. We would most definitely love to work with her again in the future, and we would absolutely recommend her as a speaker for your next event.”
It was a wonderful event, and we enjoyed hearing about Kylee’s lessons learned and powerful insights. Both her honesty and realness about the industry is inspiring, and I appreciate listening to her journey, a very empowering experience.