For Pierre Rogers, entrepreneurship was more than a shiny dream - it was a necessity. He started a lawn mowing business at 9 years old because he was self-reliant, that spirit of shaking off adversity and taking total responsibility for your life is still at the center of everything he does.
After college, Pierre was a bartender at night while answering the phones for a Fortune 500 corporate finance firm by day. Within a few years, he worked his way up in that firm and became their youngest ever Senior Vice President - at just 26 years old.
In between his day job and running several side businesses, Pierre developed a healthy obsession with cigars - his favorite way to unwind after a long day. One sleepless night, while searching for the rare Avo 77 cigar on dozens of online dealers’ inventories and cigar forums, the idea hit him: “This would be so much easier if there was one centralized online platform to buy, sell, trade and discuss all things cigar.” He sold his car to come up with the seed money and PuroTrader was born.
As CEO, Pierre has built PuroTrader into a multi-million dollar SaaS enterprise that has radically disrupted global tobacco distribution by becoming the largest peer to peer cigar platform in the world. He’s also a venture capitalist who has partnered with Wasabi Ventures’ TK Kuegler and Chris Yeh.
When he’s not spending time on the west coast with his family, Pierre is an international keynote speaker who challenges his audiences to throw well-roundedness out the window, recognize that self-awareness is an ongoing practice (not a one-time buzzword) and to embrace their unique brand of crazy - yes, we all have some, and that’s a good thing!