Kalibrr CEO Named to Asia 21 Young Leaders Class of 2018

Tech entrepreneur Paul Rivera included in exclusive roster of accomplished young professionals representing the next generation of leaders in government, business, arts, media, and the nonprofit sector.

Asia Society, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States in a global context, recently announced its Asia 21 Young Leaders Class of 2018.

This year’s class will be added to the Asia 21 Young Leaders Program, an exclusive network of 900 influential professionals coming from forty nations who are engaged in thought leadership, dialogue, and meaningful collaborations, positively impacting their respective and related professions locally and globally.

Asia Society has selected 31 leaders for this year’s class, all of whom are considered highly regarded change-makers in their fields. Among them is Kalibrr Co-Founder and CEO, Paul Rivera, who in part is being cited for his continued devotion to addressing the problems of sub-standard recruitment and underemployment in the Philippines.

Paul started his career at Mercantila, an e-commerce startup that was eventually acquired by Google. He subsequently worked at the famed search-engine and multinational tech company before returning to the Philippines to co-found Open Access, a tech-focused BPO in Makati that grew to over a thousand employees during his tenure as its president.

Recognizing how there continues to be a disconnect between qualified employees and the employers who would greatly benefit from those hires, Paul then established Kalibrr, now a fast-growing recruitment technology startup that works with the region’s top 1,000 employers.

A tech startup from the US with operations in Manila and Jakarta, Paul’s vision and Kalibrr’s efforts continues to be backed by notable investors from around the world. Among them are Omidyar Network, a self-styled philanthropic investor featuring a foundation and an impact investment firm. Another is Patamar Capital, a social venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California that has regional offices in India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Kalibrr also continues to receive support from Wavemaker Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2003 dually headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, as well as Y Combinator, an American seed accelerator, that has supported a number of highly successful companies and ranks highly among the top accelerators in the U.S.

The most frequent collaborator of Kalibrr is Kickstart Ventures, with the former even previously being headquartered in the latter’s office spaces in Makati. Leveraging the assets of its parent company, Globe Telecom, and Globe’s major shareholders SingTel and Ayala Corporation, Kickstart aimed to accelerate collaboration between enterprises and startups, and did so with Kalibrr when the company was initially founded in 2012.

The 13th Annual Young Leaders Summit

Paul and the other members of the Asia 21 Young Leaders Class of 2018 convened in Manila for the 13th Annual Young Leaders Summit. He is one of three Filipinos included in the class. The others are Xyza Bacani, a Filipino street photographer documenting migration and the intersection of labor and human rights; and Jam Acuzar, founder and director of Bellas Artes Projects. The complete 2018 Class are:

Jam Acuzar (Philippines), Founder & Director, Bellas Artes Projects

Xyza Cruz Bacani (Philippines), Independent Photojournalist, Redux Pictures

Sopheap Chea (Cambodia), Executive Director, Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center

Tsechu Dolma (United States), Director, Mountain Resiliency Project

Amir Farmanesh (Canada/Iran), President & CEO, People Analytics Inc.

Ernestine Fu (United States), Investor, Alsop Louie Partners

Ziad Haider (United States), Head of Government Relations and Policy, Uber North Asia

Hana Hayashi (Japan), Asia Pacific Director, McCann Public Health

Jerry (Xiao Peng) He (New Zealand), Founder, Olivia Premium

Rashna Imam (Bangladesh), Managing Partner, Akhtar Imam & Associates

Gaoshan Junjian (China), National Program Officer, UN Population Fund China Office

Ratna Kartadjoemena (Indonesia), Partner & Director, Potato Head Family

Khaled Khatib (Syria), Officer, The White Helmets

Bulgantuya Khurelbaatar (Mongolia), Deputy Minister of Finance, Government of Mongolia

Ravi Kumar (Nepal), Founder, Code for Nepal

Sanghyun Lee (South Korea), Head of Public Policy, Airbnb

Susli Lie (Singapore), Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Dana Cita

Huy The Luong (Vietnam), LGBTI Activist, iSEE

Pradip Pariyar (Nepal), Executive Chairperson, Samata Foundation

Roshan Paul (India), Co-Founder & CEO, Amani Institute

Paul V. Rivera (Philippines), CEO & Co-Founder, Kalibrr

Abhay Saboo (India), Co-Founder, Viva Health

Ting Shih (Taiwan), Founder & CEO, ClickMedix

Roopam Sharma (India), Research Scientist & Innovator, Eyeluminati

Aiko Shimizu (Japan), Deputy Head of International Affairs, Daimler AG

Renard Siew (Malaysia), Senior Executive, Sime Darby Group

Manisha Wafeq (Afghanistan), President, Afghanistan Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Timothy Graham Watts (Australia), Member for Gellibrand, Parliament of Australia

Anam Zakaria (Pakistan), Independent Oral Historian, Researcher, Author & Cultural Facilitator

Namgay Zam (Bhutan), Independent Multimedia Journalist & Activist

Cherry Zhu (China), Principal, Venture Avenue Consulting

The two-day event was set for the class and the rest of the young leaders to explore new and creative strategies to translate the network’s expertise into concrete actions. It also served as the inaugural event to usher in the 20th anniversary of the Asia Society Philippines Center.

For complete information about the Asia 21 Class of 2018, and Asia Society, please visit their official website.

Kalibrr is a technology company that aims to transform how candidates find jobs and how companies hire talent. Placing the candidate experience at the center of everything it does, the company continues to attract the best talents from all over, with 1.6 million jobseekers and counting. Kalibrr ultimately connects these talents to companies in search of their next generation of leaders.

The only end-to-end recruitment solutions provider in Southeast Asia, Kalibrr is headquartered in Makati, Philippines, with offices in San Francisco, California and Jakarta, Indonesia. Established in 2012, it has served over 18,000 clients, and is backed by some of the world’s most powerful start-up incubators and venture capitalists. These include Y Combinator, Omidyar Network, Patamar Capital, Wavemaker Partners, and Kickstart Ventures.

For more information, visit Kalibrr on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.