Erik Kjell
Strategist
As a strategist with Nike’s Innovation Accelerator (later Valiant Labs), I partnered with internal founders to launch bold direct-to-consumer experiments that challenged legacy assumptions and helped shape the evolution of NikeID.
Our work positioned NikeID as a cornerstone of Nike’s DTC strategy, driving personalization, margin growth, and digital revenue. By building with speed and intention inside a Fortune 100, we helped redefine how global brands innovate from within.
That internal startup model contributed to Nike’s broader DTC success, now fueling 30 percent revenue growth across global e-commerce.
Since early 2023, I’ve partnered with Dior.com’s North American leadership to rebuild their digital growth engine. We aligned marketing, UX, and analytics with LVMH’s broader goals, bringing clarity to performance metrics and transparency across teams.
Together, we rolled out targeted improvements across SEO, design, and digital campaigns. The result? Dior has exceeded its ecommerce targets every year since, consistently outperforming stretch goals and setting a new digital standard for luxury retail.
This partnership has delivered at least 10x ROI year after year, proving what happens when strategy, creativity, and execution actually work together.
Operator
As co-founder of Prota Ventures, I took a hands-on approach to early-stage investing. We backed bold founders with both capital and operational support where it mattered most.
We built a venture studio that helped launch companies like Figment, Stix, and Bird Buddy, each solving meaningful problems with ambition and clarity. Collectively, these ventures have achieved valuations exceeding $1.5 billion.
At Contino New York, I partner with Jon Contino to help founders and executives build brands that connect deeply and grow with purpose.
Jon leads the creative. I lead the strategy. That includes the story, the plan, and the execution that brings it to life.
We work directly with decision-makers. No layers. No fluff. Just work that earns trust, sparks recognition, and gets people talking.
Investor
In 2018, I co-produced a blockchain founder summit in Chicago that led to the formation of Figment. Today, Figment is one of the leading infrastructure providers in Web3, supporting over 700 institutional clients and managing more than $15B in staked assets across more than 50 networks.
The company reached a $1.4B valuation following a $114M Series C in 2021. We were the first investors.
I invested in CFX Labs in 2021 to help transform how money moves across borders. Built on Solana and powered by stablecoins, CFX launched in September 2024 and has already processed hundreds of millions of dollars in remittances as of May 2025.
The platform makes sending money faster, cheaper, and more accessible, especially between the U.S. and key markets like Mexico, Brazil, and India, and across dozens of other countries.
What Founders and Leaders Say
The Early Chapters
I’m originally from Vancouver, Canada. Solid place to grow up. Clean air, good people, a little rain. I headed to Southern England for boarding school, university, and a law degree, but not before earning my way through four years of very character-building jobs.
Think salmon canneries. Commercial fishing boats. And yes, door-to-door encyclopedia sales. World Book, baby.
All of it was to fund my version of higher education: four years of solo backpacking through Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America. That time taught me how to stay curious, read a room (or a bus station), and move through the world with a little more awareness. That lens stuck with me. Back then, in most places I traveled, you couldn’t spend twenty bucks a day even if you tried.
In 1994, fresh out of law school, I followed my heart and ears to Ibiza just as the island’s nightlife was becoming legend. I worked at Privilege, the biggest nightclub in Europe, then joined Manumission where I helped run wild events with top DJs. Ten thousand people every night. I also co-founded a travel venture that helped shape what became the Ibiza Rocks Hotel.
In the winters, I would drive from Spain into the Moroccan desert, living like a Bedouin and resetting under the stars. Speaking fluent Spanish and holding a law degree landed me the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of running the largest nightclub in Europe for 4 years!! It was surreal. It was beautiful chaos.
Looking back, it was completely formative and just the right amount of unhinged.
Things really took off when I co-produced Manumission: The Movie. It was part music video, part documentary, and somehow made its way onto Channel 5 in the UK. That little win gave me just enough momentum to chase the next one.
In 1998, Ashley and I moved to New York. She’s been my partner in life and everything else ever since. That same year, I teamed up with three brilliant MIT grads to start an adtech company called LiquidSite. It was Web 1.0 in all its uncertainty. We raised $4M in 6 months. Their MIT credentials got us the term sheets. I just kept smiling, nodding, and trying not to tank the meetings. That startup was my first MBA!
After that came Journeys by DJ. We launched a record label and produced a series of DJ mixed compilation albums with legends like Coldcut, Gilles Peterson, and Norman Jay. Some sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Others… not so much. But that’s the game.
Since then, I’ve started and supported brands across tech, media, and design. The throughline has always been the same, build things that matter with people you believe in.
In 2020, Ashley and I moved to St. Augustine, Florida. Our daughters are growing up fast, and so are we. Still building, still learning, and occasionally finding time to sit in the sun and breathe.