For Stefan Kanalga, the founding of yeswetrust did not begin with a business plan. It began as a reckoning. After years in banking and finance, he had achieved many of the markers of conventional success, yet felt deeply disconnected from purpose. The loss of a mentor, someone he had described as a father figure, became a turning point. Faced with mortality and unanswered questions, Stefan stepped away from his career and the life he had built to explore what it meant to live with meaning. yeswetrust emerged not as a product, but as the result of those questions.
Today, yeswetrust positions itself as an ecosystem for ambitious founders and investors who believe in both profit and purpose. "Rather than operating as a single platform, it brings together capital, education, and community through interconnected business activities designed to address a growing crisis of purpose," he notes. "We don't fight the old system; we invest all our energy into building the new."
Stefan explains that at the top of the ecosystem sits the yeswetrust Private Members Club, a curated network of investors that includes angel investors, family offices, and venture capital participants. "We believe in the concept of Noblesse Oblige: that the privileged have a responsibility to society," he notes. "The intention is not transactional networking, but the cultivation of relationships where shared values come first, and capital is deployed deliberately for a real purpose rather than for financial speculation alone." He explains that trust is the foundation that allows capital to move responsibly.
According to Stefan, the second pillar, House of Trust, brings that philosophy into physical space through a global series of events. "Hosted annually in Davos and throughout the year in other global locations, these gatherings are designed to facilitate authentic connection," he says. "Participants meet as humans first, through shared experiences centered on nature, movement, and shared meals, before shifting into conversations around business, investment, and innovation." From his perspective, when people meet as humans first, trust forms naturally, and business follows from that foundation.
"The third and foundational layer of the ecosystem is the School of Impact, an education and accelerator platform created for both aspiring and existing founders building businesses with purpose," Stefan notes. "Built around a five-layer framework, feeling more alive, finding purpose, bringing vision to life, achieving financial freedom, and creating impact, the program reflects a full-circle philosophy." He explains that participants are guided from personal development through venture creation, with the expectation that success ultimately carries a responsibility to serve others.
"Supporting the ecosystem is yeswetrust's investment arm, commonly referred to as the Fund," Stefan notes. "The Fund functions to channel capital from the company into early-stage startups, emerging founders, and impact-driven ventures." Capital deployment is guided by long-term, purpose-driven value creation rather than short-term extraction, he says, reinforcing the organization's belief that money, when stewarded intentionally, can become a force for systemic good rather than speculation.
In this structure, according to Stefan, education, community, and capital are not siloed functions but interconnected levers. "Founders who progress through the School of Impact gain access not only to mentorship and services, but also to a pathway toward funding, while experienced investors are invited to reinvest their success into the next generation of builders," he says. "The result is a closed-loop ecosystem designed to circulate opportunity, knowledge, and capital with purpose."
Stefan envisions extending this ecosystem into daily life with physical hubs around the world. He explains that the organization plans to develop up to 12 nature-connected locations that integrate education, co-working, family life, and community living. "These hubs are designed to support founders and investors who want flexibility without sacrificing stability, offering schools, childcare, wellness facilities, shared workspaces, and accommodations in one environment," he says. "The first location, currently being developed on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand, includes 13 accommodation units and will serve as a prototype for future hubs."
For Stefan, the long-term ambition of yeswetrust extends beyond traditional growth metrics. The organization has set a goal of inspiring one million students through the School of Impact, with a model that reinvests revenue into funding startups and supporting founders. "The most important transformation is not what we build outside," he says. "It's who we become in the process."
By combining the Private Members Club, global events, education, and an intentional investment fund into a single ecosystem, Stefan explains, yeswetrust offers an alternative to purely extractive systems. He says, "In a world marked by uncertainty and eroding trust, its approach reflects a belief that meaningful change begins not with opposition, but with creation."
