Nicholas Pardon is a serial entrepreneur, curator, and investor. He is the founder of Pardon Inc., a modern family office and creative studio dedicated to his original ventures, investment portfolio, and artistic pursuits. He also serves as CEO of Optimism, an inbox-first digital publishing company with a community of millions of subscribers. At Pardon Inc., Nicholas drives the vision and strategy. The current portfolio of ventures includes a flagship publishing platform, as well as a growing real-estate and experience enterprise, a collaboration-centric arts institution, and hundreds of seed-stage investments. Nicholas is passionate about turning ideas into reality and has a rare ability to bring together and empower like-minded visionary thinkers. An award-winning innovator, Nicholas serves in executive, entrepreneurial, advisory, and board-level roles for a wide range of companies and organizations. He is a seven-time honoree as a leader on the Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. In his stewardship of Pardon and Optimism, he is driven by the power of artistic exploration, whether entrepreneurial or aesthetic in nature, and is dedicated to infusing more curiosity, creativity, and wonder into the world. Inspired by the cultural impact of the arts, Nicholas champions other creatives through his philanthropic endeavors including Uncharted, Sundance Institute, Desert X, and The Wooden Floor. Nicholas primarily resides in Orange County, California, but can often be found in Denver, New York City, and discovering the world.