Ben Van Leeuwen

The Path

Ben Van Leeuwen trained at Skidmore College.

The Work Today

The Chief Executive Officer and co-founder role keeps the business anchored in New York, and Ben Van Leeuwen treats that base as part of the company’s working identity. “What feels cool is that we are still based in New York, which is unusual. We are proud to be a New York-based business.”

Signature

Kraft Mac and Cheese ice cream sits among Ben Van Leeuwen’s signature dishes, a marker of the kind of product that made the brand’s name in the first place.

In Their Words “A lot of entrepreneurial founding stories without the details make it sound easy, which I think is bad.”

Acclaim

The public account Ben Van Leeuwen gives of entrepreneurship pushes against myth and back toward access. “It’s disempowering to people who want to start their own thing or want to be an entrepreneur but haven’t done it.”