From his time at Topeka High as a World editor and Student Council president to serving as Student Body President at the University of Kansas, 1989 graduate Brad Garlinghouse has been in leadership positions since high school.

Garlinghouse has had multiple high-profile Silicon Valley positions. Formerly, he served as the Senior Vice President of Communications and communities at Yahoo!, where he became well-known for his “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” calling for a change in the way Yahoo! conducted their business. He has even been the CEO of a different company, Hightail, a cloud service that syncs and shares files.

However, his current leadership position of CEO of Ripple is revolutionary compared to what was possible in 1989.

Ripple is a technology company specializing in payment protocol. Ripple has created a software that enables its users to instantly transfer money internationally.

   “It’s crazy that today, we can stream video from a space station but it takes days to send money to each other in different countries,” said Garlinghouse, “The fastest way to do this now is to bring $10,000.00 on a plane with you. Ripple wants to enable the world to move money like information moves across the Internet today.”

   On Oct. 1, Garlinghouse was inducted into the Topeka High Hall of Fame along with Raymond Powers, 1964 graduate, and Hallmark executive. In addition to the two Hall of Fame inductee, Pam McComas was recognized for her 35-year Topeka High career and her national recognition in debate and forensics.