Wright Thurston

Wright Thurston got his start in business at the age of 18 while working as a distributor and recruiter with leading direct sales firm Melaleuca Inc. Currently, Mr. Thurston serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Elevate, Inc., a company he founded.

Over the course of his long and successful career, Wright Thurston has held a wide range of positions, including founding and leadership positions with several large companies. As a young man, Wright Thurston traveled with his father, a motivational speaker and entrepreneur. On these trips, he helped his father and their team process orders, work with customers, and conduct presentations. Throughout his childhood, he heard hundreds of motivational speakers, which helped build in him a strong foundation for his later business endeavors.

After beginning work with Melaleuca in 1994, Wright Thurston saw quick success, eventually recruiting more than 1,000 distributors to work in his organization. Mr. Thurston has since established a number of his own direct selling companies over the past 10 years, beginning with a number of TW Wireless retail stores in the Pacific Northwest.

From 1998 to 2000, he created a strong business in the retail cellular phone industry. He then sold his stores to the national chain OmniServe-Wireless and began a new venture as co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Future Phones, a web-based cell phone sales venture. During his time as Chief Executive Officer of Future Phones, Wright Thurston also established Firstline, a security company.

In recognition of his excellent work as Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, he earned the title of Finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2007. With starting Elevate, Inc., in 2008, Wright Thurston has provided digital phones and technology to users across the country, including those in California, Arizona, Washington, Colorado, and Oregon. In 2011, Mr. Thurston took the highly successful company public.