After graduating from McCallie School, Nash Bowen spent nearly a decade away from his hometown. He studied business at the University of Alabama, earned a law degree from Washington and Lee University, and practiced law in Charleston, West Virginia, and Houston, Texas, where he also started his own firm focused on real estate, art and venture capital.
But Bowen kept his ties to Chattanooga, the city where he grew up and met his fiance, Abbie Cook. During visits home, he started to recognize the Scenic City’s potential for growth.
“I just saw the city taking off and that sparked something in me,” Bowen says. “I love this city and I know it has a lot of potential.”
The 30-year-old lawyer-turned-entrepreneur is building a major private equity firm in Chattanooga with startup businesses across an array of industries. Having formed a team of young entrepreneurs, Bowen is growing an umbrella investment company he created known as Kronos Capital with business ventures in energy, art, real estate, franchising, media, hospitality and finance.
Bowen saw how his father helped lead and ultimately sell the Dillard Smith Construction Co. in 1999 to Quanta Services, now known as Service Electric Co.
“I watched that whole process and it really lit the entrepreneurial fire in me,” Bowen says.
Trading in art
While still in law school, Bowen says he started investing in real estate and fine art. In his first year at Washington and Lee University’s law school, Bowen met Benjamin Keil, the eldest living son of the world-famous German artist Peter Robert Keil, when his father was buying one of Keil’s art works.
Bowen developed a friendship with the younger Keil and quickly began building a collection of his paintings and sculptures, representing a majority share of the global market. By buying and receiving Keil’s art in bulk, Bowen leveraged control of the market share, and Bowen Global Enterprises was able to boost the global market prices for Keil’s works by 48% from 2020 to 2022. At one point, Bowen had collected about 7,000 of Keil’s pieces, and still has about 3,000 paintings and sculptures, which he continues to sell through auction houses and other distribution outlets around the globe.
Bowen has continued to buy and sell other art and has used the art business to help collateralize his real estate purchases, which include a 27-acre Caribbean island in Belize, a luxury mansion in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and a portfolio of nearly 50 low- and moderate-income rental houses and apartments across the Southeast.
Legal roots in business
As an attorney for the Texas law firm of Steptoe & Johnson after gaining his law degree, Bowen specialized in corporate and energy transactional law and worked on mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures in the energy sector and other growing industries, including the emerging cannabis market.
“I had always planned to go to law school, practice for a bit to learn the law such that I could apply it to my own business,” Bowen says.
In late 2020, Bowen Global Enterprises began, and three years later Bowen started Kronos Capital as a private equity firm with a team that could take more companies from inception to a financial sale.
“It acts like an incubator and umbrella organization for a variety of businesses in different industries,” he says. “My main value-add is helping people to see the most efficient path to commercialization.”
Photo by Abby White / Nash Bowen, right, and Abbie Cook are seen at the 200 block of Market Steet where Kronos Capital plans to build its headquarters.Dream team
So far, Bowen’s team includes a handful of hopeful entrepreneurs still in their 20s and 30s, including Bowen’s fiance, Abbie Cook, and brothers Dylan and Luke DeFrino, who moved south from their Connecticut homes last year to Chattanooga. Dylan DeFrino, who serves as chief operating officer for Kronos Capital, says Bowen is one of the smartest, hardworking and honorable people he knows.
“The confidence level is very high in being able to achieve what we hope to achieve and that’s what really convinced us to come to Chattanooga and work in this exciting business,” DeFrino says.
Bowen often works 14-hour days, connecting with clients and investors around the globe. Among those attracted to Kronos Capital late last year was Peter Knez, a former chief investment officer for the global investment firm BlackRock, who now heads the Teal Group.
Knez, who is regarded as a leader in the growing carbon exchange market, agreed late last year to serve as executive chairman for Kronos Carbon, one of eight companies in the Kronos Capital portfolio. Knez was drawn to Bowen’s business holdings through his company’s investment in Akashic Technologies, a natural gas flare recovery venture, and Kronos Carbon, a startup that developed proprietary tokenization software to make carbon credit trading more transparency and accessible.
“Kronos Carbon represents the future of ESG (environmental, social and governance) markets, and I’m honored to join its innovative efforts,” Knez said when he took his board leadership post in December exchange for a equity interest in the company.
Bowen’s interest in the energy industry began during childhood, watching his father’s electrical service company operate, and later grew through his work as a lawyer in Houston. But Bowen sees opportunities across an array of industries where he can leverage innovation “to transform opportunities into enduring success.” His portfolio of businesses is just being launched or are in early stages, but he believes each has rich potential.
Kronos Capital is building a franchise network of Japanese hibachi-style food trucks known as Kosha Hibachi. The first truck operates outside of the company’s headquarters on Hixson Pike in Middle Valley. Kosha Hibachi recently secured an agreement for a franchise to open locations in San Antonio, Texas.
The franchise model for Kosha Hibachi will be aided, according to Bowen, by another Kronos Capital business known as CHRGD Work Technologies. CHRGD is a patent-pending software that automates audits of franchise sales activity and triggers daily royalty transfers and tracks franchise performance data to help both franchisors and franchisees to more efficiently operate and scale and prepare tax filings and other financial reports.
As Kronos Capital seeks to build its growing portfolio of businesses from its Chattanooga base, the company is planning to locate its corporate headquarters in downtown Chattanooga.
Kronos Capital initially proposed building a 12-story office building, residential condominium complex and restaurant facility on the site of the former 212 Market restaurant, which closed seven years ago. DeFrino, who is overseeing the proposed project and working with city planners to gain its approval, says the initial building plans on the 212 Market Street were dropped in the face of strong neighborhood opposition from the Cherry Street condo owners worried about losing their downtown views by the new office tower.
Bowen says he is eager to work with the community to find a better plan for a multi-use facility to house its corporate office.
“As a Chattanoogan, my greatest desire has been to headquarter these companies in the city I grew up in,” Bowen says.
Nash Bowen
* Age: 30
* Occupation: Chief executive of Kronos Capital since August 2023, a private equity firm with investment in real estate, fintech, international energy projects, carbon credit tokenization, fine art, franchising and hospitality.
* Education: 2012 graduate of McCallie School; 2016 graduate in finance and investment management from the University of Alabama, and a 2019 graduate from the Washington and Lee University School of Law.
* Career: Interned for U.S. District Court Magistrate Susan Lee in Chattanooga in 2017; attorney for Steptoe & Johnson PLLC in Woodlands, Texas from 2019 to 2021; founder of Bowen Global Enterprises in 2021; founder of Kronos Capital in 2023.
* Website: kronoscapital.us