Warren Keschner

Warren Keschner earned a BS degree from Brooklyn College in 1979 and became a Certified Public Accountant in 1981. Warren spent his early career at Price Waterhouse, where he excelled in handling both large and small clients. When De Janeiro Stores (DSI), a chain of NYC clothing stores, offered Warren an equity stake to entice him into private industry, Warren joined the company and stayed as CFO for over 33 years. Warren was responsible for strategic planning, retail lease negotiations, and information technology. One of Warren’s crowning achievements was the implementation of a real-time ERP system, years ahead of the competition, giving DSI a significant advantage in its markets.

In 1998, Warren recognized the need for a scanning technology beyond barcodes and did early research on RFID. At the time, RFID technology was not cost-effective, but Warren never gave up hope of eventually breaking the technology’s cost barrier.

In 2011, Warren noticed the cost of RFID tags was beginning to drop and joined forces with his cousin, Marcel Keschner, an electrical engineer with 30+ years’ experience in logistics. Together, they resumed research on reducing the cost of RFID tags using “chipless” RFID technology and in 2016, kcode was formed. Warren raised seed financing to commercialize the new technology but after two years of intensive cutting-edge R&D, kcode could not break though some of the physical barriers and the company pivoted into the chipped RFID arena. In 2018, using their years of research on RFID, Warren and Marcel released a world-class suite of RFID software, tags, and readers to the Latin American market, securing deals with a Nike franchisee and BAS, a large regional retailer.

Today, Warren lives in New York City where he balances his workloads as CFO for both kcode and De Janeiro Stores. He enjoys tennis and cheering on his grandkids at their various sporting events, while staying involved with his local community issues.