Philip Kafka

Philip Kafka (born August 18, 1986) is an entrepreneur; he was previously the founder and President of Prince Media Company, which was sold to Lamar Advertising in the summer of 2015. Since selling Prince Media Company, Kafka has become one of the prominent Real Estate Developers working in Detroit, MI since it's bankruptcy in July 2013. Kafka's developments include Katoi, which was rated one of America's top 12 restaurant openings in 2016 by Thrillist. In addition he is the developer behind True North Detroit, which has been featured by the Detroit Free Press, USA TODAY, the Detroit News, and was called the fourth most notable residential development in Detroit by Curbed.
It has been rumored that Kafka owns approximately six acres of land and the buildings surrounding True North Detroit at Grand River and Warren in the 48208 neighborhood of Detroit, and that his efforts will be focused on developing this area of Detroit.
Early life, education & family
Kafka is originally from Dallas, Texas and is a graduate of the Greenhill School. He is also graduate of Northwestern University where he majored in Philosophy and was a member of the Varsity Tennis Team. After graduating from Northwestern, Kafka competed internationally on the Futures tennis circuit where he achieved a world ranking of 1,420 - a result he deemed to be subpar; he discontinued his pursuit of professional tennis after just seven months on tour with mediocre results.
Kafka's father is also an entrepreneur in the billboard business, and his mother is a diplomat.
Professional career
After tennis, Kafka made his way to New York City where he started Prince Media Company in March 2010. When Kafka sold Prince Media Company in 2015 it was New York' City's second largest billboard company, Kafka began visiting Detroit in 2011 and gained recognition for advertising the city in a non-commercial manner on his available billboards in 2015, after he already owned a significant amount of property in the city.
Kafka is now the President of Prince Concepts which develops real estate and is the company behind the development of Detroit's Restaurant of the year in 2016, Katoi, and the notable and highly anticipated True North Detroit project. Kafka owns approximately six acres of land and six buildings, all contiguous, in Downtown Detroit that he turned his attention to after exiting the billboard business.
Kafka was a speaker at the Urban Land Institute in Detroit during November of 2016, and was also a speaker at the Detroit-Berlin conference at MOCAD in 2015.

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