Simpler or more functional way of chaining objects in Kotlin

I have created a helper method buildChain which essentially creates a chain of objects given that they implement the interface IChain<T> and set the contracts next member

The Code

interface Chain<T> {
    var next: T?

    operator fun plus(next: T): T?
}

fun <T : Chain<T>> buildChain(first: T, vararg members: T): T {
    var next: T? = null
    members.forEachIndexed { i, t ->
        if (i == 0) {
            next = first + t
        } else {
            next = next?.run { this + t }
        }
    }
    return first
}

Implementation example

data class Person(val name: String) : Chain<Person> {
    override var next: Person? = null

    override fun plus(next: Person): Person? {
        this.next = next
        return next
    }
}

fun createPersonChain()
        = buildChain(Person("Bob"), Person("Bitzy"), Person("Blitzy"))

Implementaion output example

@JvmStatic fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    var first = createPersonChain()
    // first.name = "Bob"
    // first.next.name = "Bitzy"
    // first.next.next.name = "Blitzy"
 }

Is there a functional or simpler way for acheiving the code above keeping the implementaion usage the same?