After 326 rejections, Esusu’s founders built a unicorn

Also on the show is Erika Seth Davies, CEO of Rhia Ventures, which focuses on the U.S. market for sexual, reproductive, and maternal health, who is looking to innovate through the lens of gender and racial equity. Davies is also the founder of The Racial Equity Asset Lab, which centers racial equity in impact investing.

Listen to the episode or read the full transcript below. 

Transcript

Alan Murray: Leadership Next is powered by the folks at Deloitte, who, like me, are super focused on how CEOs can lead in the context of disruption and evolving societal expectations.

Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership. I’m Alan Murray, and I’m here with my first-in-class co-host, Ellen McGirt. And, Ellen, I am super excited about today’s conversation because, you know, we talk to a lot of big company CEOs. But today we’re talking about a founder who had an idea that he thought could change the world, make the world better and make him money. And that’s a combination I like.

Ellen McGirt: I love it, and it’s a big idea too. Our guest today is Wemimo Abbey, the co-founder and co-CEO of Esusu. Esusu is a company that reports rental payments to the three major credit bureaus to help people with low or no credit scores build credit history. And you met him.

Murray: Yeah, he was at our CEO initiative event last year. Really impressive. Impressed the whole crowd. I think he got a virtual standing ovation. He is going to explain how Esusu works, we’ll let him do that. But let me just say in introduction, in the five years since he started the company, they have reached over 1 million renters in all 50 states and put some 44,000 people on the financial map.

McGirt: It’s incredible. And it’s such an important focus. It’s such a good idea hiding in plain sight. As many of you…