Abbey Wemimo is a Nigerian-born techpreneur. He is the co-founder and co-CEO of Esusu – a financial institution that helps individuals in the United States save money, and build credit.
Abbey moved to the United States with his family in 2009. He watched his mother take a loan with 400% interest rate so she could pay Abbey’s tuition, as well as to keep the family afloat.
This show of superheroism, coupled with the knowledge that without credit histories, immigrants are usually denied loans from traditional financial institutions, Abbey’s business mind was light bulbed, giving him the idea for his company, Esusu.
Abbey, alongside his business partner and friend, Samir Goel, founded Esusu financials – a digital platform that helps people save money.
Abbey also worked together with Samir to found Esusu Rent. Esusu Rent is a platform that is used by renters in affordable housing units. This app helps the renters boost their credit scores when they pay their rents on time. This is done by capturing rental payment data, and reporting it to credit bureaus, which results in boosted credit scores
It is clear that Abbey does not sit around and complain about how the system was unfair to him, he instead, took steps to create platforms that has been helping people escape the things he experienced.
“I’m deathly afraid of what’s going to happen when the moratorium on rent and mortgage payments expires. Where are people going to get the money? We’re on the brink of another homeless crisis, and I don’t know how we’re going to manage it as a society,” Abbey told NYTimes.
Creative initiatives and experience
Prior to founding Esusu, Abbey had founded a number of ventures. One of them is Clean Water for Everyone (CWFE) initiative.
Clean Water for Everyone is an initiative that provides affordable access to clean water for over 250,000 people scattered in six countries.
Abbey also founded a data analytics company that collates machine-readable data on NGOs that operates on the African continent.
Abbey has work experiences from establishments like Accenture, European Commission, and Goldman Sachs. He served as a Mergers and Acquisitions Consultant at PWC, where he worked on several deals worth over $50 billion.
His works have featured on reputable media like WSJ, Financial Times, Quartz, Forbes, Vogue, amongst other.
Educational background
Abbey has studied Business Management at University of Minnesota Crookston. He also holds a Masters of Public Administration degree from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School School of Public Service.