YeMISI OLORUNWUNMI

Yemisi Olorunwunmi is an MBA candidate and Feldberg Fellow at Columbia Business School, on a mission to create a world where technology better serves the diversity of our global population. Born in Nigeria, raised in Boston, and shaped in New York, Yemi’s career sits at the intersection of supporting early-stage founders and building inclusive pathways within the innovation economy.

Prior to CBS, Yemi spent her career driving growth at venture-backed startups across fintech, biotech, and HR tech, often as the first business or sales hire. As co-founder of a Y Combinator-backed SaaS platform, empowering people leaders with automated tools for communication, sentiment tracking, and engagement, Yemi sought to address the lack of software fostering inclusion in tech. Her dedication to the vision and her tenacity towards its execution resulted in creating a leading DEI enablement tool for enterprise clients.

Yemi’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging is both professional and personal. She often speaks about the economic opportunity lost when organizations overlook immigrants, women, and people of color — and she actively creates founder-centered communities to demonstrate the unfair advantages gained when initiatives are created that prioritize wellness and belonging as core pillars of sustainable business growth.

Yemi graduated with honors after earning her B.A. in Political Science and African Studies from Columbia University’s Columbia College. At Columbia, she served as President of the African Students Association, was a Residence Hall Advisor, and worked at the Undergraduate Admissions Office. At age 20, she was selected as a Fulbright-Hays Fellow and conducted research on the Yoruba language in Ibadan, Nigeria. She later studied abroad at the University of Ghana, interning at the Anti-Corruption Coalition.

In her free time, Yemi enjoys discovering afrobeats and gospel artists, documenting good eats in new cities, encouraging founders, and creating spaces that restore joy and spark ambition.