Rumie: From Idea to Reality
When I started Rumie, it was no more than an idea: that the principles of technology innovation and disruption should not just be applied to making relatively rich people’s lives better (ride-sharing, streaming videos, and the latest dating apps) but also to tackle longstanding global social problems — such as education for refugees, girls, and others around the world who don’t get a fair shake.
We followed a simple approach: to build affordable tools that empower communities to access the free digital learning revolution — even in offline, resource-constrained communities. After all, the communities with the most to gain from the free digital learning revolution online are the ones that are the least likely to access it; this seems like a problem worth solving. In just four years we’ve grown to work in over 20 countries, won various awards, developed a model that’s now taught in business schools, and have impacted tens of thousands through something that scales extremely cost effectively and is improving rapidly every single day. But one of the things I’m most proud of, and is often overlooked, is the fantastic (and growing) team that now does most of the day-to-day work to drive this vision forward.
It is with such a strong team at the helm that I’ve come to the point of being able to turn my focus to new ways to combine financial and social outcomes in a manner that is sustainable for society over the longer term. After months of preparation by the whole team at Rumie in 2017, starting this week I stepped into the Board Chair role at Rumie and took on a brand new day-to-day challenge, bringing some of the Rumie magic to the financial services industry, with Christy Moorhead, our COO, taking over as interim CEO of Rumie.
A New Role
As the Board Chair of Rumie, and from the vantage point of my new (and tangential) day-to-day role, I will continue to stay closely involved in driving the long-term vision at Rumie.
And I’m equally excited about what I’ll be doing on a day-to-day basis going forward, in a role where I can combine my past work in finance and investing with the creativity and social innovation focus at Rumie to achieve financial and social outcomes at a large scale. I’m joining a large, established global asset manager that has become a leader in sustainable investing in the past few years, with a specific mandate to take their efforts to the next level in understanding and integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into all of their investment process across asset classes and geographies.
What the Future Holds
My goal is to bring some of the Rumie magic and creativity back to the financial services industry — where I’ve spent most of my career to date. And from my new position as Chair of the Rumie Board, I’m excited to stay deeply involved as we continue our growth around the world. I’ll continue to influence Rumie’s vision, help build resources to facilitate that vision, and help the team to take it forward — that amazing, passionate and driven team that we’ve so carefully built over the past four years.
