Episode 007: Emilie Umuhire

Episode 7 features Emilie Umuhire, a member of the Harvard Business School Class of 2026, entrepreneur, and aspiring builder focused on expanding access to opportunity in Rwanda and across Africa.In this episode, Emilie reflects on her journey from Rwanda to Northwestern and now Harvard Business School, sharing how resilience, ambition, and what she calls “delusional optimism” helped her dream beyond the limits of her circumstances. She opens up about the influence of her mother and sister, the tension between impact and wealth creation, and the startup she is building to democratize access to employment for university students in Rwanda. At the heart of the conversation is Emilie’s unwritten case: building something both deeply impactful and commercially successful that can transform Africa’s talent market at scale.