Rebecca Roseme Obounou

Rebecca Roseme Obounou has spent nearly two decades challenging the idea that Haitian and Caribbean communities should be seen primarily as recipients of aid rather than as economic partners with the capacity to build, invest, and shape their own futures.

Rebecca watched her mother build a low-cost health clinic that both served a Haitian community and created local jobs—an early lesson in the power of building capacity rather than dependency. 

In 2008, she founded Communities for Haitian Entrepreneurs and Startups (CHES), a nonprofit that funds, educates, and mentors entrepreneurs in rural Haiti. She later worked at Babson College and MIT Sloan, advancing entrepreneurship and social innovation, before turning more of her attention to values-aligned investment across the Caribbean.

Today, she is working to shift how capital flows to the region, helping women of the diaspora see themselves not simply as supporters or beneficiaries, but as investors with the power to direct resources toward the communities and futures they care about. 

Through Invest for Better’s Shifting Wealth, Shaping Futures Circles, she has helped bring that vision into the IFB community, creating space for women to explore how their financial decisions can move wealth across generations and borders.