Inc. Magazine – September 2019

42 ● INC. ● SEPTEMBER 2019 ● ● ● ● ● ●

Did it affect your family directly?

Very directly and very personally.

We lost a lot of extended family

members, but a lot of painful things

happened in my immediate family

during that period as well. I grew up

seeing how cruel humans could be

to one another. I think that shaped

a lot of my sense of fairness.

Did you think, “I’ve gotta get

the hell out of here”?

It really wasn’t “I’ve gotta get the

hell out of here” as much as “What

is causing all of this?” And what

role can I play, and what can I do? I

became very sort of socially active,

more active around students’ rights,

education rights. Back then, teach-

ers beat the students. I didn’t think

that was right. I was very vocal

about that, so I got beaten a lot.

I saw the inequalities and injustices

around women and economics. My

mother was a single parent by then.

She was an economist in the Libe-

rian government; my father died of

cancer when I was 8. I come from a

family of entrepreneurs. Both my

maternal and my paternal grand-

mothers were entrepreneurs. My

father and my grandmother were

actually business partners, just as

my mother and I are today.

How did you end up at Babson?

I got a scholarship. As things started

to really deteriorate in Liberia and

there were more uprisings, my

mother, Mary, just felt it was time

for me to leave. Early on, I realized

that the way to solve some of these

issues was through wealth. Because

otherwise, you’re always asking

somebody else’s permission. You’re

always under somebody else’s

influence.

So did Sundial start while you

were an undergraduate?

I grew up in Liberia at a very tumultuous

time, a very violent time. We had our first

set of riots that really shook the country

when I was 10 years old. We had those riots

in ’79, and then the following year we had

the coup d’état. Just extremely violent.

THE INC. INTERVIEW Richelieu Dennis