La Keisha Landrum Pierre joins host Alicia Castillo Holley on this episode of The Wealthing Podcast to trace her journey from an aspiring childhood storyteller to her role as Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Emmeline Ventures. Focusing on early-stage, women-led businesses—particularly across women's health, wealth, and well-being—La Keisha breaks down what it takes to challenge systemic funding disparities in venture capital. Drawing on her foundational experience, she offers an insider's perspective on the power of operator-led investing, syndication, and radical collaboration in building a healthier, more equitable startup ecosystem. The conversation explores the critical mechanics of the venture ecosystem, highlighting why sharing deal flow and fostering cross-fund collaboration creates stronger outcomes for investors and founders alike. Moving beyond pitch deck tactics, La Keisha emphasizes the necessity for early-stage founders to understand venture capital as a business model, urging entrepreneurs to develop a deep respect for money as an instrument for leverage and progress rather than just a survival metric. Grounded in reflections on family, legacy, and personal fulfillment, the discussion illustrates La Keisha's holistic vision for building generational wealth—showing that true venture success lies in aligning capital with purpose, supporting transformational founders, and maintaining a sustainable balance between professional ambition and personal life. About La Keisha: La Keisha Landrum Pierre is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Emmeline Ventures, an early-stage VC fund, where she invests in healthcare, fintech, and sustainability solutions built by female founders. She invests in the most promising female founders across these sectors and has spent the last 13+ years building world-class operational teams, infusing strategic excellence and scalability into impact focused companies. Prior to Emmeline Ventures, La Keisha was the Managing Director of NLA Ventures, an early stage fund where she also invested in healthcare, sustainability and cybersecurity. Prior to NLA Ventures, La Keisha built a career working at the intersection of tech, impact, and digital media. As the CEO of one Nigeria's largest digital media start-ups, Sahara Reporters Media Group, La Keisha built and scaled the first civic media platform of its kind. With venture backing for an African company when Africa was an overlooked market, she grew the company from 2MM to 50MM monthly users, positioning it for investment by impact funds, and raising millions in funding. She partnered with the Omidyar Network, MacArthur, Google and Bloomberg Philanthropies to found the first of its kind Civic Media Lab, Lagos with support from the MIT Center for Civic Media. There, she was the Executive Director and today sits on the board of the Civic Media Lab, Nigeria. She is also now the Chairwoman of Sahara Reporters. La Keisha is a 2x founder of Harvard Innovation Lab incubated start-ups and was a deep-tech researcher at the Youth and Media Group at Harvard Law School's Berkman Klein Center where she studied the intersection of digital and media literacies for youth. La Keisha brings domain expertise in building and scaling impact-driven companies, taking complex business challenges and designing solutions that create lasting financial and social change in the world. Connect with La Keisha: www.linkedin.com/in/lnlpierre Emmeline Ventures: www.emmelineventures.vc 🌐 Wealthing Club: www.wealthing.club
