By training, she was not destined for the heathtech industry. However, a painful incident convinced her that she had to act to save millions of people in Africa.
Beninese-born Bola Bardet (photo) is the founder and CEO of insuretech Susu. Based in Côte d’Ivoire and France, Susu allows the African diaspora to buy health insurance plans for their relatives living on the continent. The plans offered by her startup cover the treatment of chronic illnesses, preventive and emergency care, medical evacuations, and certified drug purchases.
She launched Susu to save others from her painful experience. In 2017, when she was preparing for her MBA in Paris, her father died of poorly managed heart problems. “My father died in 2017 after he had a heart issue in Benin and could not be saved. The health issue was a complication from his hypertension that was poorly managed. At that moment, I was finishing my MBA at HEC Paris and the goal I set for myself was to try to prevent that from happening to other people, maybe that will be something good that I can do in my life,” she explains.
She aims to initiate her startup’s African expansion and enhance offers in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Cameroon. For that purpose, in March 2022, she secured US$1 million in pre-seed funding and US$1.2 million in debt and grant financing from BPI France.
Mrs. Bola is an executive MBA graduate. She also has a Master’s in Management and several professional and social entrepreneurship certificates. Over her fifteen years of professional experience, she sharpened her skills with LCN Communications, luxury goods holding company Richemont, and investment bank JP Morgan Chase & Co.
In 2019, thanks to Susu, she was the winner of the Sanofi challenge organized during the Viva Tech conference. This year, she is also a finalist of the Female Founder Challenge organized by Viva Tech in collaboration with 50inTech.
Melchior Koba
