Rendel Solomon: Supporting People in His Community
If you met Rendel Solomon at an event, The Neighborhood Bridge Board member might share three fun facts as an ice breaker:
He turned down admission to MIT twice;
He’s eaten termites; and
He recently took a spin at stand-up comedy.
Though these facts are a clue to his adventurous nature, there’s a lot more to Solomon, who is co-founder of InHeirit, an online startup designed to make the estate planning process accessible and affordable for millions of Americans. He also recently served as Fellowship Director for VC Include, a 10-week educational and training program for diverse first-time venture capital and private equity fund managers. Prior to that, he was managing director of a $1.2 billion private equity fund-of-funds firm, and even had a stint managing musical talent after earning his MBA at Columbia University.
“I struggled with the idea that, despite my success, people in my community who were doing everything right weren’t experiencing the same success. It wasn’t working for them. It was almost like the system wasn’t designed for them to do well.”
A native of Chicago’s South and West sides, Solomon attended parochial and public schools before earning a high school spot at Latin School. A full ride to Tulane University, where he majored in electrical engineering, followed.
Noting the importance of his mother and grandmother in his life, he says, “We talk a lot about nature and nurture, and I’m grateful to have had both.”
His grandmother’s house in Austin provided constant grounding for Solomon as a young man, as did the support of his mother.
“My late mother,” he states, “was adamantly focused on education for me and my two sisters.”
Without a family history of college attendance, Solomon was unsure about his next step when he was admitted to six colleges out of high school. After receiving a full scholarship, he chose Tulane, primarily because the brochures made the place look nice. He turned down MIT in favor of attending a school located in New Orleans.
When a mentor encouraged him to reapply to MIT as a transfer, he did, and was again accepted. This time, he missed his flight to visit the campus. Looking back, Solomon acknowledges he was young and made some “ignorant” mistakes, but he has no regrets about the path he took, which led him to work for Proctor and Gamble prior to attending business school at Columbia.
After a few years in New York, he returned to Chicago, where he worked in private equity for 12 years. In 2020, he felt called to make a decisive change. He says he was working through conflicting feelings about his success in the capitalistic system.
“I struggled with the idea that, despite my success, people in my community who were doing everything right weren’t experiencing the same success. It wasn’t working for them. It was almost like the system wasn’t designed for them to do well.”
Solomon left his job not knowing what was next but determined to find a new path forward. In the span of 18 months, he met his wife, bought a home, got married, and welcomed a baby girl into their lives.
Today, he and his family live in Bronzeville, and he’s been able to reorient his career so he can be present for his 3-year-old daughter while also focusing on issues of racial injustice that motivate him.
Solomon is looking forward to being a hands-on member of The Neighborhood Bridge Board and is excited about the opportunity to spend more time on the West Side, where his 85-year-old grandmother still lives.
“I’ve felt removed at times from the community where I grew up, geographically, emotionally and financially,” he says. “I want to go beyond fundraising and get involved more directly with the people we are supporting — real-life human beings versus bullet points on a board meeting agenda. I want to be closer to where the work is happening. Maybe The Neighborhood Bridge can serve as an actual bridge for me and people like me: upwardly mobile, mid-career African Americans offering our time in a way that’s meaningful.”
Check out Rendel Solomon’s bio here.