Ten Minutes With David Cayemitte, CEO of Embrace Partners and the Minority Business Development Institute

David Cayemitte is the founder and CEO of Embrace Companions, a Princeton Junction, N.J.-based insurance coverage sector guide and CEO of the Minority Enterprise Growth Institute (MBDI), which offers coaching and assist to spice up small minority, girls and veteran-owned development companies. He has greater than three many years of expertise within the company insurance coverage market, together with with AIG and Vacationers. Embrace Companions is the primary and solely licensed MBE wholesale insurance coverage brokerage agency with a license to function in all 50 states. The institute introduced the launch of MBDI College, a web-based coaching program, in November. 

This interview with ENR Deputy Editor Aileen Cho has been edited and condensed.

ENR: Inform me concerning the current launch of Minority Enterprise Growth Institute MBDI College and the way it differs from different inclusion initiatives within the business, together with Embrace’s position in offering bonding and underwriting providers.

Cayemitte: The launch of MBDI College is our most vital initiative so far. It’s a nationwide platform designed to remodel small enterprise house owners into sturdy development executives by a complete, four-year curriculum. 

RELATED LINK: Online Program Launched to Boost Skills, Bonding for Small and Disadvantaged Firms

A key part of this ecosystem is the position of Embrace Companions. It serves because the surety bonding underwriter for our individuals, offering the precise bonding capability that these companies must scale. This mix of schooling and tangible monetary backing is a large differentiator available in the market.

Whereas most business initiatives supply six- or eight-week packages, these are sometimes too temporary to domesticate the systemic change required for true scaling. We take a unique method. We focus deeply on creating sturdy monetary presentation, which takes time. Our four-tier program permits for progressive studying—and since we use upfront data assessments, we will place enterprise house owners instantly into the lessons that tackle their particular gaps.

We’ve additionally been pioneers in how we ship this coaching. Way back to 2009, we have been providing hybrid fashions—live-streaming our New York Metropolis lessons to individuals upstate. That was revolutionary on the time. Submit-COVID, the world has caught as much as that ‘zoomification,’ and we’ve got doubled down on engagement. MBDI College takes this know-how to a brand new stage with a strong studying administration system that permits us to transcend merely serving to contractors qualify for bonding; we’re constructing the infrastructure for his or her long-term success.

When was MBDI based, and who’re a few of your main business companions?

Cayemitte: MBDI was formally based in December 2010, however in some ways, it was years within the making. It was shaped as a direct response to a gaping gap we noticed available in the market: the necessity for a devoted institute that did not simply discuss alternative, but additionally offered the rigorous schooling required to take away limitations to success. We realized that ‘entry’ to contracts doesn’t suggest a lot if you do not have the ‘readiness’ to execute them. The institute was constructed to be that bridge.

In fact, you can’t drive this sort of systemic change in a silo. We’re extremely proud to have main business heavyweights strolling this path with us—companions like Vacationers Corp., Flagstar Financial institution, Axis and Octave Group which are essential allies in understanding that investing in these small companies is an funding in the way forward for our business.

What’s your origin story? What acquired you into this explicit area of interest of the development business? What drew you to development?

Cayemitte: My favourite film is To Sir, with Love, a movie that highlights themes of respect, schooling and the transformative energy of understanding. These themes, coupled with my mom at all times instilling in me that a very powerful factor you are able to do in life is to assist others, grew to become the bedrock of MBDI.

After spending 21 years in insurance coverage underwriting and govt administration—together with 16 years at AIG and 4.5 years at Vacationers—I began the Cayemitte Group. However the true turning level got here when the highway of life led me to New Orleans within the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In late 2005, there was intense public deal with how reconstruction {dollars} have been being spent. Native enterprise house owners, significantly minority house owners, have been pissed off that enormous federal contracts have been going to out-of-state corporations moderately than to native companies that wanted them most. In response, [former] Mayor Ray Nagin signed an govt order in October 2006 to drive native participation, mandating targets like 50% native enterprise participation and 35% for minority- or women-controlled companies.

I had joined the Nationwide Black Chamber of Commerce, which invited me to a pivotal assembly with the [US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.] I vividly keep in mind sitting in a Washington D.C. workplace with 16 ‘males in black’ who basically instructed me: ‘Go meet with the Mayor’s workplace. Assist them perceive the influence of this order.’ Their concern was sensible: HUD could be closely concerned in rebuilding, and since it’s a public company, contractors would want surety bonding. The truth was that the majority small native companies merely wouldn’t qualify.

Once we met with New Orleans officers, we confirmed that town had no assets to assist small companies in qualifying for surety. We started insuring and bonding a couple of dozen companies within the south to bridge that hole.

That success caught the eye of Ronald Langston, nationwide director of the federal Minority Enterprise Growth Company, who met with me to debate serving [its] places of work nationally. That was the second we sought nationwide licensing. Shortly after, I acquired concerned with the State of New York to handle the [Dormitory Authotity of the State of New York] Surety Bond Capital Entry program. It was this evolution—from the disaster of Katrina to a nationwide mandate—that in the end led us to beginning MBDI, our not-for-profit arm devoted to getting ready small companies to raise.

In the present day, we’ve got turned that have into a whole ecosystem we name The Platform. The institute has positioned greater than 1,000 contractors for bonding. Embrace Companions, which I launched in 2022 as a licensed MBE licensed in 50 states, acts as a wholesale brokerage and surety bonding underwriter. The Cayemitte Group handles the insurance coverage aspect.

Collectively, we reside by the motto: ‘We Educate, We Bond, We Insure.’ This platform permits giant development managers and builders to fulfill their [contract] inclusion targets, which frequently run within the a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars}, by making certain the small companies they rent are literally financially able to doing the work, and by positioning them to use their insurance coverage premium {dollars} towards these targets.

How has the business advanced relating to small and deprived companies? What are your targets?

Cayemitte: To be trustworthy, the evolution has been a journey of excellent intentions colliding with onerous realities and blended with political posturing. I typically assume again to my time in New Orleans after Katrina. The political will was there. We had govt orders explicitly calling for 35% participation from minority-controlled companies. However I keep in mind sitting in that room with the officers from HUD, and the roadblock wasn’t an absence of expertise; it was an absence of entry to surety bonding.

My aim is to shift the business’s focus from ‘compliance’ to ‘capability.’ We can not simply set targets if the infrastructure is not there to assist them. That’s the reason we constructed ‘The Platform’ combining schooling, bonding, and insurance coverage. We have to cease asking if these corporations exist and begin making certain they’ve the monetary backing to carry out. My imaginative and prescient is that we transfer past counting participation percentages and begin measuring the sustainable wealth and stability we’re creating for these enterprise house owners. On the finish of the day, as the companies we prepare develop sturdy, they create actually well-paying jobs, and careers that may raise households out of poverty and into the center class. 

Our schooling platform at all times leads again to inexpensive entry to capital. That’s the reason MBDI, in live performance with Embrace Companions, is closing on an underwriting credit score facility for small companies. This can be a tangible step ahead in fixing the capital entry problem that holds so many contractors again. We count on to pre-qualify greater than 150 companies for bonding within the first half of 2026 alone. We’re additionally including back-office assist providers below our ‘One Supply Benefit’ line to make sure these companies have the infrastructure to deal with that progress.