WIBO’s mission is to enable small business owners and budding entrepreneurs from underserved communities to obtain financial success by starting, operating, and building successful businesses that develop economic power, provide jobs and improve communities.
WIBO was the brainchild of two co-founders – Walter Geier and Mallalieu Woolfolk whose ideas about how to best help minorities living in impoverished areas were ahead of their time. In 1966, when WIBO was founded, Walter Geier was a successful businessman working in midtown Manhattan. Dr. Woolfolk was a prominent attorney and businessman in Harlem; in 1966 this was an unusual partnership, but it worked. They recruited twenty-four faculty members from among their clients, colleagues, and friends and, working with that group, created all of the original materials for a comprehensive 16-week business course. They then recruited fifteen students for the 1966 spring term and WIBO was off the ground. Fourteen graduated and eleven either started businesses or expanded existing businesses.