When she worked on Wall Street launching IPOs, Alicia Polak helped generate new wealth. Now she is working to build wealth in the dirt-poor black township of Khayelitsha, 30 minutes down a dusty road from Cape Town, South Africa.

Two years ago, Polak founded The Khayelitsha Cookie Co., which now employs 11 women from the sprawling shantytown to bake high-end cookies and brownies that are distributed to top hotels, restaurants and coffeehouses throughout South Africa. The cookies come packed in plastic with a cartoon on the front showing a big, African ‘mama’ in traditional dress and the company slogan: “Creating opportunity one bite at a time.”

For Polak, the entrepreneurial venture is about making money, but also much more. “My driving force in this company is that I want them out of those shacks,” says Polak of the hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty in South African townships.…