Lanre Ajakaiye (Aja-kai-yeah) is the President and CEO of the 25 Bough Street development (25bough.com). Lanre is known to be a community and corporate leader, brand architect as well as a social entrepreneur in greater New England and his home state of Rhode Island across startups, the Fortune 50 and non-profits. He is a ‘2021 Who to Watch’ awardee from Providence Monthly highlighting his most recent development 25 Bough Street, a 15,000 sq ft commercial building in the middle of Olneyville, Providence, Rhode Island which he is transforming into a next generation, mixed use commercial facility. The development will teach Financial Literacy, Career Awareness & Self Awareness to youth, offering a multi-Purpose function hall and event space, co-working and a heritage and cultural experience museum. The project has earned Lanre both national and local recognition and coverage by: MarketWatch, Yahoo Finance, AfroTech nationally and the Rhode Show, I heart Rhody and Rhode Island Monthly locally. He is the first person in New England to be approved by the SEC for Regulation CF (Crowdfunding) for real estate.
As a social entrepreneur, Lanre is also the mind behind mega events drawing over as many as 6,232 + people across 40,000 sq ft at the Rhode Island Convention Center and helped to create R.I.S.E. Women’s Leadership Conference with now in its 4th year. Within career, Lanre has led the explosive growth in many environments across divisions, startups, non-profits and Fortune 50 firms receiving corporate excellence awards for revenue growth, retention and optimization. In his past, Lanre was also top two (2) in the nation for MetLife Auto & Home.
Lanre has a dedication to uplifting youth and changing outcomes. He still finds time to volunteer and was part of the Mayor’s African American Ambassador group addressing community needs, Keynote speaker for Paul Cuffee in 2021 and even a judge for this year’s Miss RI and Miss RI Teen USA. He is also the proud Director of the now state champion Team Providence Travel for boys which he helped to found three years ago. Lanre holds an MBA from Boston University and is Leadership Rhode Island Alumni from the NUII Class of 2017 voted Class Speaker and Speaker of the house (in simulation).