BIOGRAPHY IDREES “LANRE” AJAKAIYE (Lanreajakaiye.com)
Founder, 25 Bough Street
Founder, Next Generation & Futures
Pronouns: He/ Him or Name alone.
Idrees Lanre Ajakaiye or “Lanre” (lonray) as he is known to friends and family as an innovative, brand strategist and renaissance man of many talents. He is the founder of 25 Bough Street (25bough.com), a nationally written about mixed use, commercial, mill development currently being re-developed to bring banking & financial services, co-working and entrepreneurial space, a health & wellness cafe, multi-purpose function hall and more to the heart of Olneyville, Providence, Rhode Island. The development will deliver community services and impact that map to many of the area gaps and needs and help to transform the area. With this real estate development, Lanre was the first in New England to be approved by the SEC to crowdfund under Regulation CF.
As a social entrepreneur, Lanre has and delivers impact in a host of ways including developing innovative but cost effective, educational family events bringing upwards of 6,232+ people to enjoy at the convention center. Further towards social impact, he is also the founder of Next Generation & Futures (nextgenfutures.org), a non-profit 501© 3, which this year has quietly fed over 10,000+ with healthy meals while teaching youth financial literacy, non-violence principles, career awareness, health & nutrition and real estate principles. This is also the non-profit which proudly houses Team Providence Travel, the City’s youth travel basketball program. With this program, Lanre connects youth athletics to financial literacy and career awareness teaching principles rarely taught in school. In 2022, the organization and teams achieved being the State as well as New England champions at the 6th, 7th and 8th grade divisions while taking two seminars on financial literacy and real estate. Finally, Lanre is the marketing and promotional strategist behind the RISE logo, marketing and promotion, website, social and event experience preferring to stay out of the conference content itself-except for the Men Who Get It Panel.
In the corporate sphere, Lanre’s background spans over 15+ years of success building sales divisions at real estate startups in NY, NY, marketing, and leadership of international and domestic teams (of over 2,500+ associates internationally) at Fortune 50, Start Ups and Non-Profits where he has driven dramatic growth and/or retention to the bottom line. A servant leader, Lanre is a Leadership Rhode Island Alum of the NUII Class of 2017 where he was voted Class Speaker and Speaker of the house (in simulation). He would later serve and help the organization on the programming committee in 2018 and be asked to be co-chair in 2019. By way of education, Lanre has an MBA from Boston University and undergraduate degree from the University of Rhode Island.
Fast forwarding to the present, Lanre is a 2021 ‘Who to Watch’ Providence Monthly Awardee, a 2022 inductee into the Classical Hall of Fame -where he earned All State and still has an unbroken, hurdles record – and a 2022 MLK City of Providence Hall of Fame Inductee for community service and leadership. Most recently, Lanre has quietly served and given some of his time to the African American Ambassador Group (AAAG) as an integral part of the team which helped to re-ignite the removal of the Plantations name at the city level moving on with success to the state as well as lending his time speaking to Year Up classes, Schools like Paul Cuffe, CLRI (college leadership Rhode Island) classes, Rhode Island National Guard leadership and executives. Lanre is married to Hilina D. Ajakaiye and father of Darius and Tyson.