New CEOs of Tomorrow exec ready to help Madison youth thrive | Education

As a child, DeAndre Martin would wake up early every morning so his grandmother could drive him to school in a suburb south of his Oklahoma City neighborhood. 

Martin would later learn as an adult that his grandmother sent him to a different school because she wanted him to receive a better education. 

“I knew then that community development would be my life’s work,” Martin said. “I don’t think you should have to leave your neighborhood to be able to get the resources other communities get.” 

The experience would lead Martin to pursue a job at the Oklahoma City Innovation District creating STEM and workforce development programs for kids. 

At 28, Martin is now executive director of CEOs of Tomorrow, a growing Madison nonprofit teaching 4th through 12th graders about social entrepreneurship. The organization offers programming designed to educate students — particularly youth of color and children from low-income households — about marketing, business skills and financial literacy.  

In 2023, the nonprofit received nearly $600,000 in contributions and grants, about double from four years earlier, according to its publicly available tax filings.

Martin began his career in real estate development. He later joined the nonprofit Northeast OKC Renaissance, where he helped create a training program aimed at empowering Black residents to become real estate developers. 

Martin joins CEOs of Tomorrow as the nonprofit prepares a move from Madison’s east side to the south side Black Business Hub by late June. Roxie Hentz, who founded CEOs of Tomorrow in 2016, retired from the executive director role this winter. 

In his first month on the job, Martin said he’s been helping students prepare for the organization’s annual pitch competition. On April 13, teen entrepreneurs from the incubator program will sell their products at Madison College and pitch their business ideas to a panel of experts. The businesses are meant to promote positive change in the teens’ communities.  

“In our programs, the kids drive the ship. We tell them, ‘You’re the CEO of your business. You’re the ultimate decider of how this is going to work,’” Martin said. “That’s very empowering for them. There aren’t a lot of places where students get to tell the adults, ‘Hey, I’m doing this.’” 

Martin recently spoke with the Cap Times about his career journey and his goals as the new leader of CEOs of Tomorrow. 

How has your professional experience prepared you for this role? 

All of it is a culmination of what I’m doing now. CEOs of Tomorrow is about to move into the Black Business Hub. For the construction side, I get to bring in my real estate development background. But my ultimate goal and passion is to create pathways for community development, for communities to thrive. 

At CEOs, we work with 4th through 12th grade students. In my work at the Innovation District in Oklahoma City, I realized you have to start preparing kids for their futures at a very young age. We saw if we don’t get students exposed to opportunities early, they could fall behind in their careers. 

I’m very excited to be here, to be working with youth and moving into the Black Business Hub. Students will have greater access to the Urban League’s programming, be around other entrepreneurs and get experiences they probably wouldn’t have otherwise had. 

What interested you about CEOs of Tomorrow? 

It was really that continuum of care. It’s been my mission to look at communities and identify their problems. How do we start to solve them? How can we get families on a pathway to prosperity? 

One path is to look at our students and the resources we’re putting around them. A lot of times we discount how smart young people are. They have ideas for solutions. 

I love in our program that students can dream. It’s like a blank canvas. They see a problem and can create a business idea around it. They get to see how entrepreneurship can be used for good. A lot of times it isn’t in our capitalistic society. But we can teach our students how to use business methodology to really be great pillars in the community.

Do you feel like you had those opportunities growing up? 

I grew up in northeast Oklahoma City. For context, it is predominantly African American. It has one of the lowest health outcomes and worst educational outcomes in Oklahoma County. The state of Oklahoma ranks low overall in education and health care.

I was adopted by my grandmother. I didn’t realize the hoops she had to jump through and all the challenges she had to overcome getting me to a different school in a predominantly white community. 

At school, I was welcomed with open arms. A lot of my friends’ parents were entrepreneurs. In high school, we’d go to different people’s houses for lunch. Their parents would be home on weekdays. My grandma was never home during the day. She was at work. 

I remember asking one of my friends’ parents, “Why are you always home? Don’t you have to work?” She said, “Yes, I do. I’m an entrepreneur, but I make my schedule.” I wondered, “What is an entrepreneur? That is the coolest thing.” 

Ever since then, I’ve had the buzz about creating my own things. I was very lucky in my upbringing, the opportunities I had, the exposure. But I’m one of a few kids in my community who had those opportunities. I want to use my privilege to be able to open that up for others.

What do you envision for the future of CEOs of Tomorrow? 

We’re looking to make a smooth transition to the Black Business Hub. Almost every resource an entrepreneur needs is located in the Hub. 

We’re thinking about how we can start a generational pathway at CEOs. What can we do for our alumni to keep them plugged in? We’re producing such great talent. What are the ways we can create opportunities for them to stay here in Madison and build the community?

We’ll look at more specialized programs. Right now, we do entrepreneurship in general, but I think there’s a lot of innovation and specialties we can pursue. Madison is being redeveloped rapidly. I want to get students in front of developers, city planners and architects, so they can see that process. It would also be really cool to get students connected to the innovation economy in Madison. 

Still, we’ll keep on with the programming we have, making sure it stays relevant and is beneficial for the students. It’s been really fun to see them dive in and get excited for the ideas they care about.