“I’m super energized to be working with young people. I think we talk a lot about the youth not being plugged in or not paying attention to what’s going on or not being engaged, but I think the CEOs of Tomorrow program is a great example that young people really do know what’s going on,” says DeAndre Martin, the new executive director of CEOs of Tomorrow Inc. “Oftentimes, they aren’t given the opportunity to share their brilliance and to share how they would go about changing something. Our program really pulls that out of them.
“This is a great organization. I’m excited about the possibilities,” he adds.
A social entrepreneur, Martin recently took the helm at CEOs of Tomorrow Inc., a local non-profit that offers programming and products that teach and nurture social entrepreneurship, inspiring youth to transform the world through business solutions that help people, environments, and communities in need.
For Martin, a native of Oklahoma, it’s been a little over a month of getting acclimated to a new city, a new climate, and a new job. Prior to joining CEOs of Tomorrow as executive director, Martin served as the community development director with Northeast Oklahoma City Renaissance (NEOKCR), a nonprofit created to catalyze economic development in Northeast Oklahoma City.
“I was working at the Oklahoma City Innovation District where I ran a STEM Education and Workforce Development Fund. We called it Innovation Academy, so we’re able to seed local nonprofits to do STEM education and workforce development work, and then we also created some internal programming,” Martin says. “At that time, my partner, who had gotten her PhD in Madison, she said, ‘Hey, you need to follow this organization and see the work they are doing in Madison. I think it could be a helpful model for what you’re trying to create.’
“So I started following CEOs [of Tomorrow] and started perusing and seeing what things we could emulate in our programs,” he adds. “And then later down the line, I saw that they had an executive director position that had come open.”
Martin was interested but he thought to himself, “They’re not going to hire anybody from Oklahoma City.”
“But l put my hat in the ring. And then one interview led to another, and we ended up here in Madison, and it’s been an amazing opportunity. I’m very thankful that my partner pushed me to pursue this,” he says.
Martin is succeeding Dr. Roxie Hentz, who founded CEOs of Tomorrow in 2016 and grew the program over the years. Hentz, who retired from her role as executive director back in August of 2024, is well-known, loved and respected in the greater Madison community and beyond.
“I know I have some very big shoes to fill. Dr. Hentz has created a remarkable organization … not only what she’s done with the organization, but also her personality and her stature in the community are something to admire,” Martin says. “So I am thankful that she thought that I was a worthy successor to all the accomplishments that she’s had.”
CEOs of Tomorrow, which first launched at 100state coworking space in downtown Madison around the same time as Madison365, will be relocating to the heart of Madison’s South Side soon. The non-profit will have a new home at The Black Business Hub called the Dr. Roxie Hentz International Center for Youth Entrepreneurship which will honor the transformative legacy of its founding executive director.
“We are looking forward to moving into the Black Business Hub. Late June is our target date for the move,” Martin says. “We’re very excited because not only for our organization but Madison as a whole, we consider it to be a continuum of care for BIPOC entrepreneurs. So, literally, with our organization starting in fourth grade, you can take a young person all the way through a career and launching a business as they get into adult age. That’s very intriguing to us. We’re very excited to get in the building and start meeting with the other organizations and seeing what synergies are there now … just the natural collaboration that happens when you’re in close proximity with like-minded people.
“We are really eager to connect with the organizations in the Black Business Hub. And so talking with [ULGM President] Dr. [Ruben] Anthony at the Urban League and then Ms [Camile] Carter at the [Madison] Black Chamber [of Commerce] and having those conversations on how our programming can be complimentary. How can we use this building to really serve families and put entrepreneurship at the center of it?
CEOs of Tomorrow does a variety of programming that gives youth the opportunity to affect positive social change while earning money.
“So many times people are telling young people what to do and where to go, and we’re really asking them what they care about, what issues are important and how they want to go about it. Moving forward, we’ll be continuing our programming as usual, and then starting to specialize some of our programming. I have a history in real estate development, so I think I’d like to expose students to that in Madison more,” says Martin, who launched PlaceKeepers back in Oklahoma City, a five-week real estate development training program. “I see buildings and cranes going up like crazy around here. So actually exposing students on how these projects are created, what the whole process is like, what the city process is like, the developer, architect, really opening those doors. I think we have a great opportunity with the Urban League, as they just got through building the Black Business Hub.”
Martin says that it is important for CEOs of Tomorrow to be connected to the innovation economy here in Madison, too.
“UW Madison, Madison College, and Edgewood College are some of the top research institutions in the country, and so how do we get students connected to some of these researchers and some of the innovations that are coming out?” Martin asks. “I just spoke with a gentleman this morning who had a company that he spun out of the out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So there are so many things that are going on in our students’ backyard that they don’t know about that we hope to connect them to.”
CEOs of Tomorrow has had an international footprint for a while now, too, through its Global Excursion Program that led students to places around the globe like Gaborone, Botswana, in southern Africa, and to The Gambia. The organization’s first program, a four-week college-level course piloted in 2016, evolved into the International Academy, reaching students not only across the U.S. but also in Qatar, Botswana, Spain, and The Gambia.
“I would love to expand our international footprint. So, as you know, we take students over to The Gambia, we have a partnership in Spain, so seeing how we can further develop those relationships to get students who otherwise might not have the opportunity the chance to go abroad and see what else is out there in the world,” Martin says.
Born and raised in Oklahoma City, Martin has served on a variety of boards including Teach for America Oklahoma, John Rex Charter School, and The Verge entrepreneurship hub. He is a proud member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated and Leadership Oklahoma City.
“I started in real estate development, but moved into more community development work. And there, it was fun looking at ways to build economic ecosystems to really start to bridge people out of their current situations,” Martin says. “I was able to serve on the board of a charter school … I firmly believe in youth, and so getting the chance to see how the educational system works from the inside was very fun.
“Entrepreneurship is also near and dear to my heart. So I sat on the board of a nonprofit coworking space that was launched in Oklahoma City, and so now it feels like I am bridging those worlds together,” he adds. “For so much of my life, I was straddling both sides of the coin, but CEOs of Tomorrow is the perfect opportunity to really build those generational pathways and then do it through entrepreneurship.”
The next event for the teen entrepreneurs from the incubator program at CEOs of Tomorrow will be the 14th Teen Pitch & Launch Event on Sunday, April 13, at noon, at the Madison College Truax Campus where the young people will sell their products at Madison College and pitch their business ideas to a panel of experts.
“Our goals are definitely to plug into the community in which we serve, which is the broader, greater Madison area,” Martin says. “We really want to get our boots on the ground and meet families, teachers, and other community builders, and seeing how we plug into the whole ecosystem is a personal goal of mine.
“Ultimately, we want to serve as many students as we can,” he adds. “We know that we’re not touching all of the students in greater Madison, so how can we expand our capacity and footprint to make sure that students who might not have opportunities right now can get those opportunities?”
