Jonae Maxey (she/her)

Maxey Real Estate Investments

Jonae graduated from the Ross School of Business and was born and raised in Detroit. At U of M, her identity lies in her extensive involvement on-campus, having been involved in the Black Student Union, the Black Business Undergraduate Society, as well being the founder of the International Deaf and Hearing Alliance. Jonae Started Maxey Real Estate Investments, an LLC that aims to revitalize Detroit neighborhoods without displacing residents by acquiring, renovating, and selling homes with the help of the local community.

To learn more about Maxey Real Estate Investments, send them an email at maxeyrealestate@gmail.com.

There’s a specific culture that’s very unique to the organization that attracted me to optiMize my freshman year. I knew I was going to come back - it became a mission of mine to participate in optiMize by my senior year, even if I didn’t have a project. optiMize supports me being a creative, innovative entrepreneur. In school, it's not the same - the goal is “get a good career.” The optiMize community allowed me to explore, ask the questions I needed to ask - but it also gave me a roadmap; as an entrepreneur, your journey at the beginning is a roller coaster. Being surrounded by positive-minded people who have been through that roller coaster is what all entrepreneurs need. That community aspect is key. During the fellowship, doing weekly meetings to check-ins and talks about progress allowed me to set weekly goals to put on my wall.

My career interests are in human capital consulting, or in other words, providing solutions to companies undergoing organizational or technological change that incorporates and analyzes the people aspect of change. That idea of putting people first is representative of everything I’m involved in. The idea for my company, Maxey Real Estate Investments, came from a time when I was at rock bottom. It led me to find my passion, and figure out how I wanted to leave an imprint on this world. Going through the [optiMize Social Innovation] Challenge helped me to find the overall mission and purpose of the company - and in December, I bought my first property. It had been vacant for seven years, and now it’s being resided in by a Detroit family of five. It’s super cool to incorporate the community because in business putting people first is not always aligned with business objectives, and I’m trying to be that change. It’s my life’s purpose.

To those who are applying to the challenge: complete the challenge! Some projects go to the first few meetings then fall off, without really utilizing all the resources that optiMize has. I’m still learning about resources that optiMize has, and I’m on staff now! So reach out to mentors, ask all the questions you think are dumb, and really try to build connections within the community - it’s a safe space for entrepreneurs, which is very hard to come by. There are opportunities on the other side of fear - you’ve got to just do it.