Ayele Shakur started a new role as President of the Redstone Family Foundation. She will work closely with media executive Shari Redstone of Paramount Global and the Redstone family to deepen the impact of their foundation.
The mission of the Redstone Family Foundation is to combat racism and antisemitism primarily through civics and cross-cultural education for children, youth and families while also including the broader community. The Foundation’s work supports curriculum development, youth forums, family events, symposiums and policy initiatives. The Foundation seeks to build bridges through empathy and understanding; dismantle racist structures and barriers; and find common ground through dialogue, storytelling and collective action that uplifts and unifies us all. Ultimately the goal of the Redstone Foundation is to teach children to love before they learn to hate.
Shakur brings over three decades of experience as an innovator in urban education. Previously she worked for BUILD, a national youth entrepreneurship program, for a total of 12 years — first as the founding Regional Executive Director for BUILD Boston, and then as CEO. Prior to BUILD, Shakur was President and CEO of the Boston Learning Center, which provided tutoring and test preparation services to students in grades K-12. A veteran classroom teacher, Shakur taught for 11 years in the Los Angeles area and in the Boston Public Schools, and co-authored the book Boost School Performance — A Parent’s Guide to Better Grades Fast.
Shakur was recognized as a 2022 Influential Leader by AACSB and Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. She received the 2021 Hall of Fame Award for Educational Excellence presented by the National Association of Black School Educators (NABSE). She is also the recipient of the 2012 Boston Celtics Heroes Among Us Award and the 2007 Boston Children’s Museum’s Great Friend to Kids Award. From 2014-17, she served as Chair for the Boston NAACP Education Committee. She is a 2017 Barr Fellow, and in 2018 became part of the GK100 Most Influential Black Bostonians. Since 2015, she has co-chaired the Opportunity and Achievement Gaps Task Force for the Boston Public Schools, which is an appointment by the Boston School Committee.
Shakur is a motivational speaker whose writing has been featured in the Huffington Post, The Hill, WBUR, Commonwealth and Entrepreneur Magazine. A native of Boston, she holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Boston University and a master’s degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
