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Alloysius (A.J.) Lloyd is the Co-Founder of Kiji Ventures, international leader of the Regenerative Development Movement, and a young black millennial mogul owner of an original Warhol. Despite experiencing childhood hardships growing up in abject poverty in the DMV area, Lloyd has brilliantly found ways to make use of the intersection of various industries in order to help preserve the environment, improve conditions for marginalized communities, and push the boundaries of technology, art, fashion, culture, & finance.
Understanding the importance of experiential knowledge and making connections with genuine and creative people, Lloyd left the states and began his international journey as soon as he was able to.
Now the American is fully engrained in and familiar with the social intricacies of many international business and art hubs, like Paris, London, Geneva, Tokyo, Singapore, and Seoul. These international experiences serve Lloyd’s ability to vertically integrate himself in and find the connections between many, seemingly different, industries such as environmental preservation, cutting-edge technology, high art, and international finance as well as to build his network along the way. Lloyd’s international experience does not end at the London business scene or at France’s haute société as Lloyd was actually a technical advisor and creative consultant for an unnamed African Country, that of his father’s birth.
Between his very real and formative experiences growing up in poverty as a child, his adventures as a young black man navigating throughout Europe, brushing shoulders with billionaires, and his experience as an advisor, Lloyd can make connections in every single room he enters; His ability to relate to anyone from any walk of life, his unrivaled eye for art, his keen business sense, and his authentic desire to make a difference is precisely what sets Lloyd apart.
Now, as an international power player, Lloyd intends to use the power and resources he has acquired to help facilitate a future that is filled with opportunity and meaning for marginalized communities as well as humanity in general – as was his plan all along. This is precisely why he joined the Regenerative Development movement. According to Lloyd himself, “Regenerative Development is the natural, but very imperative step forward past sustainable development.”
While the Regenerative Development Movement and the Sustainable Development Movements are cousins, Lloyd knows that, as a society, we need to be more ambitious and forward-thinking than the sustainability mindset calls for. Despite understanding that the sustainability movement and millennial development goals helped many individuals, Lloyd believes that these movements fell short of achieving some of their most important objectives and that society needs to go further than aiming for sustainability by being more inventive, high-reaching, and understanding of the connections across industries and individuals while thinking about the future.
While sustainability may connote the preservation of the status quo, in some sense, Lloyd wants to completely delete the status quo.
This means that Lloyd is focused not only on climate change, clean water, and clean air, but he is also focused on the effects that the digital age and technology have on identity as well as on the potential for decentralized autonomous systems and game theory to improve societal conditions. With his creative mind, Lloyd also spends time attempting to implement and utilize these ideas in the worlds of art, fashion, and architecture.
Recently, Lloyd received recognition for his work in the Regenerative Development field as he was featured in UNICEF’s partnership with Gucci along with Wilson Oryema and as he was named one of the top 100 voices in the field. Lloyd truly believes that his work, as well as the work of others, in the field of regenerative development can help bridge the gap to the better future promised by previous generations and other social impact movements. Lloyd started Kiji Ventures and joined the Regenerative Development movement precisely to push these ambitious goals forward.
Utilizing the network and connections he gained by working in a plethora of interesting and market-moving industries, as well as gained from his time traveling and living in international cities, Lloyd is easily able to find advantageous partners for his projects as well as make meaningful, sometimes life changing, introductions for other people. To this point, Lloyd spends a great amount of time facilitating ‘exposureships’ for individuals who do want to break into an industry, but do not have all the resources available to do so themselves.
The only thing that makes Lloyd happier than one of his creative and philanthropic projects finding success, is helping open doors for other individuals with similar backgrounds that will lead to long-term stability and generational wealth for them and their families
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