2026 Change Maker honoree: Adeyemi Ritchards

The Sacramento Bee and Nehemiah Leaders Programs are celebrating this year’s 60 Change Makers. Join them at our gala at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13 at the Grand Sheraton in downtown Sacramento. Buy tickets at sacramentochangemakers.com.

At 28, Adeyemi “Ade” Ritchards proves that talent doesn’t always follow a traditional path.

The founding engineer at Sacramento-based startup TenYour never attended college. He graduated from an independent study high school after struggling in the classroom, describing himself as a “terrible student.” Yet today, he leads engineering for a financial tech company while spending much of his free time helping others break into the same field.

“School is not a summary of one’s value or intelligence,” Ritchards said. “If you’re willing to sit in front of a computer and be bad at something … you will eventually be really good at (programming) and get a very high-paying job.”

Ritchards, who grew up in Sacramento’s Meadowview neighborhood, was more interested in teaching himself visual effects software than doing homework in high school. Those self-directed skills eventually led him to team up with friends and launch a small digital media business after he graduated.

While later working at Apple’s Elk Grove call center, he recruited co-workers to stay after their shifts and study coding together. That group became a launching pad into engineering careers for Ritchards and several others.

Today, at TenYour, Ritchards oversees engineering, code quality and software development for a startup that offers a subscription-based financial safety net designed to help workers weather layoffs while encouraging long-term savings.

The goal of most tech startups is to get people to keep scrolling or to persuade them to spend as much money as possible, Ritchards said. But the mission of TenYour is “deeply morally grounded.”

“We’ve partnered with cities across America — Nashville, Atlanta, D.C. — so that we can get this product to the folks who need it most, which in our belief, are the people who are going through the financial empowerment programs that most cities sponsor,” he said.

Ade Ritchards, a founding engineer at TenYour and a board member of Playful Programming, a global platform providing free access to software development education, is a 2026 Change Maker at his office in Sacramento on Thursday, July 23, 2026. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com

As excited as he is about TenYour, Ritchards’ greatest passion may be expanding access to technology careers.

As a board member of the nonprofit Playful Programming, Ritchards created a free local coding bootcamp last year after seeing how cost and lack of mentorship keep many people out of the engineering profession. The four-month program provided instruction comparable to expensive university bootcamps, Ritchards said, while ensuring that finances never became a barrier. Several graduates are already pursuing internships and Ritchards expects the program to continue growing.

His commitment extends well beyond the classroom. He mentors aspiring software engineers one-on-one, speaks to students about alternatives to traditional college pathways, organizes local technology meetups and volunteers his technical expertise to nonprofits serving social justice causes throughout Sacramento.

Ritchards said every opportunity he has received came because someone believed in him, from his mother Toni Newman-Hentschke to mentors who encouraged him as a young worker to the entrepreneurs who took a chance on him.

Now he has become that person for others.

“I … tell anybody who wants to learn how to code: ‘I will teach you,’” Ritchards said. “That’s what was done for me.”

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