2024 Colorado Prayer Luncheon
11:30 am - 1:30 pm
Yemi Mobalade, Mayor of Colorado Springs
Blessing ‘Yemi’ Mobolade was sworn in as the 42nd Mayor of Colorado Springs on June 6, 2023. This is his first four-year term as mayor. He is the first Black man and immigrant to be elected mayor of Colorado Springs and one of the youngest. Mobolade moved from Indiana to Colorado Springs in 2010, where he started a church as part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. After identifying a need in downtown Colorado Springs for cultural gathering places, he became one of the first entrepreneurs to invest in downtown after the Great Recession when he co-founded The Wild Goose Meeting House in 2013. Seeing a greater need for collaboration within the faith community, Mobolade began working as director of outreach and engagement at First Presbyterian Church, where he would go on to co-found COSILoveYou, a nonprofit that unites more than 100 area churches under the common mission of serving the Colorado Springs community. In 2017, Mobolade co-founded Good Neighbors Meeting House in the Patty Jewett neighborhood to provide an additional gathering place in the downtown area. He also began to leverage his success as an entrepreneur and business owner and began working as the vice president of business retention and expansion at the Colorado Springs Chamber & Economic Development Corporation. Here he was instrumental in caring for local employers and attracting new companies during a period of record job growth for Colorado Springs. In 2019, Mobolade served the City of Colorado Springs as a small business development administrator. In this role, he established tools to assist entrepreneurs with starting a business, COSOpenForBiz.com and Permit Partner, and led many collaborative efforts across the community’s public and private sectors. Mobolade stepped down from this position in March 2022 to officially launch his mayoral campaign.