When you take hard work, combine it with a passionate drive for social good, the innate ability to inspire and top it off with the friendliest smile, you get Billy Ekofo. “ Real estate for me was not a profession that I sought,” Ekofo wrote in an article for Inman News. “I went into it out of necessity to provide for my family. Out of my reluctancies came my first real estate transaction.” Later, he realized “all the good I wanted to do in the world could be done in the real estate industry.” Originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Okofo now lives near the Washington, D.C., metro and does real estate consulting and lead management. At Inman Connect New York in January, he organized a group of 18 to wake up at the crack of dawn and serve food at a homeless shelter, and then made us all cry.