Lila Mills — founding editor-in-chief of Signal Cleveland — on starting a newsroom from scratch and building the trust required to be the source of daily news and information for Greater Clevelanders.
Anne Skoch — Founder and CEO of Anne Cate — on how to marry art and business, pursue your passion as a profession, and building her made‐in‐Cleveland accessories brand and manufacturing firm!
Sherrill Paul Witt — founder of Lolly The Trolley — on running one of Cleveland's most beloved icons since 1985, covering 3.1 million miles during its 37 years on the road and introducing so many to the hidden gems of the city!
Dallas Hogensen — CEO of Felux ($24mm raised) — on marketplaces, importance of culture, and creating the world’s largest operating platform and marketplace to help solve commerce for the steel industry.
Shawn Rech — Co-Founder/CEO/Director at Transition Studios, AGTV & TruBlu — on growing Cleveland's permanent media industry, the importance of factual programming and positively affecting history through truth-telling and documentary production!
Graham Veysey & Fisk Biggar — founders of Graham+Fisk’s Wine-In-A-Can \\ Firehouse Can Co. — on building the first exclusive wine-in-a-can company!
Tom Tyrrell — founder and Chairman of Great Lakes Biomimicry & co-founder of Segmint — on the power of biomimicry and harnessing the intelligence found in nature’s 3.8 billion years of R&D (asking questions nature has already found the answers to)
Baiju Shah — President and CEO of Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) — on economic development in Cleveland and leading the largest metropolitan chamber of commerce in the nation!
David Sylvan — president of UH Ventures, the innovation and commercialization division of University Hospitals, a Cleveland-based health system with two dozen hospitals, more than 50 health centers, and outpatient facilities, and over 200 physician offices located throughout 16 counties.
Dr. Colleen M. Lorber — Founder & CEO of Wraparound Experts — on the current state of our society’s mental health and the work to be done to address it concentrating on our basic human needs which include not only our physical/biological needs but also our feelings of safety/security, love and belo…
David Davis II — Founder & CEO of FBA Flip — on entrepenuership, the changing dynamics of the modern internet-first world we find ourselves in, and the challenges, opportunities, and prospects for his home of Cleveland.
William (Billy) Littlefield II — President & CTO of Wizest — on Wizest's (recently raised $1.7mm) vision to democratize access to financial expertise to his own path to Cleveland, to digital normadacy, philosophy, and more!
Dr. Chelsea Monty-Bromer — founder & CEO of SweatID (aka RooSense) — on bridging the academic-entrepreneurial gap, the implications of bio-electrochemical interfaces, building a company capitalizing on them, and the future of wearables!
Mark D’Agostino — founder and president of ConnectedHR — on the changing macro-dynamics of employment, how the nature of work is changing, the business of fractional Human Resources, and the journey Mark has been on building ConnectedHR!
Chris Wentz — Founder and CEO of Everykey — on taking an idea at his Case Western entrepreneurship class to building a leading cybersecurity company, offering a patented universal smart key replacing passwords and keys, to consumers, enterprises, and governments alike with a deep commitment to bran…
Dennis Althar — Founder & CEO of Althar Audio and All-tronics Medical Systems — on everything from his prodigal expertise in electronics, to the US Airforce, to medical technology, to Steve Wozniak, to audible literacy, to Cleveland manufacturing, to philosophy itself!
Dennis Althar — Founder & CEO of Althar Audio and All-tronics Medical Systems — on everything from his prodigal expertise in electronics, to the US Airforce, to medical technology, to Steve Wozniak, to audible literacy, to Cleveland manufacturing, to philosophy itself!
John Wetzel, Alex Hilleary, Brooks Sime — Co-Founders of Gather — on building a company oriented around a future of work that puts people first and streamlines workflows for People Operations teams, and their journey from inception to acquisition by ChartHop
Camille Heard — CEO & Co-Founder of FELOH — on building a beauty tech startup celebrating diversity in beauty through community and inclusion, the startup journey, building in and up Cleveland, and authentic inclusion in beauty!
Patrick M. Howard and Ben Kanelos — founding team of RustBit Studios and creators of the Grip of Madness game — on video games, game design, bringing games to market, and building a gaming studio.
Eugene Malinskiy — Co-Founder and CEO of Lazurite — on the future of the operating rooms, the path to get there, and his first principles systematic approach to solving seemingly impossible healthcare problems!
Ray Leach (Founder/CEO) & Hardik Desai (Sr. Partner) on the history of JumpStart, the launch of JumpStart Ventures and its role in the Cleveland startup ecosystem, and perspective on founder sentiment and questions.
Nolan Gallagher — Founder and CEO of Gravitas Ventures — on building a global all rights theatrical distribution company that has released more than 3,000 films on Video on Demand (VOD) and has since been acquired by Anthem Sports & Entertainment in late 2021.
Dave Kennedy — Founder of Binary Defense and TrustedSec — on his journey to becoming a cybersecurity authority, building two of the leading companies in the industry, hacking and social engineering, and how he's making the world a more secure place.