I’ve been fortunate to serve as a board member of several Cleveland “pillar” community organizations, working with fellow business and community leaders, and government officials striving to help our great city achieve its full potential.
There have been many exciting wins along the way, where leaders and the community came together to achieve a defined goal by leveraging Cleveland’s powerful collection of cultural and natural assets.
Some have observed that our community has been good at creating moments but is still searching for ways to create momentum. Between moments, many well-intended stakeholders attempted to wrangle our business, community and governmental resources into a cohesive vision with limited success. That appears to be changing as all three sectors have demonstrated much greater collaboration and cohesion around our “All In” approach.
Several years ago, as board chairman of Destination Cleveland, our region’s tourism board, I had a front row seat when some of these seeds of collaboration were sown. At the time, our Destination Cleveland executive committee included now-Mayor Justin Bibb, now-County Executive Chris Ronayne, now-Greater Cleveland Partnership CEO Baiju Shah, Metroparks CEO Brian Zimmerman, Land Studio CEO Ann Zoller, now EY US Chair Julie Boland, current board chair and KJK law firm CEO Jon Pinney and Adcom Founder Joe Kubic, who all developed deep friendships and collaborative problem-solving skills valuable to our community’s future success. The Executive Committee also included retired McDonald and Company CEO William Summers, who continues to make massive contributions as a leader in our community. Destination Cleveland continues to be led by dynamic and successful CEO David Gilbert — a leader in creating a collaborative culture.
Over the past several years, our Cleveland “pillar” organizations have attracted talented new leadership, many from outside of Cleveland, who have guided their respective organizations to new heights. These leaders from organizations such as Cleveland Foundation (Lillian Kuri), Cleveland Museum of Art (William Griswold), Cleveland Orchestra (André Gremillet), Playhouse Square (Craig Hassall), Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Greg Harris), Greater Cleveland Partnership (Baiju Shah), TeamNEO (Bill Koehler), Ideastream (Kevin Martin), The City Club (Dan Moulthrop), and many others, have led their organizations to create the strongest community ecosystem in decades.
The growing sense of collaboration in Cleveland is accompanied by a long list of relatively new CEOs who can add to our strengthening ecosystem at companies including Sherwin-Williams, Parker Hannifin, Lubrizol, Medical Mutual, KeyBank, University Hospitals, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Cavaliers, the Cleveland Federal Reserve and others.
Historically, the lack of collaboration among business, community and government made it hard for corporate leaders to engage deeply in helping guide the region’s economic strategy as their priority, rightfully, was to compete globally, foster a healthy company and deliver for their stakeholders. A healthy Fortune 500 company is good for Cleveland and vice versa, a healthy Cleveland provides an environment for corporate success. Our chamber of commerce, Greater Cleveland Partnership, with board chair Paul Dolan, has been working hard to make it easier for Cleveland’s C-Suites to contribute their time efficiently for maximum impact.
Cleveland has an opportunity to take this moment and create momentum. Let’s keep at it, together.
Daniel Walsh is Founder & CEO of Citymark Capital
