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TABLE OF CONTENTS VOL.3, NO.1
CINCINNATI USA REGIONAL CHAMBER PRESIDENT AND CEO Jill P. Meyer EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER Brendon Cull
04 LETTER FROM JILL MEYER
THE JUMP
08 BY THE NUMBERS
PG. 18
10 COMMUNITY BENGALMANIA REIGNS
16 TALENT GROWING BY DESIGN
The nation’s sports fans and media followed Cincinnati closely during the Super Bowl run.
JRA design firm will expand its global reach after being acquired by RWS Entertainment Group and its CCM grad CEO.
12 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SILICON VALLEY, OHIO Regional leaders are working with Intel suppliers to take advantage of the new plant announced for Central Ohio.
14 ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT
OFFICE TO HOUSING New city priorities help guide conversion of the former Macy’s HQ into apartments.
VICE PRESIDENT, STRATEGIC MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Danielle Wilson
The region’s top 40 development projects for housing, office and retail space, and hotel rooms.
PG. 32
TRAFFIC MANAGER Tracey Brachle BOARD CHAIR Leigh R. Fox, President and CEO, Cincinnati Bell CHAMBER OFFICE 3 E. Fourth St. Cincinnati, OH 45202 (513) 579-3100 All contents © 2022 Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber. The contents cannot be reproduced in any manner, whole or in part, without written permission from the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber.
18 MARKETING TOUCHDOWN! Amazing seasons by the Bengals and UC football translated into an economic boom for the teams and the region.
20 LEADERSHIP LIVING BLACK HISTORY Seven new Chamber honorees make a difference as they “make history today.”
DEEP DIVES 24 DRAWING UP A NEW CONVENTION DISTRICT 3CDC takes the reins to build a new headquarters hotel, upgrade the convention center, and bring activity to the area.
32
NEW LEADERS FOR KEY HOSPITAL GROUPS Deborah Hayes and Steve Davis MD discuss their new roles at The Christ Hospital and Cincinnati Children’s, respectively.
PG. 54 54 PHOTO ESSAY: MATTHEW 25 MINISTRIES The disaster relief and humanitarian aid nonprofit helps Cincinnati help.
62 ASK ME ABOUT Get to know Josh Lorentz of Dinsmore, Laura Mitchell of Beech Acres, and Matt Palmeter of Great Parks of Hamilton County.
64 FROM THE DESK OF Tim Steigerwald, CEO of Messer and Chair of the 2022 ArtsWave Campaign O N T H E C O V E R : I L LU S T R AT I O N BY S P O O K Y P O O K A
FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF
38
THE STATE OF OUR MUSEUMS Art and history museum leaders learned to better connect with the community during the pandemic.
48
LOCAL FIRMS ACCOUNT FOR GROWTH
PUBLISHER Ivy Bayer EDITOR-IN-CHIEF John Fox DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Amanda Boyd Walters ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lauren Fisher DESIGN DIRECTOR Brittany Dexter ART DIRECTORS Carlie Burton, Logan Case, Jessica Dunham, Jen Kawanari, Wesley Koogle, Emi Villavicencio SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGERS Maggie Goecke, Julie Poyer ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES Laura Bowling, Hilary Linnenberg SENIOR MANAGER, SPONSORSHIP SALES Chris Ohmer PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Vu Luong EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING Email cmletters@cincinnatimagazine.com Website cincinnatimagazine.com Phone (513) 421-4300 Subscriptions (800) 846-4333
How accounting firm leaders develop and train staff and work to improve their own leadership skills.
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY ( T O P ) M A D I S O N K E T C H A M / P H O T O G R A P H S BY ( M I D D L E ) J E R E M Y K R A M E R / ( B O T T O M ) D E V Y N G L I S TA
P H O T O2022 G R A P H REALM BY T K T K T K 3 SPRING
WELCOME
I
sn’t it remarkable how different Cincinnati feels after a Super Bowl appearance? Our city seems electric with new energy and a steady and hopeful return from the pandemic turmoil. Spring is when baseball comes back, and you’ll receive this magazine right around Opening Day. I know that when you read this issue, you’ll find yourself enthusiastic about what’s ahead. With well-reported deep dives into the future of our downtown convention district and the impact of our local museums, as well as a recap of the Bengals’ Super Bowl run, you’ll find an Opening Day style optimism in these pages. This is also a great issue to read about your fellow leaders. With a feature story on the new CEOs at The Christ Hospital and Cincinnati Children’s, plus an in-depth discussion with executives running our top accounting firms, you’ll see how those leading our region’s top institutions are adapting and preparing for the future. Finally, make sure you spend time getting to know our 2022 Making Black History Honorees. These individuals inspire me in so many ways, and I know you’ll enjoy learning about their impact on our region. Have a great Spring!
JILL P. MEYER jill.meyer@cincinnatichamber.com
4 REALM SUMMER 2021
P H O T O G R A P H BY A A R O N M . C O N WAY / H A I R A N D M A K E U P BY M E G A N H I N E S
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THE JUMP
THE URBAN LEAGUE’S ASHLEE YOUNG IS ONE OF SEVEN LEADERS MAKING BLACK HISTORY P H O T O G R A P H BY R O O T E D C R E AT I V E
Get a jump on news about JRA’s global expansion and conversion of the Macy’s headquarters building into apartments. Learn about how Intel’s expansion will impact this region and how the Bengals’ and UC’s on-field success translates into economic gains.
SPRING 2022 REALM 7
THE JUMP
THE TOP HOTEL PROJECTS The District at Clifton Heights
171 rooms Pendry Cincinnati / Gwynne Building (Downtown)
168 rooms Kimpton Hotel / Traction Building (Downtown)
153 rooms North Pointe (West Chester)
140 rooms Development projects are breaking ground and springing up throughout the 16-county Cincinnati region to bring new housing, office and retail space, and hotel rooms to market. The total estimated investment for 40 of the most significant projects as of March 2022 is about $4.5 billion. Here’s a peek at the top regional projects currently proposed or under construction in each category. Statistics provided by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber’s Center for Research & Data.
THE TOP DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS Total Investment
$4.469
Ovation (Newport)
$1 Billion
Tri-County Mall Redevelopment
Billion
$800 Million The District at Clifton Heights
Ovation (Newport)
132 rooms Total Rooms Under Development: 1,099 THE TOP OFFICE PROJECTS North Pointe (West Chester) 500,000 square feet Montgomery Quarter 260,000 Tri-County Mall Redevelopment 210,000 The Foundry (Downtown) 150,000 Pitch Side Center (OTR/West End) 110,000 Total Space Under Development: 1.546 million square feet
THE TOP RETAIL/RESTAURANT PROJECTS
$500 Million Main Public Library (Downtown) North Pointe (West Chester)
$265 Million THE TOP HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS Total Housing Units Under Development
8,699
2,300 Tri-County Mall Redevelopment
8 REALM SPRING 2022
900
Ovation (Newport)
870
North Pointe (West Chester)
570
The District at Clifton Heights
350
Union Promenade (Union, Ky.)
304K
Total Space Under Development:
$300 Million
796,000
92K
square feet
65K
80K 70K
Other 185K
TRI-COUNTY MALL REDEVELOPMENT ...........304,000 S.F. NORTH POINTE (WEST CHESTER) ......................... 92,000 UNNAMED BUSINESS PARK PROJECT (MASON) .... 80,000 UNION PROMENADE (UNION, KY.) .........................70,000 THE BLUE (BLUE ASH) ......................................... 65,000
REGIONAL SUCCESS DOESN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS On a broad scale, economic development means different things to different people—some think of job creation while others think of business growth. But economic development is so much more—it’s a holistic approach to growing and sustaining local economies, which creates a plethora of long-term benefits for regional business, people, and communities as a whole. Let’s take a closer look at all that economic development entails and why it is so critical to regional success. IT’S ABOUT COMPETITION AND RECOGNITION More than half of the world currently lives in a metro region, and by 2050 experts predict it will be two-thirds. There are several factors driving people and businesses to metro regions, including employment opportunities, higher pay and standard of living, lower tax burden, transportation, and better access to resources like healthcare, education, skilled labor, and broadband. Other factors include climate change, culture and diversity, and technology and innovation—especially among millennials who will make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025 and are often labeled the demographic engine of urban growth.
IT’S ONGOING GROWTH AND SUSTAINABILITY A key part of achieving long-term viability for a region is having a strategic economic development plan with broad stakeholder buy-in that is continually
reviewed and updated to ensure it aligns with ever-changing needs—it can never be just “set it and forget it.” That means doing due diligence through ongoing economic and demographic research and analysis; outreach and communication with local business leaders, community partners and elected officials; and staying on top of market trends, opportunities, and potential risks.
IT’S ENHANCING COMMUNITY AND QUALITY OF LIFE Economic development professionals understand that all of their activities need to count toward maintaining wellbeing in communities and ensuring overall quality of life for the people. How do they do that? They collaborate with educational institutions, business leaders and partner organizations to create programs that improve access to education and enhance the talent pool. They work to attract better companies to create better job opportunities. They support and promote programs
Have questions about how REDI Cincinnati can help your business? Contact us at 513.562.8474 REDICIncinnati.com
@GrowCincyUSA
that incentivize revitalization and entrepreneurship to enhance communities. They bring funding opportunities to support startups and small business and develop cultural and innovation centers. And the list goes on.
IT TAKES RESILIENCE, FLEXIBILITY AND STRENGTH While these aforementioned efforts are just some of what the economic development experts at REDI Cincinnati and our partners do to ensure the success of our 16-county, tri-state region, we hope this gives you a better idea of what economic development is all about and why it is so critical to our businesses, our people, and our communities. But these efforts aren’t easy—it takes resilience, flexibility, and strength on the part of all regional stakeholders and the support of our local business leaders. To read more on Economic Development in the Cincinnati region, visit: REDICincinnati.com/success
THE JUMP
COMMUNITY
BENGALMANIA REIGNED IN THE REGION AND BEYOND Quarterback Joe Burrow, the top overall draft pick two years ago, was supposed to lead the Bengals back to NFL prominence ... but not this quickly. In just his second season (and one year removed from major knee surgery) Burrow and his teammates stormed to Super Bowl LVI by beating Tennessee and Kansas City on the road. The sports world took notice.
BREAKING CURSES The Bengals had not made the NFL playoffs since 2015 and hadn’t won a playoff game in 32 years until beating Las Vegas January 15 at Paul Brown Stadium.
ROAD WARRIORS The Bengals franchise, in business since 1968, had never won a road playoff game until beating the Titans and the Chiefs backto-back to reach the Super Bowl. They ran out of luck against the L.A. Rams and remain without a Super Bowl title.
WHO DEY! Fan support went through the roof, literally, during the Bengals’ playoff run. Paul Brown Stadium hosted a pep rally for fans (pictured) before the Super Bowl.
EYES ON CINCINNATI The national media attention for Cincinnati and the Bengals was worth $4.4 billion during the Super Bowl run, creating numerous spin-off benefits for the region (see more on page 18).
MEDIA DARLINGS More than 112 million viewers watched Super Bowl LVI, the most-watched TV program in five years. The top viewership markets were Cincinnati, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Kansas City.
10 REALM SPRING 2022
P H O T O G R A P H BY K A R E E M E LG A Z Z A R / T H E E N Q U I R E R / U S A T O D AY N E T W O R K
SPRING 2022 REALM 11
THE JUMP
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
SILICON VALLEY, OHIO The region is quickly processing opportunities from the big Intel announcement.
–GAIL PAUL.
As soon as Kimm Lauterbach knew the Cincinnati Bengals would face off against the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game, she began crafting a marketing campaign with her counterparts in Kansas City to leverage the teams’ achievements into opportunities to position the Midwest and what she calls its “economic inevitability” to a national audience. Lauterbach, president and CEO of Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI) Cincinnati, can recite the region’s competitive advantages as knowledgeably as a sports analyst reports statistics and strength of schedule. Her sales pitch now packs a new walloping advantage point for Ohio: Intel’s January announcement about launching a semiconductor manufacturing campus just outside of Columbus. JobsOhio, the private, non-for-profit economic development corporation, describes Intel’s planned $20 billion investment to build its most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility in the world “the largest economic event in Ohio’s history.” “We’ve landed really big projects in the past, but to see something as significant as Intel that has the ability to bring a whole new industry to the state, it’s fantastic to be a part of it,” says Lauterbach. “The implications are so great, the supply chain potential is so great, and the follow-on investment by competitors or customers is so great that for the first time I can recall in my career you felt like you were at the very cusp of a whole new blossoming of 12 REALM SPRING 2022
the state. We’re finally putting to bed the notion that we’re a flyover state.” Lauterbach says there are already 140 or so Intel suppliers in Ohio, 40 of which are located in Southwest Ohio. REDI’s top priority is to quickly make contact with each to find out how best to help them grow and expand here. “We don’t have a year to figure this out,” she says. “This is great news, and we have to capitalize on it now.” Intel said it will invest $100 million over the next decade toward partnerships with Ohio educational institutions to develop talent and bolster research programs. Ranga Vemuri, a professor of electrical and computer engineering in UC’s College of Engineering and Ap-
plied Science, says a majority of his master’s and doctoral students over the years has gone on to work for Intel and it’s “easily two to three times that number when you include our other departments, such as Physics.” Vemuri says there’s a good opportunity for universities to start and align teaching programs to supply Intel with the right manpower in terms of engineers and researchers. The key is to build robust course sequences and develop a compelling research agenda in a way that doesn’t duplicate what other institutions are offering. “UC’s training must build both technical and entrepreneurial skills in students so they can start new companies to strengthen the presence of the integrated circuit design industry in Ohio,” says Vemuri. The Bengals’ thrilling Super Bowl run continues to inspire regional economic development wins. “You know, the Bengals gave us the tagline It Is Us that came out of Why Not Us?” says Lauterbach. “We’ve been using that nonstop, always marrying Intel’s investment in the state of Ohio with the international media attention brought to Cincinnati through the Super Bowl. OUTSTANDING IN THEIR FIELD Of course it is us. It’s our time.” Intel’s investment in central Ohio will impact this region as well.
R E N D E R I N G S C O U R T E SY O F I N T E L
THE KEY TO EMPLOYING CINCINNATI STATE GRADS IS TO HIRE THEM BEFORE THEY GRADUATE! Hands-on Cooperative Education builds resumes and relationships. Hiring Co-op students offers valuable educational opportunities to students, and also benefits your business: • A cost-effective way to fill temporary and long-term staffing needs • An opportunity to evaluate potential future employees • Cincy State students are local and they STAY local • A way to fill entry-level professional positions with qualified candidates Cincinnati State’s career pathways are based in the workforce needs of this community. Make sure you are getting the talent you need for the future of your business. LEARN HOW to set-up a Co-op Program at your company or post your position to co-op students and recent graduates visit:
www.cincinnatistate.edu/coop
THE JUMP
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
OFFICE TO HOUSING New City Hall priorities guide a proposed apartment project at the former Macy’s HQ.
—SARAH M. MULLINS
Cincinnati’s downtown skyline will be getting a fresh residential look with the renovation of the former Macy’s corporate headquarters on Seventh Street. At a cost of more than $70 million, the project consists of 338 market-rate rental units ranging from $1,350 for a studio apartment to $2,150 for a two-bedroom, with a 19,100 square-foot outdoor terrace on the eighth floor. It’s one of the first properties to be submitted through the city’s new priorities rubric that was spearheaded by Councilman Greg Landsman (pictured). The checklist sets parameters for a developer to follow when planning a project in order to receive city benefits such as tax incentives. “It’s fair to say more and more projects will be aligned to this set of priorities,” he says. The new development rubric consists of 11 categories: Balanced housing production; environmentally sustainable development; improvement of vacant, blighted, and/or underutilized properties; voluntary tax incentive contribution; inclusion; community outreach; living wages;
14 REALM SPRING 2022
job creation and retention; place-based investing; historic preservation; and whether it’s a transformative project. The Macy’s project scores well on nine of the 11 categories, notably balanced housing production, says Landsman. Housing options that are more affordable for those making 80 percent of the area medium income will be available. Local workers will be directly employed to work on the renovation project at first, and eventually tenants will bring new activity. This project also aligns with the Cincinnati Chamber’s Embracing Growth report that laid out principles for regional housing growth— specifically the need to ramp up housing production to catch up with peer regions, to build more densely in places near jobs and transit, and for the city core to lead the way. The report also makes clear that market rate housing development is not the enemy of affordability, because the production of new housing brings much-needed new supply to market. Cincinnati continues to increase its reputation as a city with “big city” benefits such as a welcoming spot for
entrepreneurs and startups, the home to several Fortune 500 companies, and a hub for innovation, the arts, universities, healthcare, and economic mobility. Providing a mix of housing is key for helping attract people to the region. Census data shows that the city of Cincinnati grew for the first time in decades, adding more than 12,000 residents in the 2010s. But the city still lost 2,000 homes during the same period. “Projects like this help us provide enough housing to continue to grow our population while supporting the needs of current Cincinnatians,” says Brandon Rudd, director of the Chamber’s Center for Research & Data. “That’s a huge benefit when it comes to expanding our tax base and multiplying the successes of the last decade.” For Landsman, the project adds a personal layer. His grandfather moved to Cincinnati to work for Federated Department Stores, the company that acquired Macy’s and used that brand name to update its various stores across the U.S. Landman’s father also worked for the department store giant. “Going to see my father and waiting until he was off work, that building is sort of a big part of my own personal history,” he says. A representative from the project developer, Victrix LLC, declined to comment on specifics such as a development timeline and the status of funding.
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THE JUMP
TALENT
GROWING BY DESIGN
Ryan Stana, a CCM grad, is excited to be back in Cincinnati after his entertainment firm acquired JRA.
Cincinnati because of the relationship with UC that’s a pipeline for designers. We were two companies with two global leaders, and now we’re one company that gives our clients endless possibilities.” James remains JRA president and doesn’t sound like a man easing off the gas after celebrating that milestone birthday. “JRA is launching into one of the most prolific years Stana grew up near Pittsburgh with an in its history,” he said at the acquisition anabundance of energy and ambition. As a high nouncement in November. “More than a dozschool student he took dance classes at Point en JRA-designed attractions will open in 2022 Park University and worked for a corporate en- with more in development through 2025.” tertainment firm. When he enrolled at CCM, Stana is almost giddy when he talks he enjoyed talking with Keith at parties the about visiting Cincinnati regularly, whethcouple hosted for Patti’s students. “I remember er it’s connecting with old friends or making new ones at JRA’s downtown him telling stories about his job, office. “I am very hands-on and and I knew that was the kind of very goal-oriented,” he says. “I job I wanted,” Stana says. “His “We’re inlike to have what I call time-inpassion always inspired me to be vesting in action about how we’re going to unique in this industry. When I started RWS almost 20 years Cincinnati accomplish everything in the year. ago, JRA was known as the gold because I think the only way to do that is to standard in the leisure and atbe present with the staff and show we know tractions industry.” them my energy. We’re investing in Cincinnati because we know Stana splits his time be- Cincinnati Cincinnati can deliver. JRA was tween the company’s head- can deliver.” the missing piece for RWS. We’re quarters in London and Ne w York, with five day s going through unprecedented per month scheduled in Cincinnati. “The growth in the experience industry, and that JRA name isn’t going anywhere,” Stana will benefit Cincinnati through job creation said. “We’re keeping the headquarters in and reputation.”
JRA’s acquisition by the international RWS Entertainment Group expands its global impact while keeping its talent in Cincinnati. –BILL THOMPSON
JRA, the visitor attraction design firm founded by Jack Rouse in 1987, might not be a household name in its own city, but millions of people have enjoyed its work around the world. Keith James, who bought JRA in 2008, secured the firm’s future late last year when he agreed to be acquired by Ryan (William) Stana’s RWS Entertainment Group. “It was really kismet,” says Stana, who came to UC’s College-Conservatory of Music in 1998 as a dance major. That’s where he met James’ wife, Patti, who was one of his professors. “RWS had its eyes set on a master planning and design firm. I called Keith and said, I want to let you know this is happening. The synergy was perfect.” James was preparing to celebrate his 70th birthday and was pondering a succession plan. Stana needed a design component to turn RWS into a one-stop shop from conception to execution for clients such as theme parks, cruise ships, museums, corporate branding, and standalone events. 16 REALM SPRING 2022
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THE JUMP
ALL EYES WERE ON CINCINNATI SUCCESS BY THE NUMBERS.
Increase in sales of Bengals merchandise in January at Koch Sporting Goods compared to January 2021.
$4.4 billion
TOUCHDOWN!
Value of national media exposure of the Bengals’ Super Bowl run, according to Gameday Communications.
The Bengals’ and Bearcats’ success took the city by storm. –JOHN STOWELL
ric Koch lifted his head from a box of black and orange T-shirts to steal a look at the frenzy around him a few days after the AFC Championship, when the Bengals clinched their spot in Super Bowl LVI. “I couldn’t pull those shirts out of the box fast enough, and in 30 minutes they were gone,” says the fifth-generation member of the family that owns Cincinnati’s iconic downtown sporting goods store. “It’s fortunate we were past the COVID restrictions, because we couldn’t have kept anyone out of here.” A month earlier, the same level of football fanatism had overrun the University of Cincinnati campus. “We saw the biggest pop in December as soon as we could sell apparel with the College Football Playoff logo on it,” says Marty Ludwig, UC’s director of trademarks and licensing. UC merchandise sales were up 89 percent over 2020, which, despite the pandemic, had also set a record. It’s been an epic year for Cincinnati football, and Koch remembers it started early in the season. “The Bengals’ Thursday night game against Jacksonville in September was crazy here,” he says. After more than 130 years in business, it was the store’s busiest day ever. Ludwig was selling out of merchandise, too, and he had a special concern: Would there be enough red and black fabric in the pandemic-stressed supply chain? “When you have schools that have similar colors, that can be a challenge,” he says, noting that Ohio State falling out of the playoff mix helped with his “red” issue, but eventual national champion Georgia’s colors were also red and black. Ludwig says he was pleased that the university’s strategic partners, notably HanesBrands, alleviated the pressure. Both teams fell short of their sport’s big prize, but anticipation is already building for next year. The merchants will be ready. “We will never be surprised again,” says Koch. “And we’ll never run out of T-shirts again.”
E
18 REALM SPRING 2022
11th Number of people who watched UC football games on TV this past season.
Super Bowl LVI was the 11th most popular TV program of all time.
35
million
Increase in traffic at GoBearcat. com compared to the 2020 season.
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I C O N S BY S T O C K . A D O B E . C O M
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THE JUMP
LEADERS ARE CREATING BLACK HISTORY Seven new Chamber honorees make a difference while they “make history today.”
—SARAH M. MULLINS
20 REALM SPRING 2022
rom educators to entrepreneurs, the new class of Making Black History honorees come from myriad backgrounds and leave their personal and professional marks on the communities around us. The program celebrated its fourth recognition class since the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber launched it in 2019. “This special recognition came out of a need to celebrate Black leaders who are making history today,” says Danielle Wilson, the Chamber’s vice president of strategic marketing and communications. “Too often these inspiring stories of resilience and leadership go untold, and we wanted to change that. By using this platform to share their unique experiences, we hope others in our community are energized and encouraged to lead confidently.” The Chamber’s 2022 Annual Dinner on February 24 paid tribute to the honorees and their contributions to Cincinnati history. See past program recognition at cincinnatichamber.com/ the-inclusive-chamber/making-black-history.
F
P H O T O G R A P H S BY R O O T E D C R E AT I V E
EDDIE D. HAWKINS Hawkins is Youth Programs Coordinator for the Cincinnati Police Department and founder of No Excuses College Tours and Programs. He joined the police force in 1999 and has spent most of his career as a school resource officer. Supporting at-risk youth and helping them find a path to success is Hawkins’ life work. He launched the No Excuse program to take local 10th- to 12th-grade students on tours of colleges they otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to visit.
CHANDA MONROE-WILLIAMS Monroe-Williams is president and CEO of CM-W Consulting and a partner at Executive Trendz Beauty & Barber Boutique, and business leadership and development are her passions. Her wisdom serves as a resource for students at UC’s Lindner College of Business and for listeners of the vodcast Quarantine Coffee Chats with Chanda, where she discusses topics that impact the African American community, including health, education, and digital literacy.
J. PHILLIP HOLLOMAN Holloman is Board Chair of the Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio and former president and COO of Cintas, where he led the company during the Great Recession. His strategic and growth-minded approach raised Cintas’ revenue and led initiatives at the company, including diversity and inclusion efforts. Holloman and his wife Gail made a $1 million gift to the Urban League to develop a police reform center with a goal to eliminate racially-biased policing.
TOILYNN O’NEAL TURNER Turner is founding director of the Robert O’Neal Multicultural Art Center and executive director of the Queen City Foundation, and her background is flooded with visual art and museum education and experience. The Art Center, named for her late father, a prominent Cincinnati artist and activist, is being developed in the West End to celebrate African American culture, history, and achievement through art, including preservation and celebration of culture in Cincinnati.
MICHAEL MOORE Moore is president and CEO of Black Achievers, the networking organization of black professionals with more than 4,000 members in Cincinnati and nearly 30,000 members nationwide. His background is in information technology and software development, having taught himself to write computer code and design and program websites while still in college. Moore later launched his own web development business and worked in IT roles for several local companies.
BARB SMITH Smith is president of Journey Steel, a structural and steel fabrication company she co-founded with business partner Tom Garten. It’s one of the few minority-owned and women-owned self-performing steel fabrication and erection companies in the nation. Smith has accumulated numerous awards for her commitment to community impact and taken her voice all the way to the White House for conversations around regulations affecting small and minority- and women-owned businesses.
ASHLEE YOUNG Young is vice president of policy and strategic initiatives at the Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio, where she focuses on systemic change and addressing community needs across the region. Her leadership and passion for community engagement doesn’t stop professionally. Young serves on boards at Mortar, Delta Gateway Foundation, and Design Impact, each empowering, educating, and encouraging entrepreneurship and leading Cincinnati toward the future.
SPRING 2022 REALM 21
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DEEP DIVE
CITY AND COUNTY LEADERS CLEAR THE WAY FOR A NEW CONVENTION CENTER DISTRICT DOWNTOWN. P H O T O G R A P H BY W E S B AT T O C L E T T E
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Meeting the need for a better HQ hotel
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New health CEOs, new goals
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What’s the state of our museums?
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Local firms are accounting for growth
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DEEP DIVE
Planning a New Convention District
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n Fourth of July weekend last summer, about 4,500 members of the Loyal Order of the Moose gathered in Cincinnati for the annual convention of the international organization devoted to community service and enjoying a good time together. They conducted business at the Duke Energy Convention Center, elected officers, and handed out awards. When the day’s business was done, they dispersed throughout downtown, went to a Reds game, dined out, and bought souvenirs. It’s estimated the conventioneers spent $3.8 million that weekend at local businesses, filled rooms at 22 hotels, and generated nearly $200,000 in local tax revenue. It was a welcome influx of visitors and spending more than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted the travel, tourism, and retail business all over the world. Conventions are big business. Pre-pandemic, Cincinnati experienced 26.6 million visits from people who spent $5 billion and supported 80,000 jobs in hospitality, retail, government, service and other sectors, according the Cincinnati USA Convention and Visitors Bureau’s 2018 annual report. It’s also a super competitive business, as Cincinnati’s peer cities all vie for the consumer spending and tax revenue that such visits bring to a region. “The convention and visitor economy is a healthy segment of a vibrant, downtown economy,” says Jeff Berding, Chair of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We have to have a healthy convention center and convention hotels and a convention district that’s modern and inviting for people to visit.” 24 REALM SPRING 2022
3CDC TAKES THE REINS TO BUILD A NEW CONVENTION HEADQUARTERS HOTEL, UPDATE THE CURRENT DUKE ENERGY CENTER, AND CREATE A THRIVING ACTIVITY HUB DOWNTOWN. BY DAVID HOLTHAUS ILLUSTRATION BY SPOOKY POOKA
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Rendering commissioned by Realm and not an actual representation of the Convention SPRING 2022 REALM 25 District plan.
DEEP DIVE
“3CDC WAS CREATED TO BE AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION FOR THE URBAN CORE OF CINCINNATI,” SAYS AFTAB PUREVAL. “THEY HAVE A TRACK RECORD OF SUCCESS.”
But Berding and other tourism and government leaders agree that Cincinnati is currently playing catchup when it comes to providing attractive, up-to-date convention amenities. In an effort to jumpstart development around the Convention Center, city and county leaders agreed to appoint 3CDC to manage rehabilitation of several downtown blocks that are now being called the Convention Center District. This sector has lacked a cohesive plan, even though it’s been the home of the Duke Energy Convention Center, which brings in hundreds of thousands of visitors. 3CDC has built a 20-year resume of redevelopment in Over-the-Rhine and downtown, which led to its unanimous appointment by Cincinnati City Council and the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners. “This is why 3CDC was created, to be an economic development organization for the urban core of Cincinnati,” says Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval. “They have a track record of success in making transformative investments in our community.” Now the private, not-for-profit group’s portfolio will include Convention Center District, a corner of downtown roughly bounded by Race Street on the east, Central Avenue 26 REALM SPRING 2022
on the west, Fourth Street to the south, and Sixth Street to the north. “Over the past several years, it has become increasingly evident that the area surrounding the Duke Energy Convention Center has stagnated and is badly in need of a new and coordinated strategy that will result in a revitalized Convention Center District,” 3CDC said in documents provided to government officials before the vote. Over the years, Over-theRhine and The Banks riverfront development took precedence while that western quadrant of downtown lagged. “We’ve been looking at the Convention Center and the Convention Center District ever since I got here, which was five years ago,” says Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus.
MAKING THE CASE FOR A NEW HOTEL
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H E D I ST R I CT P R E S ents significant challenges to development. Most glaringly, the city’s convention headquarters hotel, the Millennium, is being replaced. The 50-plus-year-old tower needed updating and investment from its overseas private ownership group and was cited for numerous building code violations over the years. The Port Authority finally wrested control of the Millennium from its previous owner, and its demolition is in the final stages. Its closure took 872 hotel rooms off the books and leaves a vacant lot across the street from the Convention Center. But the outdated hotel had been an issue for years, so much so that city and county officials in 2019 threatened to file a public
nuisance lawsuit against the owners. “The lack of a headquarters hotel has been a real challenge for us for more than 10 years,” says Julie Calvert, CEO of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We have lost business as a result of not having a headquarters hotel now and from having a lackluster headquarters hotel for years.”
Berding, who is also Co-CEO of FC Cincinnati, says a new hotel is a priority for 3CDC. Cincinnati is one of 17 U.S. cities in the running to be among the host cities for the 2026 World Cup, which will be staged across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Considered to be the world’s largest sporting event, the World Cup series
overall could generate more than $5 billion in total incremental economic activity, with host cities seeing $160 million to $620 million each in new business, a Boston Consulting Group study reported. The World Cup bid provides a rough timetable for action on a new hotel. Included among Cincinna-
ti’s bid documents was the city and county resolution calling for 3CDC to “initiate the planning and development process for a new Convention Center Hotel with a target completion date of Fall 2025.” “We need to replace the Millennium,” Berding says. “The World Cup is a little bit of Let’s light a fire under some
OUT WITH THE OLD
Demolition of the outdated Millennium creates the need for a new downtown “convention headquarters” hotel.
P H O T O G R A P H BY W E S B AT T O C L E T T E
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DEEP DIVE
MEETING OF THE MINDS
3CDC’s work on the Convention District will include an analysis of the Duke Energy Center itself, in light of new convention facility expansions in peer cities.
people. To give us a chance to win the World Cup, it behooves us to show that we’re going to replace the Millennium with a new headquarters hotel.” 3CDC will identify potential hotel developers, issue requests for development proposals, evaluate the proposals, identify financing options, and make a recommendation for a developer. 3CDC leaders will also oversee the hotel’s construction. Since 3CDC was appointed in late January, it’s engaged HVS Global Hospitality Services to do an assessment of the existing downtown hotel scene to determine the market for a convention center hotel and how many rooms it should house. The consulting firm will also forecast how the hotel will perform over five to 10 years, says Steve Leeper, CEO of 3CDC. That study should be completed by May 1, he says. Since news of 3CDC’s appointment became public, about a half dozen hotel firms have contacted the organization expressing some interest, Leeper says, but issuing a formal re-
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quest for proposals for the hotel will wait until the market study is finished. Getting a big hotel built by the fall of 2025 “is aggressive, but certainly doable,” he says. A new HQ hotel is just one of the challenges facing the city/county leadership group. The immediate neighborhood isn’t particularly inviting to out-of-town visitors either. After a day of meetings, conventioneers walk out the front door of the Convention Center to be greeted by an old hotel (now a pile of rubble) to the east and by a parking lot and an outdated office and retail site, Convention Place Mall, to the south. Convention Place Mall dates to the 1980s and has seen a variety of office and retail tenants, none of which have become destinations for first-time visitors. It has been resistant to city efforts to redevelop the site, largely because of a complicated ownership structure and legal issues surrounding eviction efforts and development rights. The Port Authority gained control of the site in 2019, but
a private developer has claimed development rights to it, and that issue remains tied up in court. Along with a new hotel, the Convention Place Mall site and the surface parking lot next door are the key properties in revitalizing a part of downtown that’s long been neglected. Several of the properties around the Duke Center—including the Millennium site, Convention Place, the parking lot, and two parking garages—are currently under the control of the city, the county, or the Port Authority, presenting an opportunity for coordinated development and collaboration. “This district offers a huge opportunity to launch into the next phase of convention business,” Driehaus says. “Without doing it in a holistic way, as partners, we don’t get there.” “The western part of downtown right now is a massive opportunity for the city,” says Pureval. “We can turn an area of downtown where there’s not a lot of economic activity into a true hub.”
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ART OF 3CD C’S MANagement role will be to evaluate property parcels within the Convention District and recommend the best use for each. Current options include building the headquarters hotel on the parking lot property to the south of the Duke Center, rather than on the Millennium site, leaving that site available for a significant expansion of the Convention Center. The facility was last upgraded in 2006, when another 200,000 square feet was added and the lighted “Cincinnati” sign was added on the center’s west side. “Without expansion, we’re somewhat locked into the number of conventions we can get and the size of those conventions,” Driehaus says. Peer cities that Cincinnati competes with have more recently expanded their convention facilities. A 2021 study by the consulting firm Convention Sports & Leisure Inter-
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national (CSL) sized up meeting and exhibit space available at Cincinnati’s downtown center and 18 other cities, including Indianapolis, Columbus, Minneapolis, and Nashville. The study found Cincinnati to be in the lower third among its peers when it came to meeting space, total contiguous space, and total space for exhibits and meetings. Other midsized cities are moving ahead with convention facility expansions. The Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville completed a $207-million expansion and renovation in 2018. The Greater Columbus Convention Center completed a $140-million expansion and renovation in 2017. Indianapolis is moving forward with plans for a $125-million expansion of its downtown convention center, which is already one of the largest in the country. On a larger scale, city leaders in Dallas in February approved a plan to build a new convention facility, costing up to $2 billion, and tear down the old one. “Do we want to expand and draw
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a larger market here and compete with some of our peers?” Driehaus asks. “The general thinking is, Yes, we want to compete.” There’s also the likelihood of renovating the existing convention center space before embarking on an expansion. Conventions usually require big meeting and exhibition spaces, but the pandemic has introduced the need for larger spaces, for outdoor space, and for videoconferencing and streaming technology, as well as other means to ensure visitors feel safe and cared for. 3CDC is currently seeking proposals from design firms to evaluate the existing convention center and propose a capital improvement plan, Leeper says. Ideally, the convention center renovation and the new hotel will get underway and be completed at roughly the same time, he says. Financing these developments will also be a challenge. The CSL study pegs a Duke Convention Center expansion to cost $250 million. The site acquisition and demolition of the Millennium alone has already cost up-
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Possible development plans could include expansion of the convention center across Elm Street, a new “headquarters hotel” south of Fifth Street, and new activity in this corner of downtown.
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DEEP DIVE
TAKEAWAYS TIME IS RIGHT After tearing down the Millennium Hotel and acquiring key properties, local leaders are working on a Convention District master plan. The timing is good to take advantage of post-pandemic travel increases and Cincinnati’s status as a World Cup host city finalist. KEYS TO THE HOTEL Funding to develop a new hotel, expand the existing convention center, and create a vibrant district around them will require a mix of public and private dollars. The consulting firm Convention Sports & Leisure International says the projects will result in $65.7 million in annual incremental economic impact. FINDING THE FUNDING 3CDC is leading efforts to recruit a hospitality operator to build and manage a new “headquarters hotel,” likely on the south side of Fifth Street across from the convention center. Opening the hotel by Fall 2025 “is aggressive, but certainly doable,” says 3CDC’s Steve Leeper.
ward of $50 million. Landing a new hotel operator may require public tax incentives. Complicating financing even further is the pandemic-related decline in Hamilton County’s hotel occupancy tax, as business travel and tourism dwindled throughout 2020 and 2021. Proceeds of the tax, which is paid by hotel guests, are used to fund capital projects that drive tourism, including renovation and expansion of the Duke Energy Convention Center and the Sharonville Convention Center. “There’s no doubt that financing will be a challenge and will be first and foremost among the things to think through with our county and city leaders,” Pureval says. “It’s a top priority to finance this in a responsible way.” Included among 3CDC’s scope of work is an analysis of existing and projected hotel tax revenue to determine the capacity of the tax funds to finance the projects. 3CDC will be the lead development manager, or the “quarterback” as Berding says, not the project developer. It will provide quarterly updates on the projects to City Council and County Commissioners and report to the Hamilton County administrator and the Cincinnati city manager. Leeper has experience in convention center management and development. Before he arrived in Cincinnati in 2004, he was executive director of the Allegheny County Sports and Exhibition Authority in Pittsburgh, where he oversaw construction of two new stadiums and a convention center. 3CDC leaders will also be responsible for ensuring inclusion and equity in the hotel project and surrounding
developments. “This project presents more than just a once-in-a-generation opportunity to propel the region forward—it also offers the possibility of accelerating the equity and inclusion efforts at every organization partnering on the project,” the organization said in documents it submitted to city and county officials in advance of being named development manager. “This really could be a premier opportunity to turn the rhetoric around diversity, equity, and inclusion in con-
“DO WE WANT TO EXPAND THE CONVENTION CENTER AND COMPETE WITH SOME OF OUR PEER CITIES,” ASKS COUNTY COMMISSIONER DENISE DRIEHAUS. “YES, WE WANT TO COMPETE.”
tracting into real action,” says Pureval, “whether it be in the hotel construction or in the businesses that are in the district.” The investments in a new hotel and an expanded convention center could bring a substantial return. A new headquarters hotel and a full expansion of the Duke Energy Center will result in an incremental economic impact of $65.7 million annually, the CSL study found. And it will bring thousands of members of the Loyal Order of the Moose back for another year. “They told us, Once you get that headquarters hotel, we’ll sign for another year,” says Calvert.
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DEEP DIVE
New Leaders, New Approaches NEW CEO S HARNESS PANDEMIC CHALLENGES TO EMPOWER BOLD MISSIONS AT CHILDREN’S AND CHRIST HOSPITALS. BY GAIL PAUL
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he COVID-19 pandemic has presented perhaps the greatest test of health leadership in a generation. With the healthcare industry on the front lines, protocols for providing care, delivering tech-enabled care, conducting research, and other operations all have had to function differently in order for hospitals and health systems to stay ahead of the fight against COVID and also to meet community needs and patient expectations. Healthcare executives have responded by accelerating investments in technology and personalized medicine, expanding external partnerships, and empowering decision-making throughout the leadership ranks. A 2020 McKinsey & Co. analysis described the moment as a new era in leadership, when the “expedient and ingenious” ways executives were forced to shift how they had to lead through the pandemic may in the future be exactly how they want to continue to lead. As the pandemic raged, the Cincinnati region’s two largest healthcare systems, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and The Christ Hospital Health 32 REALM SPRING 2022
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Network, named new CEOs. Deborah Hayes was appointed president and CEO of The Christ Hospital Health Network in May 2021 after serving as its interim president and CEO since November 2020. Steve Davis, MD, was promoted from the position of chief operating officer at Cincinnati Children’s to president and CEO in November 2021 a few months after Michael Fisher announced he would retire. The Christ Hospital includes 1,300 physicians and 6,500 employees serving patients at hospitals in Mt. Auburn and Liberty Township and in locations throughout the region. Its newly established Heart and Vascular Institute builds on its national reputation for heart surgery and medical breakthroughs led by its cardiac surgeons. The institution routinely earns the No. 1 ranking as the top medical center for adult care in Greater Cincinnati, according to U.S. News & World Report, which also named Christ among its top 100 U.S. hospitals in 2022. Cincinnati Children’s is a $2.7-billion nonprofit with a workforce of 16,500. Fisher and Davis were instrumental in driving the 2021 completion of the institution’s new $600 million Critical Care Building, which treats patients with cancer, heart ailments, or other complex conditions and also houses the emergency department. Cincinnati Children’s is one of the longest-standing NIH-designated Vaccine Treatment and Evaluation Units in the nation and among a handful of sites participating in clinical trials for a COVID vaccine. U.S. News & World Report lists Cincinnati Children’s among the top five children’s hospitals in the nation. According to the Ohio Hospital Association, 72 percent of Ohio
hospital CEO positions turned from 2012 to 2019. Change at the top can create “pretty substantial impacts to an organization,” says John Palmer, director of OHA public and media relations. When filling the CEO role, he says, hospital boards look for the individual who can come forward with a strategy to “meet the times where hospitals are today,” rising to address the complexities of capital improvements, IT infrastructure, electronic health records, plus “a lot of fundraising and foundation work that needs to happen.” Hayes and Davis are clinicians who both have taken measured action to acquire expertise that would prepare them for operations management roles and eventually executive leadership. Davis is a pediatric critical care physician, earning a medical degree from the University of Vermont, a master’s in medical management from Carnegie Mellon University and a master’s in strategic leadership from Michigan State University. Hayes earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in science from the University of Cincinnati and a master of nursing and business informatics from Northern Kentucky University. She joined The Christ Hospital in 1987 as a student nurse aid and became a critical care nurse. Over a 25-year period at The Christ Hospital, she continued to merit larger leadership roles and held the titles of chief nursing officer, chief hospital officer, and chief operating officer. Hayes and Davis sat down separately with Realm to provide insights into what makes their respective health systems powerful community assets, what it means to lead now, and where healthcare is heading in the future.
DEBORAH HAYES: BUILDING A CULTURE TO SUPPORT SUCCESS
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ESCRIBING HER CAreer journey, Hayes begins with a humbling admission. “Like other CEOs I’ve known in many industries, if you would have ever said 30 years ago, Debbie, you’re going to be the president and CEO of Christ Hospital, I would’ve said, No, I think probably not.” Hayes’s dream from a young age was to work in healthcare. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees before she became a nurse, which “gave me some additional skills in the area of education, because I always loved to teach as well.” That love of clinical care, teaching, and mentoring eventually led her to serving as director of The Christ Hospital’s critical care nurse residency program, a position where she was able to fully realize and apply her considerable talent for “helping bring other people into the profession and helping them develop their careers.” Now, as CEO, Hayes is responsible for ensuring the health network upholds its high standards of clinical care, recruits and develops talent, and creates programs that positively impact community health. The ultimate leadership question, as she sees it, is, “How do I help everybody become the best versions of themselves as we make sure that the organization becomes the best version of itself?” The Christ Hospital Health Network is affected by the industry-wide shortage of healthcare providers and invests strategically in employee onboarding, coaching and mentoring, and continued education and leadership development in an effort to
A VISION FOR THE FUTURE
Deborah Hayes photographed at The Christ Hospital in Mt. Auburn on March 1, 2022.
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GOOD, BETTER, BEST
A former nurse herself, Hayes says her top goal at Christ is to help all staff become the best versions of themselves.
keep employees engaged and able to identify opportunities to move up. Once you hire talent, Hayes says, it’s important that “people see a path from where they might start in the organization to something else that might interest them as their career progresses.” Its Nurturing Employee Strengths and Talents program formalizes an aspirational career track for entry-level workers. Hayes cites the 120-year-old The Christ College of Nursing and Health Sciences as a strategic advantage for attracting and retaining talent, saying the college, which currently has nearly 1,000 students enrolled, is expanding its capabilities. Last year, it forged an agreement with Chatf ield College to provide students at both institutions additional opportunities to earn credentials and pursue degrees. Christ College students who are interested in obtaining a Community Health Worker certification, as an example, can do so at Chatfield College. 34 REALM SPRING 2022
COVID has caused the system’s leadership team to change how they deliver on strategic priorities, which are created to achieve the institution’s mission to improve the health of the community and to create patient value by providing exceptional outcomes and the finest experience in an affordable way. “The strategic plan certainly has been challenged over the past couple of years, just because we have focused so much on taking care of the here and now,” says Hayes. “But it’s also given us the ability to think a little bit more broadly about how we accelerate some areas that cover new expectations of our patients and their families.” She names four priority areas of care that The Christ Hospital is committed to elevating: heart and vascular specialties; oncology care; precision medicine, which involves using genetic data to personalize screenings and treatments geared to each individual patient; and neurosurgery and cranial care.
Hayes says The Christ Hospital’s reputation as “Cincinnati’s heart hospital” continues to drive the institution to seek technological advances in cardiovascular care that are “extraordinarily exciting. We’re taking full advantage of that with the clinicians we’ve hired and the expansion of our Lindner Research Center so that we can continue to make sure that Greater Cincinnatians have access to many first-in-the-U.S. technologies.” A goal of expanding access to potentially lifesaving clinical trials for those aff licted with any number of cancer diagnoses led The Christ Hospital last year to announce a partnership with Worldwide Clinical Trials, Hayes says. As a result, patients will have access to clinical trials without having to travel outside of the region and get faster access to advanced clinical trial options. She says other partnership agreements are in the works. The Christ Hospital’s precision medicine department is relatively new, but it’s ushering in the transition from healthcare’s usual one-size-fits-all approach to one tailored specifically to the individual through the analysis of genetic data, hereditary disease risk, and health history. Through pharmacogenomics, a patient’s genes are evaluated to understand how they interact with medications, and how all medications the patient takes interact with each other to arrive; artificial intelligence then is used to inform optimized clinical decisions. The Christ Hospital’s goal of becoming a destination for advanced neurosurgical care took a step forward last year through an expansion of its long-time relationship with Mayfield Brain & Spine to enhance care for patients with brain tumors and other brain diseases. Programming includes a full portfolio of
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advanced neurosurgical care using cutting-edge equipment, treatment, and procedures performed at The Christ Hospital. Both organizations collaborate on bringing innovations and clinical research trials to this region through the Lindner Research Institute and the Mayfield Education & Research Foundation. Priority treatment areas include the prevention and treatment of neurovascular disorders such as brain aneurysms and treatment of chronic refractory pain syndromes. “We’ve spent the last 10 years really expanding our bricks and mortar,” Hayes says, referring to a substantially completed, multiyear $280-million transformation of its Mt. Auburn campus and geographic buildout of a network of outpatient centers. “We’re going to spend a lot more of our strategic capital on program development because, again, it’s important to consumers that we make their ability to access the care that’s delivered in a different way. We’re going to make sure that at every turn Cincinnatians can say they have the finest healthcare anywhere in the country.”
ground and new executive leadership role in an executive floor library room on Cincinnati Children’s Uptown campus. It’s mid-morning, but a colleague muses that Davis likely has already been working for many hours. Davis has worked in an ICU setting for 30 years. He grew up in Boston and has lived in 18 places, mostly on the East Coast. His career followed the “usual academic path” for years, he says, until he went back to school to earn a master’s degree in medical management and then took leadership development coursework at Case Western Reserve University. “It really changed my view of what my future could be. I realized I wanted to help transform health care.
I am a pediatrician, so I wanted to transform it for kids, and I thought the best way of doing that was to become a CEO.” His first big step was to become chief operating officer at Cleveland Clinic. Ultimately, he looked to Cincinnati Children’s for his next executive role because, he says, “I was spending so much of my time on adult medicine and my passion is really kids.” On his first round of interviews in Cincinnati, Davis dined with thenCEO Michael Fisher at Boca. Upon leaving the restaurant, he called his wife and told her I think I just met my new boss. Boca remains his favorite restaurant in town; he celebrated his
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Steve Davis says he’s always enjoyed understanding systems and making them work better.
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AV IS CA LLS HIMSELF a pediatric critical care physician who got more involved in healthcare operations over the years. “Some of it was just natural,” he suggests. “My inclination is to want to fix things. I always have wanted to understand systems and how they work and make them better.” Dressed comfortably in a sweater vest, Davis talks about his back-
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TAKEAWAYS NEW TIMES, NEW LEADERSHIP Challenged by the pandemic, healthcare executives have accelerated investments in technology and personalized medicine, expanded external partnerships, and empowered decision-making throughout the leadership ranks. A McKinsey & Co. report describes the moment as a new era in leadership. UPWARD MOBILITY Deborah Hayes, who became CEO of The Christ Hospital Health Network in May 2021, says her focus is on helping staff “see a path from where they might start in the organization to something else that might interest them as their career progresses.” A TEAM EFFORT Steve Davis, MD, who was elevated to CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in November 2021, has been involving the business community, neighborhood leaders, and patients and families in determining how best to expand services.
promotion to CEO there. When Davis joined Cincinnati Children’s in 2015, plans for a new Critical Care Building were well under way. “We were picking the architects and the construction firm, and we said we were going to do this building different from any other building,” he recalls. “We were going to get involvement from the community. We were going to get involvement from our patients and families. We had hundreds of people involved in the design. We opened a warehouse in Norwood where we built actual life-size rooms and an entire floor; we got input from the doctors and nurses and other providers. It’s the most thoughtfully designed building I have seen or ever been a part of.” Last month, the institution announced a $150-million, 203,000square-foot renovation at its main campus. Davis calls it a complex project that ultimately will modernize infrastructure and add amenities and space for patient families and Cincinnati Children’s employees. Another large capital project under way is Cincinnati Children’s College Hill mental health facility. The $99-million facility renovation and expansion is scheduled to open in late 2023, which can’t arrive too soon for Davis. “We’re in the middle of a mental health crisis,” he says. “The demands of our services seem to be never ending in terms of mental health volumes. It’s the same around the country.” The expansion will add 100 in-patient beds and 30 residential beds, with every room a private room designed specifically for kids with mental health challenges. “A lot of what we learned from the Critical Care Building in terms of getting input from the providers, from the patients
and families, and from the community we’ve continued in the College Hill project,” says Davis. The institution’s ongoing work in mental health is one of his personal priorities. “The crisis is continuing to grow and needs attention from us, from the community, from everybody,” he says. “It’s a challenge for us to not always be able to meet the needs of kids we see. They come into the emergency department in volumes I never would have seen 20 or 30 years ago.” He says Cincinnati Children’s has formed a professional affiliation with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to coordinate a mental health “trajectories” project for kids in a massive project that involves more than 25 scientists at nine different research divisions within Cincinnati Children’s, as well as collaborators that include the University of Cincinnati. “We’re looking to identify children early on who are at high risk for certain mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, or suicidal ideation,” says Davis. “We are taking all of the experience we have in taking care of children with these issues and taking all of that data and using the computing power of Oak Ridge. We hope to create trajectories that will allow us to identify children with specific risks for mental health disorders and then intervene much earlier that we (otherwise) could.” Another area of significant focus for Davis is promoting health equity. Late last year the Cincinnati Children’s board of directors launched the Michael Fisher Center for Child Health Equity, which will anchor the institution’s collaboration and partnership with families, community members, schools, social service agencies, businesses, and government to address social factors that
THE DOCTOR IS ALWAYS IN NOW Cincinnati Children’s more than doubled its virtual health visits during the pandemic.
influence child health so that kids and their families can be safe and reach their full potential. “So much of what goes into health care and health occurs outside the hospital setting,” he says. “We’re working with school systems, the community, and other businesses like Fifth Third, Kroger, and Procter & Gamble to convene and try to solve some of the challenges. The Cincinnati Business Committee has done a great job of bringing together businesses in a way that’s much more organized and coordinated than I’ve seen in other cities.” The pandemic presented unique challenges to Cincinnati Children’s as well as opportunities to contribute to the development of a vaccine. Davis says his staff has conducted 11 vaccine trials of COVID vaccines. “I believe we’re the only pediatric-specific vaccine trials unit in the country,” he says. “We’re not only a
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resource to the community, but really for kids around the world.” He says the pandemic accelerated the institution’s approach to digital and virtual health. It worked with TeleDoc Health, a health industry technology provider, to develop the first pediatric-specific platform for virtual care. “The timing was fortuitous because we’d done that just before the pandemic,” says Davis. “We were able to ramp up from doing 2,000 virtual visits a year to doing as many as 5,000 virtual visits per week, so that was substantial. We’ve learned in the last two years that there are certain things that work quite well in a virtual setting and then there are others better suited for in-person care. There are devices we’re looking at that parents can use at home to look into someone’s ears, nose and throat, listen to their heart, and allow the provider to see and hear those things. In some ways you
can see it more easily than in-person, particularly with kids who are uncomfortable in a clinical setting. We’re exploring more options for integrating physical exam data and visual capabilities while people are at home.” Davis explains that the pandemic taught his senior leadership team that they can’t make every decision in the organization. “Changes were coming at us so quick ly during COVID that we really had to allow more and more decisions to be made at the level of where the content expertise lies,” he says. “That was good for both our front-line people and the senior leadership team. It’s helped us develop more talent and allowed us to hear from more voices. I wish we wouldn’t have had to go through the pandemic, but I think we’ve learned a lot that will allow us to come out of it even stronger than we were going in.” SPRING 2022 REALM 37
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The State of Our Museums
Dave Linnenberg says the Art Museum’s new Art Climb (opposite page) was a godsend during the pandemic and a visible “welcome” sign to the surrounding community.
HOW THE REGION’S MUSEUMS LEARNED TO BETTER CONNECT WITH THE COMMUNITY DURING THE PANDEMIC. BY LEYLA SHOKOOHE
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useums are in the business of preservation, but they also beat with the pulse of currency. They bring in exhibitions that speak to contemporary issues, keep safe treasured artifacts that continually tell the origin story of their community, and find ways to stand the test of time—even during a global pandemic. Following the mass closure of museums across the country in March 2020, when COVID-19 put a stranglehold on the country, the American Alliance of Museums began releasing regular surveys of museum operators in June 2020. The nonprofit dedicated to serving the country’s museums published National Snapshot of COVID-19 Impact on United States Museums, which found that 60 percent of the 710 respondents reported their institutions had suffered pandemic-related losses since March 2020. That, of course, is no real surprise. Area museums shut down with the same uncertainties that faced every business sector, the biggest being, When will this end? And while museums were able to reopen in P H O T O G R A P H BY C H R I S V O N H O L L E
Ohio on June 4, 2020, they were subject to limited capacity and social distancing. Still, Cincinnati museums persevered. They took advantage of Payment Protection Program funds and a variety of emergency grants and funding to offset the loss of in-person visits and other revenue draws. Every museum featured in this story, to use an oft-ascribed pandemic agility term, pivoted its programming to digital platforms. “We created CAM Connect and CAM Looks, and thanks to everyone on our staff who did multiples of those and our docents who did a bunch of them we were able to push out information every single day,” says Dave Linnenberg, chief administrative officer of Cincinnati Art Museum. “We were sitting there thinking, What are we going to do? How are we going to continue to do what we’re supposed to be doing?” says Behringer-Crawford Museum Executive Director Laurie Risch. “We have such a great staff, so creativity started flowing out, and everyone was saying, We can do this, we can do that.”
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CCORDING TO OHIO’S Creative Economy , a study released in 2018 by Ohio Citizens for the Arts, the creative industry category “Museums & Collections” generates more than $100 million in economic impact in the Greater Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Included in that category, using parameters established by the Americans for the Arts, are museums, zoos, botanical gardens, historical societies, and planetariums. The region’s nonprofit arts sector as a whole generates more than $300 million annually. These numbers are significant, and because the nonprofit arts sector relies so heavily on the public—in addition to grants and fundraising—it can’t be underscored how detrimental the pandemic closures were. In the 2018-2019 fiscal year, the Cincinnati Art Museum saw 346,000 people walk through its doors—the largest attendance year in the museum’s history. They were poised to meet that threshold again with a strong start to 2020, but, well, everyone knows what happened next. For museums like CAM that feature traveling exhibitions, it also meant the abrupt end for several of those shows. “We had multiple exhibitions, with one
opening the Wednesday before the complete shut-down,” says Linnenberg. “Luckily we were able to extend them. It was sad the amount of time, effort, and energy that our curatorial, marketing, design, and installation staff put into these exhibitions, and they only got a couple weeks. You’ve got to figure out your budget; can you afford to continue these exhibitions? We unfortunately had to eliminate a few. A lot of it was just because we didn’t know when we were going to be able to fully reopen.” Lucky for CAM, too, was the serendipitously timed opening of the Art Climb Steps in May 2020. Taking intrepid walkers from Gilbert Avenue to the museum’s newly revamped parking lot, the 164 steps ascend nine stories, with 16 landings and four art plazas. “It opened when every gym was closed, when every fitness center was closed, and we saw some unbelievable numbers on Art Climb the first four or five months,” says
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Linnenberg. “We’re talking 40,000-plus people a month on that art climb. We were still giving people an art experience, but it just was a completely new art experience around sculptures instead of around paintings.” Part of the impetus behind the Art Climb was to better connect the Walnut Hills neighborhood with the Art Museum. If the pandemic taught us anything about museums, it’s that they exist to unite and connect people. “It was seen as a way to remove a barrier,” says Linnenberg. “When our facility was first built in the 1880s, we were sitting atop this hill and you could see us from all around. And then we let honeysuckle grow on all the land, and no one could see us anymore. It was a way to say, Here we are. We want you to come visit us, we want you to come up these stairs, we want you to come to the museum. If you don’t want to come to the museum, we still want you on our grounds.” Intrepid staff and leadership found ways SPRING 2022 REALM 39
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to morph that essential connection into virtual offerings. Now that in-person gatherings are becoming the norm once more, how do museums continue to stay relevant and connected? “We understand that people want different things when they come to the museum,” says Deborah Emont Scott, the outgoing executive director of the Taft Museum of Art. “Some people don’t want to read. Some want a docent tour—the
“OUR REHABILITATION OF THE HOUSE IS CERTAINLY ON THE EXTERIOR, BUT WE’RE ALSO REINTERPRETING THE COLLECTION,” SAYS DEBORAH EMONT SCOTT OF THE TAFT MUSEUM OF ART.
best form of technology, the human being who communicates—and some people want an audio guide, a digital experience, a QR code. We recognize that this rehabilitation of the house is certainly on the exterior, but we’re also dealing with the interior. We’re reinterpreting the collection.” Located in the former home of Charles Phelps Taft and Anna Sinton Taft, the Taft Museum of Art showcases both works collected by the couple as well as the house itself—all of which was bequeathed to the city of Cincinnati in 1927. (The museum opened in 1932.) As the Taft celebrates the 200th anni40 REALM SPRING 2022
versary of the house’s construction circa 1820, Scott and her team are looking ahead to its next 200 years. “How do we make a collection built in the early part of the 20th century relevant to an audience of the early part of the 21st century?” Scott asks. “We have been thinking about this for several years, and now it’s all coming together. It means that we’re talking about a work of art in ways we maybe didn’t before.” In other words, the Taft is undertaking a deeper recontextualization of work that’s been accepted as canonical, for any number of reasons—telling the story not just behind the art but behind the time, place, and climate in which it was made. For example, there’s the Joshua Reynolds oil painting made in 1776, Mrs John Weyland and her son John, a warm-toned portrait depicting a mother and son. But there’s more to the story. “The little baby the woman is holding in the Reynolds painting grew up to be not a very nice man, who thought poor people loved the hard work they did,” says Scott. “I said, Let’s tell that. That’s like gossip, that’s good. People want to know that. So there’s always a story behind every work of art. We’re looking at the beautiful object, we’re learning about the beautiful object, and we’re also learning some interesting other stuff about it.” In July 2021, the American Alliance of Museums awarded the Taft the Excellence in Label Writing Award, for their “More to the Story” labels that fill in that backstory behind the artwork. That same month, In a New Light: Treasures from the Taft opened in the Taft’s Fifth Third Gallery to reimagine the organization’s collection
through a 21st century lens. The Taft is wrapping up its Bicentennial Infrastructure Project, a massive renovation of the historic house that includes stabilization of the structure, remediation of asbestos-laden insulation, and HVAC updates. The fundraising goal is $4 million, $750,000 of which was met through a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities—in fact, the largest amount they award. “It’s an important project,” says Scott. “We’re doing a once-every-90-years project. Last time it was worked on so thoroughly was in 1932.” She’ll be able to see the project through to its fruition. Her last day before retirement is June 24, and the Taft Museum officially reopens in a celebratory Community Day on June 26.
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H E TA F T I S N ’ T T H E only area museum undergoing an update. Coming soon to the Cincinnati Museum Center are two more permanent gallery installations, Made in Cincinnati (opening in July in the History Museum) and the John and Judy Ruthven Get Into Nature Gallery (opening in the fall). CMC is also in the last stretch of fundraising for its massive Champion More Curiosity campaign. “We’re closing in on an $85 million comprehensive campaign that included operating support on an annual basis, the capital needed to build out these permanent exhibits, and grow the endowment,” says Elizabeth Pierce, Museum Center president and CEO. Other recently installed exhibits include the Neil Armstrong Space Exploration Gallery, celebrating the legacy of Apollo 11 (opened in
ONCE EVERY 90 YEARS
2020), and the Ice Age Gallery, The Taft transporting visMuseum of Art itors to Pleistohas remained cene-era Cincinpartially open as workers wrap n a t i , c om p l e t e up its most with a mastodon thorough reninstallation (reovation since opened in 2021). the museum While the opened in 1932. pandemic closure made things difficult for CMC—which at the time furloughed all part-time staff, a 40 percent reduction—it has already achieved more than $71 million of its campaign goal. And the museum is starting to see a return to some amount of normalcy. “We’re still not open seven days a week, because we’re closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays,” says Pierce. “I don’t think that will come back for several more months, if not next year. I can tell you that this past Saturday was the best day we’ve had since we reopened in 2020. It felt like a Saturday in February is supposed to feel, a combination of admission revenue and visitation numbers. It’s still like 70 percent of where we were on the same President’s Day weekend in 2020, but it’s the best day we’ve had since we reopened.” The rest of 2022 looks bright for CMC, too. The popular Science Behind Pixar exhibit continues through the end of April. Our Shared Story, part of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial, runs April through October in collaboration with the Jewish Federation, the Holocaust and Humanities Center, and the American Jewish Archives. Occupying 4,000 square feet, it showcases how the Cincinnati Jewish community impacted local life. At the end of May, America’s Epic Treasures Featuring Preternatural by Michael Scott opens, an immersive landscape exhibition with an accompanying Omnimax presentation called Into P H O T O G R A P H S P R O V I D E D BY TA F T M U S E U M O F A R T
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TAKEAWAYS THE PANDEMIC SHUTDOWN All local museums closed in spring 2020 when COVID first arrived here, and many struggled to figure out how to serve visitors in new ways. “We lost 70 percent of our earned income” right away, says Behringer-Crawford Museum Executive Director Laurie Risch. NEW STORIES Museum leaders pivoted their staff to virtual and outdoor storytelling in order to stay connected with the public, and many plunged ahead with overdue infrastructure projects. Visitors have, for the most part, returned now that indoor spaces are open again. THE ARTS BUSINESS Museums generate more than $100 million in annual economic impact across the region, according to Ohio Citizens for the Arts. Cincinnati’s nonprofit arts sector as a whole generates more than $300 million annually.
“MUSEUMS ARE ESSENTIAL TO A VIBRANT, THRIVING COMMUNITY BECAUSE THEY ADD TO THE SKILLS OF BEING A CRITICAL THINKER,” SAYS CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER CEO ELIZABETH PIERCE.
America’s Wild. “I’m hoping we can use all that art as a way to convey the importance of the conversation about climate change and about climate resiliency,” said Pierce. “I think it also brings to us and to the science conversation an art crowd that maybe doesn’t always think about those things. We’re always looking for interesting ways to connect people.” For smaller museums like the Behringer-Crawford Museum in Covington, the road back to some measure of normalcy hasn’t been studded with showstopper exhibitions or massive in-progress fundraising campaigns. “We had a double whammy right at the beginning of the pandemic,” says Risch. “The IRS erroneously revoked our 501(c)3 status. We shut down March 20, 2020, and I got the letter from the IRS on March 17. Because the IRS was shut down and working from home, it was a nightmare. It took 15 months for us to get that settled.” Beyond the tax status kerfuffle, the loss of visitors compounded the fact that the BCM’s existing resources and capacity were, obviously, not the
same as the region’s larger museums. “I look back and I’m thinking, How did we do this?” says Risch. “Because we didn’t reopen until July, and just part-time then because we had to do a thorough cleaning. It was that frightful period. The uncertainty, the whole What are we going to do, we don’t want to get sick bit. Literally we lost like 70 percent of our earned income.” In addition to receiving assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program, BCM applied for and received emergency funding from ArtsWave, the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Humanities Council. Much of the money went to operations; the latter grant went to equipment. “That allowed us to pivot our programming to be virtual,” says Risch. Even her board pitched in. One board member and her husband hosted a virtual Kentucky history hour on Zoom every Wednesday night. It became a hit and continues to this day, albeit now every other week. “That kept us in the public eye, and we ended up with like 40 new members,” she says. “People started really chipping in.”
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SPRUCING UP
Artwork has been rearranged or put in storage during the Taft Museum’s renovation, including this portrait of Anna Sinton Taft, who donated her historic home to the city to serve as an art museum.
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A CULTURAL ANCHOR
So why do people feel compelled to chip in? That ’s the $85-million, or $300-million, or $4-million question. “In the case of Behringer-Crawford, we represent Northern Kentucky, and so if an organization like Behringer-Crawford would fall you’ve lost an organization that can tell those stories,” says Risch. “Not only tell a story, but illustrate the story through artifacts and art. I think it would just be a huge loss from a cultural perspective, period. Where would you go to learn this information? Yeah, you could go to Google. But it’s not the same as the atmosphere you get when you’re around others sharing similar information, stories, events. That’s what we missed during COVID, that getting together.” Pierce concurs. “I think museums are important because they feed curious minds and complement the formal education system,” she says. “I think we’re different people every time we come to a museum, because we’ve had different life experiences, read a different book recently, or learned about a new topic in school. A museum is a place where the objects speak to you and the programming speaks to you and helps to round out your knowledge. “Museums are essential to a vibrant, thriving community because they add to the skills of being a critical thinker. That’s one of the key things we’re trying to do at the Cincinnati Museum Center. It’s also about having great family and multigenerational memory-making moments.” The Behringer-Crawford Museum keeps stories about Covington and Northern Kentucky alive for future generations.
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MERGING NONPROFITS FUELS EFFICIENCY, SERVICE
by John Banchy, President and CEO
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NTEGRATING NONPROFITS THAT serve our community in similar ways increases efficiency, resources, and positive client outcomes while maximizing growth opportunities for colleagues, and availability of services for the vulnerable populations’ nonprofits serve. St. Aloysius Orphanage, established in 1832, and The Children’s Home, founded in 1864, officially merged into one organization on February 21. We call this new organization, that’s poised to provide more transformational services to more people than ever before in Greater Cincinnati, Best Point Education and Behavioral Health. The decision to integrate two of Cincinnati’s longest serving child and family organizations did not happen overnight. Nor did it occur in a vacuum. We are very blessed to have some of the most talented and dedicated leaders of our community on both legacy organizations’ respective boards. Their advice and counsel was sought while we laid out, in very painstaking detail, why St. Aloysius and The Children’s Home would consider combining into one, holistic organization. By integrating, we knew we could eliminate the competition for the lifeblood of nonprofits – donors, volunteers and staff as well as grants, federal and state funding. Instead, we can remain focused on why we exist – to serve children and families who often have nowhere else to turn.
Immediately we’ll serve 18,000 children every year and have a staff of over 600 employees. Best Point will oversee almost 40 programs and serve in more than 80 partner schools and in six Best Point campuses in Cincinnati. When considering these factors, I believe “the why” regarding integrating nonprofits makes business sense as well as the most sense for the communities we serve. When The Children’s Home and St. Aloysius met with our respective board members to discuss “the why,” more often we discovered the real question staring us in the face was: “Why not?” “If you are looking for a cause to get behind, I’d recommend starting
here,” said Rhonda Sheakley, Best Point Education and Behavioral Health Board of Trustees member. “This organization is truly something special especially considering the legacy of The Children’s Home and St. Aloysius. They exist to serve, which is truly among the most noble of causes anyone could be part of.” Our merger has fostered collaboration, strengthened systems and positive impact for the vulnerable populations who rely on us for help. The potential to change lives is absolutely limitless, which is why we are here and why we serve. Learn more about Best Point at www.bestpoint.org.
www.bestpoint.org | 513-272-2800
DEEP DIVE
Local Firms Account for Growth REGIONAL ACCOUNTING LEADERS WORK TO DEVELOP AND TRAIN STAFF AND IMPROVE THEIR OWN LEADERSHIP SKILLS. BY SARAH M. MULLINS
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ith the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift in business demands, a fresh perspective in accounting leadership and consulting is critical. Even before the pandemic, businesses were changing the way they work, focusing on access to robust digital options. That demand is now even higher. Growth is inevitably a focus for most of the region’s accounting firms, with their Cincinnati leaders recognizing the importance of a strong talent
pool and the need for flexibility sparked by COVID-19. The Great Resignation is the latest challenge, as employees voluntarily leave jobs and cause companies to adopt new retention and hiring strategies and to embrace the emerging demand for development and leadership programs to boost company culture. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for accountants is set to increase by 7 percent by 2030. Retaining strong talent and developing their skills to meet clients’ needs is where many of the five regional leaders we spoke with plan to focus their efforts throughout 2022.
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Cincinnati is a powerhouse city that’s attracting and creating startup, mid-, and large-sized companies, which leaves significant room for accounting firms to further build their portfolio. From the national accounting firms Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY ), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), BDO, and Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (KPMG) to regional firms like Clark Schaefer Hackett, Barnes Dennig, and VonLehman, several have fresh faces in leadership roles here. We ask five local accounting and consulting leaders how they’ve been impacted by the pandemic, how it accelerated growth goals, and what the transformation of work looks like for their employees.
JEREMY VAUGHAN, ERNST & YOUNG
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RIGINALLY FROM LONdon, Jeremy Vaughan’s career brought him to Cincinnati in 2010. He earned a degree in mathematics from the University of Nottingham and has more than 25 years of consulting experience with high-profile companies around the world, helping clients achieve growth and transformation. Ernst & Young, a global company with 700 office locations in more than
150 countries, announced Vaughan’s new role as managing partner in April 2020, around the same time the team moved into the top two floors of Atrium Two downtown. Despite the pandemic challenges the new leader had in front of him, the business continued with its existing strategy: growth. For EY, that means growth in both talent and opportunity, with a significant focus on development and leadership. The average professional at EY is in his or her twenties, and the traditional approach to development included an apprenticeship model for fresh university graduates to learn on the job with senior managers before being promoted into upper level positions. With the pandemic, Vaughan says he’s learning to adapt to new workplace flexibility while still building the culture of mentorship. Another growth area is community impact. Beyond the work at EY itself, Vaughan emphasizes the importance of getting involved in the community and supporting the city. The success of the Bengals, the possibility of the 2026 World Cup coming to Cincinnati, and investments in the city of Cincinnati help grow the overall talent pool by making Cincinnati a great place to live, which provides an opportunity for companies like EY to grow. “I really believe that the investments and collaborations between private companies and government and community are important for us to grow the market of Cincinnati,” says Vaughan. “Cincinnati has got a bit of a spring in its step, and growing the market is really what’s going to provide the right opportunities for us all.” In order to impact the community and increase employee engagement, EY is dedicating time and resources to philanthropic work. “One of the best things my dad ever told me was the influence
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Jim Sowar says one positive of not working in person during the pandemic was an improvement in team relationships and connectivity.
of money and how to manage a budget,” says Vaughan. “In today’s world, that isn’t easy, particularly with the availability of credit and payments and all the different ways that you get tempted. We’re very interested in trying to support students, particularly high school students, learning about financial literacy. It’s bringing the power of the global firm to invest in Cincinnati, which is one of my key roles. The more I can do that the better.” Ernst & Young launched a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program for accounting professionals go out into local communities and help people file their tax returns to get the best tax outcome. The firm also piloted a new mobile app to encourage girls to pursue a career in STEM, a companywide initiative that first rolled out in Cincinnati. It’s a rewards-based game that offers students the opportunity to earn prizes, donate to charity, and mentorship opportunities while following the goal of inspiring and empowering the next generation in STEM. The local EY team worked with Princeton Middle and High Schools to introduce the game that EY hopes will target 100,000 girls in 2022.
JIM SOWAR, DELOITTE
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S ONE OF THE HIGHEST profile companies in the world, Deloitte serves a global customer base with traditional services and specialty offerings such as cloud technology, analytics, and marketing. Jim Sowar has worked for Deloitte since 2002 and currently leads the Cincinnati practice as managing partner, managing a team of 550 employees and a leadership team that consists of an audit leader, tax leader, consulting leader, and a risk and financial advisory leader. “My specific focus is around strategy, business development, corporate citizenship, and client satisfaction assessments,” says SoSPRING 2022 REALM 47
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war. “And ultimately making sure that our clients are being served, they’re happy with our services, and we’re growing our practice.” As a global, national, and local practice, growth includes entering new markets and expanding new services with existing clients—for example, helping a client go digital by utilizing cloud services or helping with merger and acquisition transactions. “We’re very focused on growth here in Cincinnati and nationally, and a big part of that is because our clients need us to grow with them,” says Sowar. “As the market changes, cloud and digital are probably the biggest areas in the past few years where our clients need our help. They realize that for them to grow their customers they need to transform. So we’ve added services and invested in people to grow those services.” Deloitte leaders are also investing in their people. The work-from-home push during the first 12-16 months of the pandemic offered the ability to upskill their own staff with training and other courses. Sowar says one positive of not being in person was an improvement in team relationships, with Zoom and other digital platforms connecting employees more than ever before. In addition to internal culture building, professional development is ramping up again at Deloitte Academy in Dallas, which is open to all industries hoping to stay abreast of business developments, global trends, and managerial skills. Sowar says interest in the program skyrocketed over the past year, which sets up Deloitte better for the future by moving forward with a staff that’s trained and connected. “The economy is very strong,” he says. “Our client base wants more services now more than ever.” 48 REALM SPRING 2022
MELISSA WASSON, PWC
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E L I S SA WA S S O N ’ S roles have evolved over the years from strategy and growth leader for the trust solutions tax segment to her current role as Midwest market managing partner, which she took in 2019 to oversee a team of more than 2,500. “We’re laser focused on the transformation of our business from professional services,
technology, products, and managed services business,” says Wasson. “We are focused on delivering human-led and tech-powered, sustainable outcomes and will continue to evolve to meet the demands of tomorrow.” PwC is one of the world’s leading accounting firms with more than 295,000 employees who span 156 countries and offer services that include cybersecurity, cloud and digital services, governance, risk, and tax
P H O T O G R A P H BY C H R I S V O N H O L L E
services. While many businesses are navigating the “new normal” on the fly with as much strategy as possible, PwC formalized their approach they’re calling “The New Equation.” It’s a set of guiding principles meant to streamline an innovative approach to unexpected challenges. Upskilling their workforce to further develop employees and developing technology to transform their business relationships are two of the strategy’s pillars. “If the last couple of years have taught us anything, it’s that we simply can’t go on doing things in business or society the way they’ve always been done,” says Wasson. “Stakeholders’ needs are changing, and we’re changing how we operate to effectively meet those needs.” PwC is revisiting and strengthening their purpose in building trust and solving problems in all decisions, talent included. Flexibility is the hot topic regarding new behaviors in the workforce, and Wasson says the firm is embracing this time and space to offer talent and clients their support. Client service employees are offered the option to be fully virtual, and existing client service staff can choose to live anywhere in the continental U.S. “Our goal here is to provide our people choice, which is especially important in today’s war for talent,” she says. Her favorite part of the job? Bringing together diverse teams to develop solutions that result in impacts for the clients they consult. “In some ways, we’ve learned more about each other by virtually seeing into our homes, families, and pets,” says Wasson. “Working with empathy and grace around each person’s situations centers on the environment of trust that we want to create for our people and our clients.” Wasson recently took on the
H E A D S H O T C O U R T E SY CT KL ATRKK S C H A E F E R H A C K E T T
strategy and growth leader role for the trust solutions tax segment across the U.S., where she’ll collaborate with industry sectors and specialty teams to provide sustainable outcomes for their clients.
PHIL HURAK, CLARK SCHAEFER HACKETT
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HIL HURAK WENT TO both law and business school, earning an MBA from the University of Dayton and an undergrad degree in business administration and finance from Ohio State University. He’s also a licensed attorney in the state of Ohio, which provides him with a unique perspective as a shareholder at Clark Schaefer Hackett. Hurak moved into a leadership position at the start of 2020 to head up several areas within the tax practice, focusing on strategic cost savings and business growth goals across myriad industries. He specializes in sales tax refund analysis, credits and incentives, and resolution of sales tax controversies. Given the timing of his new leadership role, Hurak has been dealing with pandemic interruptions more than most of us have. Still, he says the pandemic put into perspective a new sense of balance both personally and professionally, an approach that happened organically and that’s now guiding how he leads his team. “We are in the age of the employee right now, and the pandemic has proven many jobs can be done from anywhere—and people are willing to do many jobs from anywhere—so lifestyle and personal satisfaction have risen to prominence ahead of simply earning a paycheck,”
says Hurak. “Having an opportunity to be very present over the past two years has been a blessing, and I commit to my family to not revert.” He adds that flexibility is key for all stakeholders, since teams, clients, and the organization are all evaluating what a “new normal” will look like for the future. “Organizations that are flexible and focused on the end result versus the ‘where’ it’s being done will have an advantage,” he says. This shift in thinking isn’t exclusive to Clark Schaefer Hackett staff alone, of course. Clients
I.T. IS IT
Phil Hurak says he’s helping clients understand the expanded role I.T. plays in every aspect of business operations.
“THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS HAVE TAUGHT US THAT WE SIMPLY CAN’T GO ON DOING THINGS IN BUSINESS OR SOCIETY THE WAY THEY’VE ALWAYS BEEN DONE,” SAYS MELISSA WASSON.
are reconsidering their real estate rental investment, for instance, while others have used the opportunity to expand. Trends that are emerging quickly and permeating all sectors include blockchain and data analytics, and they’re hitting the financial sectors as well. Especially in the last year, Hurak says, strategy has moved beyond interesting concepts to monetizable advantages that set businesses apart from competitors. “Fortunately, we were early to make investments in these areas and have a deep bench of professionals to help businesses address these needs,” says Hurak. SPRING 2022 REALM 49
DEEP DIVE
TAKEAWAYS DEMAND & SUPPLY The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says overall demand for accountants will increase 7 percent by 2030. Local accounting firm leaders say they’ll be focusing efforts on developing and retaining strong talent to meet clients’ growing needs. CONNECTING WITH CINCINNATI Attracting and retaining talent gets a boost from the Bengals’ success, the possibility of Cincinnati being a World Cup host city, and investments in the city core. “I really believe that collaborations between private companies and government and community are important for us to grow the market of Cincinnati,” says Jeremy Vaughan. USING MORE TECHNOLOGY The pandemic taught local accounting leaders that technology can improve communication and client service in many ways, despite initial doubts. Expect more investment in IT to better connect employee teams and to drive results for clients.
Lines between information technology (IT) and business operations continue to blur, and they’re becoming less and less mutually exclusive. Most new hires at Clark Schaefer Hackett previously would have had accounting or business backgrounds, but now the firm is looking to IT professionals, data specialists, and systems experts to help apply those experiences to business operations. Hurak says the practice’s growth is expected to continue at a 20-30 percent annual rate for the foreseeable future as they enter new markets, new services, and new client challenges. “We’re very excited about the future of our consulting and advisory practice,” he says. “We’re working with clients across the country, helping solve the most complex problems, and providing incredible opportunities for our team to learn every day.”
ADAM DAVEY, VONLEHMAN
U
N L I K E M O ST AC counting leaders, Davey has spent his entire career at one firm. He started as a co-op student and moved into a full-time position after graduating from Thomas More University, and he recently served as director of assurance services. The Ft. Wright-based company elected Davey as president in 2021, and he serves on the board of directors and executive committee. His expertise is in auditing, and he currently works with nonprofits, government agencies, manufacturing industries, and financial institutions. “I really like the people I work with and really like the clients I work with,” says Davey. “It’s an organization focused on growth and focused on client service, which is what I really enjoy.” VonLehman’s key markets are
Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis, and Davey says they’re going to stay focused on both organic growth as well as looking for merger or acquisition opportunities within their existing markets. Beyond market growth, there are opportunities to increase core services like traditional audit, tax, and accounting services, he says, and the firm will continue to increase specialists in certain areas such as business valuation and healthcare reimbursement consulting. “We’ve tried to look for opportunities to ex-
EYES OPEN
Adam Davey says VonLehman will focus on both organic growth as well as looking for merger or acquisition opportunities.
“CINCINNATI HAS GOT A BIT OF A SPRING IN ITS STEP THESE DAYS,” SAYS JEREMY VAUGHAN. “GROWING THE CITY WILL PROVIDE THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITIES FOR US ALL.”
pand our services beyond what people would typically think of for traditional accounting firms,” he says. While the pandemic required adapting to a virtual landscape and not being able to partner with new clients as much as they typically would with in-person interactions, VonLehman looked to new outlets for growth. The firm created a formal development program for staff and launched a career progression model within the VonLehman Leadership Academy, which provides leadership training in order to both retain and attract the best people. “Our people’s success drives the company’s success,” he says.
H E A D S H O T C O U R T E SY V O N L E H M A N
ONWARD TOGETHER
Northern Kentucky University is a proud workforce partner to the northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati region. Employers can find talented students and graduates in some of the fastest-growing industries, including supply chain management, financial services, informatics, cybersecurity and health care. To learn more about how NKU can help with your talent resource needs, contact the Office of Economic Engagement at (859) 572–5236.
nku.edu
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PHOTO ESSAY
HELPING CINCINNATI HELP Matthew 25: Ministries excels at connecting volunteers and donations with those in need, both near and far. –JOHN FOX
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DEVYN GLISTA
54 REALM SPRING 2022
SPRING 2022 REALM 55
PHOTO ESSAY
CREATING A STRUCTURE
Utilizing more than 300,000 square feet of processing and warehouse space in Blue Ash, Matthew 25: Ministries offers community members a chance to serve, from students (opening spread) to seniors (opposite page, bottom). “Anyone who wants to help can help,” says Director of Programs and Community Relations Joodi Archer, explaining that M25M welcomes volunteers of all sorts, including those with physical or mental challenges as well as families with small kids and has spaces to accommodate everyone.
A GOOD NEIGHBOR
Rev. Wendell Mettey founded Matthew 25: Ministries in 1991 to redistribute unwanted and excess products to people in poverty, starting in Central America. Today, run by CEO Tim Mettey, his son, M25M is one of the country’s 100 largest charities. It shipped 19 million pounds of clothing, medical supplies, personal care items, COVID-19 supplies, and household products in 2021 as both humanitarian aid and disaster relief.
FOOD FOR THE SOUL
M25M accepts donations of fresh and nonperishable food (top), which it sorts and delivers to as many as 50 food pantries in the region. Nonperishable food is often shipped with disaster relief missions.
56 REALM SPRING 2022
PAINT A PICTURE
M25M accepts donations of unused paint from individuals and stores, sorts the paint by color (left), and blends it in 55-gallon drums. Cans are then shipped for use in rehab/rescue operations, much of it internationally; Archer says the rescued paint is still better quality than what many countries produce themselves.
EXCHANGING UNDERSTANDING
M25M has an international market on-site in Blue Ash that’s open to the public (below). Staff will often buy and bring back crafts, artwork, and other products from places where they deliver aid as a way to support local residents and businesses. The market also serves to remind volunteers and visitors of the different cultures that M25M’s work touches.
H E A D S H O T C O U R T E SY T K T K
PHOTO ESSAY
SERVING OTHERS
Volunteers use the Servants’ Entrance at M25M’s Blue Ash campus (top), under a quote from the Gospel of Matthew: “He who is greatest among you shall be your servant.” Just last year M25M served those impacted by an earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Ida, Tropical Storm Henri, wildfires in California, the winter storm in Texas, tornadoes that swept through Kentucky and other states, and flooding throughout the U.S. by delivering household products (left) and other necessary items to help survivors.
58 REALM SPRING 2022
P H O T O G R A P H ( L E F T ) C O U R T E SY M AT T H E W 2 5 M I N I S T R I E S
CAN’T CONTAIN THEIR JOY
M25M sends much of its humanitarian aid and disaster relief in 40-foot-long shipping containers, especially overseas; it shipped more than 975 containers in 2021. Some of its Blue Ash facility is also built from those containers. Staff, volunteers, and the general public can refuel at the on-site Mrs. Yeaggy’s Kitchen (left), named for the mother of a longtime supporter.
DISASTER RESPONSE
Besides 18-wheelers and shipping containers full of useful products, M25M often sends a team of staff to disaster sites to coordinate logistics, find local partners to facilitate aid distribution, and even provide laundry services to those in need.
Xavier University WILLIAMS COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
WANTS TO PARTNER WITH YOUR COMPANY We understand the need for your company to retain the best talent and we want to help your business leaders move your company forward into the future. The Williams College of Business has created a Williams College of Business-to-Business (WCB2B) Lunch & Learn Series available to all organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area. Have your business leaders learn about Cincinnati’s highest ranking MBA program. Our parttime MBA format can help your leaders learn new business strategies in class one night and impact positive change on your company the very next day. Set up your company for the next WCB2B Lunch & Learn by contacting Emily Kohler.
Emily Kohler Director of Recruitment 513-745-3044 kohlere@xavier.edu xavier.edu/explore-mba
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ASK ME ABOUT
JOSH LORENTZ PARTNER AT DINSMORE CHAIR OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEPARTMENT The ASK ME ABOUT importance of protecting a company’s intellectual property.
LAURA MITCHELL CEO BEECH ACRES PARENTING CENTER
ASK ME ABOUT How we’re helping parents manage their children’s well-being during the pandemic.
listen. Once WHAT ARE BEECH interests, new you listen and fears, hopelessACRES’ MOST POPname feelings, ULAR RESOURCES? ness, crying, Our programs are designed to meet parents where they are—in schools, in pediatric offices, and even where they work.
WHAT WARNING SIGNS SHOULD PARENTS LOOK FOR WHEN ASSESSING THEIR CHILD’S MENTAL HEALTH? Your
child may show changes in
the community for more than 170 years, our ask what they programs are acting out, or isolating more. think it means. modern, innoIt may be vative solutions Some alone helpful to share designed to time is normal a story in your reflect the for teens/ own life when realities of tweens, but a you thought 21st-century warning sign parenting. would be if this something negative would Several of is more than never end. our programs usual. Spend have been quality time— designated as one on one, no WHAT MIGHT evidence-based distractions— THE PUBLIC BE solutions. Our with your child. SURPRISED TO Be grounded LEARN ABOUT THE Parent Coaching model, for with empathy SCOPE OF BEECH and compasACRES’ SERVICES? example, has been shown to sion. Don’t offer While we’ve improve parent/ solutions, just been serving
62 REALM SPRING 2022
child relationships after just three one-hour sessions, with lasting effects three months later.
–ELIZABETH MILLER WOOD
WHICH MASTER PLAN PROJECTS WILL GREAT PARKS TACKLE FIRST? The follow-
ing projects will have the design phase completed in 2022-2023, with construction completed in 2022-2026: Sharon Woods Pavilion Grove Playground, a new playground offering an all-inclusive play experience; Glenwood Gardens Wetland Restoration, a 10-plus acre wetland and stream restoration, including trail and access improvements; Winton Woods, Sharon Woods, and Miami Whitewater Forest Harbor, improved nature and water play experiences, fishing access and piers, lake-edge enhancements, new boathouses, lake access for personal watercraft, and new recreational amenities; and Werk Road Property in Westwood, the newest Great Park that will receive improvements based
P H O T O G R A P H CPOHUORT TOEGSY R A PBHE EBY C HT AKCT RK ET KS
WHAT WOULD NON-ATTORNEYS BE SURPRISED TO KNOW ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION? They’d be surprised to know how powerful IP protection can be in order to expose competitors in the market that may be trying to infringe on your competitive advantage.
You have to have an affinity for science and art. And you have to be interested in creativity, whether that’s technical or artistic. When you’re dealing with engineers or inventors or marketing groups, a natural curiosity is important when discussing a client’s intellectual property needs.
WHAT ARE NECESSARY QUALITIES HOW WOULD OF BEING AN YOU EXPLAIN EFFECTIVE IP YOUR STRATEGY ATTORNEY?
on a thorough community engagement process.
WHAT DO YOU FEEL ARE THE MOST INTERESTING PROJECTS IN THE COMING DECADE? Some of our most compelling projects are directly tied to our newly adopted Natural Resource Management Plan, including additional protection of natural resources through land acquisition, management of mature woodlands, reforestation, and restoration of habitats. One notable project is the restoration of the former golf course at Shawnee Lookout.
IN EXPANDING DINSMORE’S IP DEPARTMENT IN RECENT YEARS? We focus on clients, and we’ve tried to grow with them step by step to make sure we have IP specialists in the right location to serve them. We had a client that was relocating a number of its attorneys from Michigan, and they asked if we could assist with local support of the technical team that remained; that led to
expanding our operations in Michigan in 2015. Today, Dinsmore has one of the largest IP departments in the region, with more 100 attorneys. We manage more than 50,000 trademarks in 190 countries. –E.M.W.
TODD PALMETER CEO GREAT PARKS OF HAMILTON COUNTY ASK ME ABOUT Next steps for the 10-Year Master Plan now that tax levy funding is secured.
HOW WILL THESE PROJECTS IMPACT THE GREATER HAMILTON COUNTY COMMUNITY? The Master Plan is a direct reflection of the community’s vision for the future of their parks. Specific improvements and recommendations will enhance the current park user’s experience and will attract new visitors. – E . M . W .
PH HE AO DT OS GH RO AT PCHOSU CR OT EUSY R T ETSY K T(KT O P ) D I N S M O R E / ( B O T T O M ) G R E AT PA R KS O F H A M I LT O N C O U N T Y
SPRING 2022 REALM 63
FROM THE DESK OF
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LEADERSHIP
BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE
CEO Tim Steigerwald has led Messer to a higher profile in recent years, despite the pandemic, from its modern downtown office overlooking I-75 to key building projects at Cincinnati Children’s, UC, and Playhouse in the Park. He chairs this year’s ArtsWave campaign, which continues through June with a goal of $11.5 million. “I grew up an arts kid,” he says. – J O H N F O X
Steigerwald is a new trustee of St. Xavier High School, where his son (the youngest of five kids) played soccer.
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Messer is the German word for knife, and the company awards pocket knives each year to its best craft workers, engraved with the year and company logo.
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Messer employees are involved in the West End neighborhood around its office, working with STEM students at nearby HaysPorter Elementary.
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Steigerwald says he’s proud that Messer was “an early adopter” in supporting ArtsWave from when he first joined the company in 1984.
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SHINING A LIGHT ON THE
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our region and its unlimited opportunities through global publications, and digital and social media
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