Episode 37: Revitalizing Cleveland

In this episode of Marketing Moves, host Ashtyn Morris sits down with Baiju Shah, President and CEO of Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP), to discuss the future of Cleveland. Baiju shares his journey as a passionate Clevelander and the strategic initiatives GCP is implementing to accelerate the region's growth and prosperity. Key topics include the importance of sustainability, talent acquisition, and the role of dynamic businesses in creating a vibrant community. Baiju also highlights the significance of word-of-mouth in promoting Cleveland as a great place to live and work.

00:38
Ashtyn Morris
Welcome to another episode of Marketing Moves. I am your host, Ashtyn Morris, senior account executive at VividFront. Today's episode is all about the future of Cleveland. Our guest today is Baiju Shah, president and CEO of Greater Cleveland Partnership. GCP is the region's leading economic development organization. With over 12,000 members, it is the largest metropolitan chamber of commerce in the nation. Guided by a board of corporate and Entrepreneurial CEO's, the organization focuses on strategic initiatives, business services and advocacy to build a vibrant business environment and region. Through civic, private and public partner collaboration, GCP accelerates Greater Cleveland's growth and prosperity towards being one of the great legion regions in the Great Lakes. We're thrilled to have him on today to discuss the future of Cleveland. Baiju, welcome to marketing moves.

01:32
Baiju Shah
Thank you.

01:33
Ashtyn Morris
So excited to have you in, especially since you're so close by to our office.

01:36
Baiju Shah
Absolutely.

01:37
Ashtyn Morris
Quick little walk over. So before discussing all the great work you're doing through the Greater Cleveland Partnership, I first want to talk about your story. You're a passionate Clevelander, born and raised here, who boomeranged back. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself in your story?

01:53
Baiju Shah
Sure. So, as you said, I have the privilege of having been born a Clevelander. Right. And growing up in this community, which is a wonderful community to grow up in, have always been passionate about moving our region forward. I grew up in Mayfield. That's what I consider home from second grade until I graduate from high school. It's where my parents still live, east side of Cleveland, but certainly experienced the entire region. Graduated and left for a bit of time to pursue higher education and early professional careers, but always in my mind, wanted to come back. Someone had planted a seed while I was in high school saying, you know, this is a place that embraces people that have ideas and energy, and if you've got those, come back and try it out.

02:38
Ashtyn Morris
I love that. Do you have any favorite memories or stories about growing up in Cleveland?

02:44
Baiju Shah
Well, there's a lot of memories from growing up. I mean, it's, you know, as a kid, almost every day after school, it's just hanging out with your friends, playing flag football, other types of sports. We happen to live near the Metroparks and Nordstrom reservations, so lots of time throughout that entire park, riding my bikes, you know, running around on different trails. Cedar Point in the summers. Lots of sports memories. Not always great sports memories in those periods. Lots of heartbreak, but just a wonderful place to have grown up.

03:17
Ashtyn Morris
Absolutely. So you attended Yale University and then headed to Boston for Harvard. These are some very prestigious universities in the world, and you really could have gone anywhere after that. What was it in particular that brought you home again?

03:30
Baiju Shah
It's a couple of things. I met someone along the way whose name is relatively well-known in Cleveland. His name was Richard Shattan. And it turns out that Richard's mother was my third-grade teacher. And so, as I was growing up, I had always heard about Richard. Richard was involved in the creation of something called Cleveland Tomorrow. One of the many organizations that, over time, came together to form the Greater Cleveland partnership. And as I was talking to him when I was in high school, he planted that seed that, you know, Cleveland's a town on the move. If you've got ideas and energy, we'd love to have you back here, try it out. And that seed took root and sprouted while I was gone. And I think when you're gone from Cleveland, two things happen, especially when you're on the East Coast.

04:08
Baiju Shah
The first is, you know, there's a lot of people questioning, you know, Cleveland. You know, what's Cleveland got? Right? And so you get a little defensive. You get that chip on your shoulder, and you get that Cleveland pride starting to express itself about Cleveland's a great place because the people, you know, the people you've grown up with are wonderful people. Right? They're no different than anywhere else, but they're wonderful people, and they certainly deserve better in terms of reputation than, you know, what others may think of it. So a little bit of it is that kind of defensive reaction to, no, Cleveland's an incredible place. You just don't know. You haven't been to wherever, where I'm from. And the second was, again, that desire to be a part of what Cleveland was experiencing, which was a comeback.

04:52
Baiju Shah
And it's been amazing to watch for someone who saw Cleveland at one of its low points in the early eighties to see where Cleveland is today, it's completely transformational. And it's because of unbelievable amounts of energy from lots and lots of good people across this region.

05:09
Ashtyn Morris
Absolutely. And it's in part due to all the amazing work you are doing through GCP. As your organization plays a vital role in the marketing of Cleveland, the future and vitality of any community is its young people. Having people settle here, get married, and start families is the lifeblood of any city. Your efforts work toward attracting and retaining the youngest and brightest to Cleveland for long-term success. Before getting too far ahead of ourselves in the conversation, can you tell us a bit more about the greater Cleveland partnership and its mission?

05:40
Baiju Shah
Sure. So, as you said at the outset, our mission is simple. It's around accelerating the growth and prosperity of the region. But let's define the region. So I define the region in the way that people think about where they work, live, and play. And that is, if you root for any of our sports teams, you're in our region, right? The official definition is the greater Cleveland CSA. It's 3.7 million people.

06:01
Ashtyn Morris
Wow.

06:01
Baiju Shah
3.7 million people. People. When you're inside Cleveland, get very proud of their city, their neighborhood. You know, I live in Mayfield. I live in Shaker Heights. I live in Ohio City. I live wherever I live, which is wonderful. But when you're outside the region, you look at the region from the way that we all experience it, to work, live, and play. You know, we're in Lake County this weekend, enjoying all that Lake County has to offer. That is, you know, a part of the region no different than Canton, no different than where you grew up. Right? That's all a part of the greater Cleveland. And our mission, the partnership, is to accelerate that region, that entire region's growth and prosperity.

06:40
Baiju Shah
Now, that gets translated into many different initiatives where we help define some priorities that the private sector, the public sector, and the not-for-profit sector can work together on to continue that growth and prosperity.

06:54
Ashtyn Morris
How did you get involved with GCP?

06:56
Baiju Shah
Ever since I moved back to Cleveland now, 26 years ago, I've always had an interest in and the opportunity to be involved in different types of civic endeavors throughout my career. Along the way, I got to know GCP as an organization, as a partner in various endeavors that I was involved with throughout my career. In 2016, I was running a private firm called Biomotive. It's part of the Harrington Project, an initiative we created in 2012. And in our region in 2016, were experiencing this amazing moment where the world was coming to Cleveland, and they were realizing what we had been busy as a community building over the last 30 years, that there's this wonderful, not just city, but wonderful region. Right? And we have celebrations. We won a championship. Right?

07:44
Baiju Shah
We, 1.3 million of us came downtown to celebrate throughout that year, I realized for myself that I was enjoying being a Clevelander, enjoying celebrating all of our success, but feeling more like a spectator than a participant. And I had the opportunity in prior roles to be more of a participant than a spectator. I was still involved in boards. You know, I talked a little bit about David Gilbert. I've been on David's board for over a dozen years now, one of many great organizations I've had the privilege of being involved with. But I realized at that moment that I wanted to be, as we now say, all in on Cleveland. I wanted all my waking time to be spent on what can I do to help move our region forward.

08:27
Baiju Shah
And so that's when I went back to my company's board of directors and let them know that in my heart of hearts, that's where my passion is. That's what I want to do with this next phase of my career. We orchestrated an exit, they found a new CEO for the company, and off I went. And I went and I sort of jumped back in without really any plans, just a desire to be a part of helping move Cleveland forward in some way. One thing led to the next thing. This opportunity emerged, and I was fortunate enough to be selected.

09:00
Ashtyn Morris
That's an amazing story. I feel like a lot of people can resonate with. It's scary sometimes to follow your passion, but when you find something calling you to something, you found a way to make it happen. And your impact on Cleveland through GCP is amazing.

09:14
Baiju Shah
Well, it's. Look, I feel privileged every morning that I get to wake up and think about, what can we do collectively, not just as GCP, but really all of our partners. What can we be doing to move this mission of greater Cleveland forward, to have, hopefully, that impact that we want to have, not only for the present, but for future generations. That is an absolute privilege to be able to do this every day.

09:36
Ashtyn Morris
It might be hard to sum up, because I'm sure every day is different, but what's a typical day like for you?

09:42
Baiju Shah
So that is tough. So let me maybe describe it differently. So, first, the typical day. I'm an early birdhouse. I became an early bird when we had our first daughter and then stayed an early bird ever since. So I wake up around 4:30 in the morning, 4:00 - 4:30 in the morning, every morning. No alarm needed. Start with my caffeine.

10:02
Ashtyn Morris
That's really impressive.

10:03
Baiju Shah
Yeah. Start with my caffeine, which is two cups of tea. And that's my morning hours are my time to read, think, catch up a little bit. So from 4:30 to 7:00, that's what I'm doing. And it's just a quiet time for me in the house before everyone else is up and at it. By 7:30 in the morning, the day is lost as me, then I'm on schedule. Whatever's on the schedule. The rest of the day from 7:30. Usually 7:30 at night is day and then I collapse. You know, I'm early to bed unless there's a sports game going on. I'm pretty early to bed as well. But, you know, it's everything. You know, we have the privilege of being in the middle of a lot of different important initiatives in our community.

10:49
Baiju Shah
And so during the day it could be, you know, helping move a sustainable manufacturing innovation initiative forward. It could be focused on, you know, how do we think about bringing more of our college students that are within our region to be residents of our region once they graduate? It's helping enhance the refugee welcoming and settling infrastructure we're working on. Our equity and inclusion conference, sports facilities, those are always in the news, we're always in the mix. It's airports, it's the arts and culture community. We've got a pretty broad scope as it relates to economic development and the privilege of my role within the organization is I get touch all of it.

11:34
Ashtyn Morris
Oh yeah, I can see why you get up at 430 to get all of that done. I'm also an early riser. I feel like it helps maximize the day, but I'm not that early to arise.

11:43
Baiju Shah
Not many people are, which is why it's a quiet set of hours to get things done.

11:48
Ashtyn Morris
For sure. Over the past few years, your team has rolled out the all-in plan for Cleveland. The All-in plan for Greater Cleveland is to once again become one of the great regions in the Great Lakes. The plan identifies key priorities, metrics to track progress, and most important, an all-in approach that defines how private, public, and philanthropic partners, aka civic system, must work together to achieve the vision. Can you break down some of the key priorities and metrics your team evaluates?

12:17
Baiju Shah
Sure. So when went about setting a vision and a plan for where we would like to see the region get to in 2030, it was really important to me and really important to our board to say, we need to be able to measure success. We need to know how we're doing so that it's not just this project and this project. It's like, does it all add up to something that makes a meaningful difference to our region's businesses and our region's residents? So we chose three measures to be the North Star. You know, how fast are businesses growing? How fast is income growing and how fast are jobs growing? And we stack rank ourselves at Cleveland against every other Great Lakes metro region. Now, when we looked backwards for the prior decade, were kind of middle of the pack.

13:00
Baiju Shah
Out of eleven metro areas, were kind of right in the middle in terms of business growth, jobs growth, income growth. This past year, we finished fourth in business growth, fifth income growth, 7th out of 11th in jobs growth. And what I think is important about that, and it's jobs growth, not because we don't have the jobs. We'll get to this in a bit. We don't have the people, the jobs are there. We just don't have enough people. But it's important to have those measures because that then allows us to evaluate everything we're doing to understand, is it enough, like, are we working on the right things in the right ways, at the right scale to make a difference to a region of 3.7 million people?

13:38
Ashtyn Morris
Wow. I did a little bit of background research, as I do before all of my guests come on. But some of those priority areas also are those dynamic businesses, abundant talent, inclusive opportunity and an appealing community. Although these are all different, there's a lot of overlap in terms of you attract dynamic businesses by having an appealing community and you land strong talent by having an equitable workforce landscape. Can you talk about how you identified these as really those main priority areas?

14:08
Baiju Shah
Well, I'm glad you see the linkages. Right. Because we do think that, you know, our plan can't succeed if those four elements aren't interlocked, thriving together for all the reasons you just outlined. Now, I think if you looked at any region's plan, you'd find elements of this. I think great regions always start with dynamic businesses that are thriving because they are leveraging technology. They're leveraging technology not only to operate, but leveraging technology to innovate. And you have to have that. That's the foundation of any region's success. Thriving businesses that are competing nationally, if not globally, in their respective sectors, that attracts the talent, that enables the talent to prosper and fulfill its own potential. But to succeed, everybody has to be able to participate.

14:57
Baiju Shah
So whether it's by ethnic background, by gender background, by orientation, by foreign-born status, if you're not including everyone, there's no way that you're going to have enough talent to really support the growth of our businesses in this region. And then increasingly, this has been true really over the last ten to 15 years. Talent as much as businesses. Talent is choosing where they want to live as much as they're choosing where they want to work. And so if we don't have a community that appeals, and appeals in particular to the next two generations, we can't succeed. Those are the four priority areas, the four headings in terms of what we focus on. But then it gets down to the next level of, okay, what does that actually mean? Because those are platitudes. Everybody needs dynamic businesses, abundant talent, inclusive opportunity, and an appealing community.

15:50
Baiju Shah
But what do you do about it? And that's when you get into our strategies and we start to identify ways to move our region forward and to ultimately drive those big three metrics by focusing in our energy as the private sector, along with our partners on targeted initiatives that move the needle.

16:08
Ashtyn Morris
Can you talk about some of those pro-growth strategies?

16:11
Baiju Shah
So one of those examples is maybe two and a half years ago, our corporate leaders put on the agenda sustainability. And they put on the agenda sustainability as a growth opportunity for their businesses and for our region. Now, when many people think about sustainability, they think naturally about, we want an environment that is a wonderful place to live. We want to have the green region on a blue lake, as we say here in Greater Cleveland. And that's also very important. That sort of is on the appealing community side. But that's not why our corporate leadership put sustainability on the agenda. They saw that as this mega trend in business, that not only were consumers seeking products that had a lighter environmental footprint, but businesses were increasingly seeking products and services that had a lighter environmental footprint.

17:01
Baiju Shah
And that if we as a region don't pivot to explore how we change our products, how we change our processes, how do we nurture new businesses towards that mega trend, we're going to miss a major growth opportunity. So what does that mean for us? Corporate leaders put that on the docket, saying, this is really important as a region. We have to focus on it to grow businesses. They asked us to convene their sustainability leaders and work with their sustainability leaders to generate ideas on how we can accelerate our initiatives in the region so that more businesses would become more aware of the opportunities and then put in place the infrastructure, the platforms, the talent, the connections, the support required to pursue these opportunities. Fast forward.

17:52
Baiju Shah
Two and a half years later, we have a sustainability leaders group with over 45 companies and institutions participating that's generated a sustainability summit that we hold every year. That's more of a broad-based educational summit. Last year, we had 850 people participate in that. It's resulted in working groups on specific topics. For example, how do you create more sustainable packaging? That's important to the food industry. It's important to the consumer. But to do that, you need the material sciences folks in our companies to create the types of materials that enable. For, whether it's biodegradable or circular packaging, it's resulted innovation platforms that are being put together between institutions and companies. A few weeks ago, were lucky in our region to be awarded a $51 million grant from the federal government for what's called the sustainable Polymers Tech hub.

18:47
Baiju Shah
We were also awarded a sustainable manufacturing innovation engine. And these are places where people are coming together to come up with, what's that challenge that we're trying to solve for customers? How do we move this forward? In addition to companies pursuing transformations of their own individual processes, we're now looking at workforce. What are the types of programs that we need at community colleges and at higher educational organizations, so that we're training individuals to understand what this megatrend demands so they can better prepared to join the companies that we've got. And then we're marrying all of that into how do we work with our public partners and private partners to accelerate all of this and also to support the idea of a green region on a blue lake back here.

19:34
Baiju Shah
And so all of that is, are examples of sort of like how we're putting a growth strategy into practice. Now, you replicate that across many areas because our region is fortunate to have a very large region with a very diverse economy. So we replicate that with NASA Glenn. We're so fortunate to have one of the ten NASA centers in the country. And we are the place from which, you know, not only are we leading on power and propulsion, but we lay down space communications and technology transfer out of NASA. All of those things are led out of NASA Glenn, and we're trying to figure out how do you make that bigger?

20:12
Baiju Shah
How do you make sure our region participates, given this wonderful asset in space, to be a bigger part of what's a growing commercial opportunity in space, the same in healthcare, the same in other sectors. So these are the types of things that we do.

20:26
Ashtyn Morris
Wow, that's amazing. I think this is. You've kind of touched on it a little bit. In terms of sustainability is obviously very important for everyone, but especially the younger generation, in terms of they want a healthy planet for themselves, but also potentially their kids. What are some other things that you're doing to help attract a businesses relevant to the younger generation? In terms of, are there any growth strategies around that you're trying to make greater Cleveland area seem attractive to businesses that young people might want to work at.

20:52
Baiju Shah
Well, so I'm going to turn the question a little bit. I think, from my perspective, in our perspective, I should say younger generations in particular, maybe all generations, but younger generations, they want to be in places that are creating the future. They don't want to be places that are stuck in the present or certainly not stuck in the past. They want to be parts of places that are creating the future. And so what we're trying to do is nurture those types of businesses that are really innovating, whether it's around sustainability, whether it's around space, whether it's around healthcare, like working on major societal opportunities and challenges. And then we're helping those businesses become more visible to generations. One of our blessings in Cleveland is we've got this broad, diverse set of businesses, but most of them are not consumer-facing.

21:49
Baiju Shah
We know what Sherwin-Williams is because all of us buy paint. We know what progressive insurance is because all of us need to have auto insurance. Very few people know what Eaton does or what Parker Hannifin does or what Lubrizol does or what Swagelok does or Nordson does or any of these massive multibillion-dollar global companies. So part of what we're doing through a campaign that we've just launched called Big Ideas Bold Ventures, is we're doing storytelling about. Let us tell you about what goes on inside these companies and how their products enable the types of things that you touch and feel as a consumer so that you can get super excited to say, oh, I didn't realize that. If I want to talk about alternative energy or grid modernization, Eaton is one of the best companies in the world to work on that.

22:42
Baiju Shah
Or if I want to talk about going to space, it's not just about NASA Glenn, but it's about the technology coming out of Parker Hanifin or Swagelok. Or if I want to make a semiconductor, it's about all of our companies that are involved in that value chain that makes a semiconductor. So that's important as well. So that we highlight for all generations, but in particular younger generations. Why is that a cool place to work? What are you making? We did a visual x-ray that we shared at our annual meeting that told the story. And the story was basically this. We put up a picture of an electric vehicle, and my question to the audience was, what do you see? It's just a flat electric vehicle. Any audience, I show it to immediate word association is Tesla, right?

23:30
Baiju Shah
You see an electric vehicle, you think Tesla, you think California, you think Elon Musk, you think that's the future. Then I put an x-ray of that electric vehicle up, and I showed all the Cleveland companies that make that cargo. The number one supplier to Tesla is Cleveland Cliffs. People don't know that.

23:50
Ashtyn Morris
I didn't know that.

23:51
Baiju Shah
It's a special steel. The tires, that's Goodyear special tires that are required for electric vehicle. But everything from the body to the battery to the pumps and the motors and the fluid handling to the energy distribution on that vehicle, to the tires, to the charging infrastructure, which is Eaton, to the chargers, which is Lincoln Electric. We did an x-ray. We said, that's what we see. We see Cleveland. That's what Cleveland companies do. And we want to do that again and again so people realize, okay, I'm excited. I want to be a part of this because we're actually innovating the things that we are all seeing as the future.

24:31
Ashtyn Morris
That's very powerful. What are some of the biggest barriers we experience as a region to achieving our growth goals?

24:38
Baiju Shah
So our number one, two, and three challenge right now is talent. In my decades of being involved now, back in Cleveland, I've got that age. At this point. I have never been. We have never been in a position that we're in today. Our companies, large and small, are crushing it. They are thriving. We did analysis that we had a financial firm put together that said that Cleveland publicly traded companies have been outperforming the s and P 500, the kind of the stock index, by a lot over the last many number of years. That's an indicator of what our companies are doing. We're at 4%, roughly unemployment. Got about 50-ish thousand open jobs. The only thing that's holding us back from a growth perspective right now is enough talent.

25:28
Baiju Shah
So that is the biggest fundamental challenge that we've got, is Greater Cleveland is how do we tell our story? How do we bring more people back to Cleveland or to Cleveland from places around the country and around the world? That's it.

25:44
Ashtyn Morris
Definitely. Your efforts really are helping reshape the landscape. And I think that narrative, which is imperative for the economic growth, but also that talent acquisition. I did want to bring in some context as well of, you know, if you look at other Midwest cities and old rust belt cities like Buffalo, Toledo, Rochester, but, of course, bringing it back to Cleveland, what is your pitch to young people to live and work here? I mean, I'm from a small town, Youngstown area. As soon as I came to school here. I knew I wanted to live and work here. But for others, it might take a little bit more convincing.

26:16
Baiju Shah
Well, I think, you know, you're talking about, in particular the next generations. Great place to live and a great place to work to create the future. I think that's it. That's what we've got to be able to communicate to all generations, but in particular younger generations. And what's exciting is that we can deliver on all of that. When I came back to Cleveland 26 years ago, there was not an Ohio City to move into. There was not that type of neighborhood that you could walk around and have that kind of urban experience if that's what you want to live in. Fast forward, we've got that. We've got waterfront. We've got the ability to live in Detroit Shoreway. Now, if you want to live near a beach or in Lakewood, next to Lakewood Park, none of these things existed 26 years ago.

27:07
Baiju Shah
So you've got the lifestyle amenities. You've got the great restaurants, wonderful parks, you've got incredible arts, you've got incredible sports, and you've got it all available. I think that's the other part that makes Cleveland differentiated, is that everything that we've got is not only everything you could probably want, but it's accessible and it's affordable to you. When you live in Cleveland, lots of people that live in particular on the coast, it's not just about the cost of living. It's about the hassle of living you can't get from place a to place b. You know, I've heard often about people who are like, well, I wanted to live near this city. I'm like, well, how many times in the year have you gone into the city? And it's like, well, we go in once or twice. I'm like, well, does it make a difference?

27:57
Baiju Shah
Then why don't you just fly, you know, to visit once or twice a year, if that's what only advantage you're really taking of the city. Whereas here, you can live and take advantage of it day in and day out because there are no barriers. So it starts with that, but then you couple it with back to, and it's a great place to work. You don't have to give anything up. You can work with firms that lead their sectors across the world, and you can have all of that right here in Cleveland.

28:27
Ashtyn Morris
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, they discussed the challenging current economic conditions for recent college graduates. If you were a recent 22-year-old college grad, what are the leading industries in Cleveland, you would encourage them to consider to work in.

28:43
Baiju Shah
Well, again, we've got a very diversified set of industries here. So clearly we are world leaders in healthcare. If healthcare is your passion, there's almost no better place on the planet to pursue a career than here in Greater Cleveland. We're also world leaders in sustainable manufacturing. If you want to be in sustainability, we've got a plethora of companies to work in that are involved in sustainability. And then we've also got a very strong financial services sector. Whether it's our regional banks or our insurance companies, we've got a lot of financial services jobs. The other part of Cleveland, though, that is exciting to me, are firms like the firm that you're in, which are the entrepreneurial, creative firms that are here that are enabled to be stepped up with relative ease. Again, compared to other geographies, it's about the affordable real estate.

29:40
Baiju Shah
It's about having access to talented individuals and being able to be connected to all of that. That enables entrepreneurs to get into business relatively quickly. And so there is this vibrant, creative professional services scene where a young college graduate can jump into an organization like yours and all of a sudden be a part of a really exciting service organization that works with really cool clients.

30:08
Ashtyn Morris
Yeah, I mean, I am so grateful for Vividfront in terms of. I started here when I was still in college, so it was my final semester of my final year at BW. I ended up staying next year because I had Covid eligibility. I just met someone, said, hey, are you interested in marketing? Feel free to reach out. I reached out, didn't realize it was an interview. I thought it was more just getting to know. And then I quickly realized it was an interview and they took a chance on me in terms of had me start as an apprentice. I worked my way up, and now, two and a half years later, senior account executive. And it's been quite a journey, but it's great.

30:42
Ashtyn Morris
And I think Cleveland has a lot of those opportunities because although we are a city, it still almost has a small town vibe in terms of everyone knows everyone, and they're also always looking to give people a chance. And I think a lot of major cities don't, outside of Cleveland, don't really have that experience.

31:00
Baiju Shah
I think that's right. And again, I think that's a different form of accessibility that's really important. I like to say that our billionaires drive their own cars. There's no chauffeurs, there's no gatekeepers. That same is true of our elected officials. It's just everyone is accessible, which gives people the opportunity to explore careers, explore new opportunities. The other thing you said that was really important there is that you started to work while you were in college. And so I'm a big believer internships. I think internships are an amazing way for younger individuals to get exposed, because when you're growing up and when you're going to college, you don't know much about the world of work. You kind of know what your parents do. You kind of know what happens in educational settings, maybe one or two other types of fields.

31:46
Baiju Shah
But once you get to the world of work, you're like, oh, my gosh, I didn't even know that there were companies that did these types of things or roles in companies that focused just on that. So internships are a great way for young individuals to get exposure. But at the same time, it's also a great way for companies, especially smaller organizations, that aren't going to have the bandwidth or the brand recognition to recruit at Baldwin, Wallace or any of our other great regional higher ed institutions to start to draw talent in and to be able to fill their own talent pipelines.

32:18
Ashtyn Morris
I completely agree. I do want touch on as well. We've talked about the waterfront, Lake Erie. If people don't know Cleveland has that wonderful position of being directly connected to Lake Erie. We are the largest city on the lake and anchor the third largest us metro area in the Great Lakes region, after greater Chicago and metro Detroit. When I look out of my apartment, I can see the beautiful sunsets on Lake Erie, which I don't take for granted. What is GCP doing? Or what are some of the goals and initiatives around maximizing the natural wonder in proximity to Lake Erie?

32:51
Baiju Shah
It is a wonder. 20% of the world's freshwater we have the privilege of being in a region that sits right on there. So there's three things that we are focused on. The first is it's really important to keep the freshwater health. So we've been strong supporters of getting in place the Great Lakes restoration initiative at the federal level. We constantly advocate for its renewal and funding, and we're strongly supportive of the governor's efforts through H two Ohio to do the same at the state level. So that's essential. We have to protect that beautiful natural resource that we are privileged to have. The second, then, is to make the waterfronts much more accessible. We've seen this here in Greater Cleveland, where when you make the waterfront accessible and when you make it a public asset, as Edgewater Park has become development occurs adjacent to it.

33:43
Baiju Shah
Billions of dollars of investment occur. People want to live there. People want to have the experience that you have of being able to see the sunsets, experience the water, walk there. So we want to create much more accessibility to our waterfronts, both along the lake. And I think of that all the way from Sandusky to Ashtabula, as well as our riverfronts, because we know that people will gravitate. And again, if people are choosing more and more where they live before where they work, we want to create those types of communities where people want to live. And we know water is critical to that. And then the third thing that's related to that is fresh water.

34:20
Baiju Shah
Again, we're kind of in this unique place on the planet where we don't think about it that much, but it's a scarcity not only in other places in our country, but certainly around the world. And, you know, freshwater supplies are often challenged by other uses that have made the water contaminated or not usable. We think there's a growing opportunity for Greater Cleveland to be a leader in water technology, and the Cleveland Water Alliance is the platform that has been organized, that is nurturing that sector here in Greater Cleveland, both by helping our local companies that are supporting freshwater technology thrive, but also by attracting companies here.

35:06
Baiju Shah
Recently, they attracted a company from South Korea to establish their operations in the United States here in Greater Cleveland, because of a partnership they were able to nurture between that company and one of our water utilities here.

35:19
Ashtyn Morris
Wow. I can see that playing a role in building a greater future for Cleveland on the Great Lakes. This is really maximizing, but having to always balance the environmental, residential, and business needs. In 2004, GCP was formed through the merger of several business groups, making 2024 the 20th anniversary of what GCP is known as today. I know someone at your level has had many accomplishments, but what would you say is your number one current pebble in your shoe that you're working on in your role? Is there a part of the all-in plan that you really want to prioritize in 2024?

35:54
Baiju Shah
Well, thanks for that. We haven't actually thought about this as a 20th anniversary because we actually. If you date all the organizations back, it's sort of. 1848 is when this started. That's when the business community came together, formed what was at the time called the Cleveland Board of Trade. So last year, we celebrated 175 years of the business community being engaged in civic matters, trying to help our region continue to move forward in growth and prosperity, you know, well, there's. There's there's the intangible and the tangible, like, so the intangible is this people issue. Right. We have got to share that message, ideally word of mouth. I'm going to tell you about my new favorite, well, not, I won't call it favorite person, one of the families that I truly admire in Cleveland. They're neighbors of ours, Amanda and Haim Mayan.

36:40
Baiju Shah
No connection to Cleveland. They were in Miami. They had lived in many different places, but kind of South Florida, 2016, they start to see that there's not a great real estate opportunity in Florida, but they were in the real estate rehab business. They look around the country. They look for places where they saw the dynamics that would enable them to get involved in real estate rehabilitation, in particular around multifamily or apartment, and make money doing so. And they've discovered Cleveland. And when I say Cleveland, I mean East Cleveland, not Ohio city, but East Cleveland is where they started. And then they've continued to work in kind of Cleveland, near east side of Cleveland. Hyman Amanda, you know, after several years, decide to move to Cleveland in 2019.

37:27
Baiju Shah
Since they have moved here, they have moved 26 members of their family and friends network to Cleveland by singing the praises of Cleveland. Not to work in their company, but just because this is a great place to live and a great place to work. And so I'm like, this is amazing. Like, I don't know how to bottle what they do and make everyone do it, but it's, how do we as a region, kind of like we now talk about, Cleveland is a great place to visit, how do we start to talk to outsiders about, Cleveland's a great place to live and work as well? So that's the big one, right?

38:08
Baiju Shah
That is the big intangible thing that we've got to figure out as a region that I keep thinking about, whether it's college students through internships and our summer in the land program where we had 1800 students this summer, or refugees that we're able to welcome here, get settled and hopefully through their word of mouth networks, bring in more individuals or professionals. We've got to figure out a way to get more and more people here to drive our growth. That's the big rock that's between us, not just the pebble, but the big rock that we're all starting to creatively try to address.

38:45
Ashtyn Morris
Well, that's an amazing story. I think.

38:48
Baiju Shah
26, 26 people. I mean, it's amazing. It's like, some are not easy, but it's like, some are like, okay, they moved their parents. Okay, I get that. But then you start to get to, oh, well, this person was in Portland, Oregon, and they weren't doing so well. And so we said, come to Cleveland. And now they're settled, and this person's over here, and all of a sudden, it's just like this unbelievable one family, pied piper-like approach to bringing the world here. But that's what's always been true about not just Cleveland, but successful regions. Right? So if you dial back to kind of Cleveland's early heydays, it was all about people saying to their networks, paper word of mouth. At that point, because of overseas travel, come to Cleveland. A revolution is happening. Workers are needed to power the industrial revolution.

39:38
Baiju Shah
That's where we are again. We're at this place where our companies are thriving, our institutions are thriving. It's a great place to live. And we need that word-of-mouth network to be out there telling people, this is where you need to be. This is where life is good.

39:53
Ashtyn Morris
You can't put a price on word of mouth. It's the name of the game in any type of marketing, any type of.

39:57
Baiju Shah
Marketing, it's all about word of mouth. So we can enable it, we can support it, we can give people the information they need. But ultimately, we need to activate the mass of Clevelanders that love this region. To be expressive about it is a great place to live and work.

40:12
Ashtyn Morris
My last question for you before we go into our rapid-fire question round. If were sitting down 20 years from now, what would you hope to be your top two to three accomplishments for GCP?

40:26
Baiju Shah
That's hard. So I'm going to go back to intangible. I would feel really good if three things were probably true 20 years from now. The first is we maintain those North Star metrics, because you got to have that. Whoever is involved in our civic system needs to have that scorecard in front and center with all the leaders, business and otherwise, saying, are we doing the right things in the right way, at the right scale? So, anchoring in on business growth, income growth, jobs growth, being our three north stars, absolutely critical. The second would be, then the foundation. Values. We talked about, all in values for the civic system. Seven values that we've defined when we are at our best as partners across the civic system, we operate in line with those seven all-in values.

41:19
Baiju Shah
I would love to see that culture continue 20 years from now. And then. The third is just having a system that is constantly embracing new talent, new ideas, new talent, new energy is any thriving region, and any thriving organization has to constantly be dynamic. You can't get stuck. You can't have the same thoughts, the same people. You've got to have that dynamism to keep pushing the region and keep bringing in new ideas of things that we hadn't thought about because, you know, the next generation is more attuned to it than the current generation.

42:03
Ashtyn Morris
Sounds like we need to circle back in 20 years.

42:06
Baiju Shah
Well, 20 years, hopefully. I'm still a participant in some way. Not in this role. I guarantee you that.

42:14
Ashtyn Morris
Yes. All right, well, are you ready for the rapid-fire session?

42:18
Baiju Shah
Sure.

42:19
Ashtyn Morris
Favorite thing about Cleveland, the people. Favorite fun fact about Cleveland?

42:26
Baiju Shah
Oh, fun fact. Birthplace is Superman, and they were just here filming, and we just were, you know, a month long treat of Superman filming throughout our town and kind of the civic pride booming because of it.

42:39
Ashtyn Morris
Love it. Favorite Cleveland park.

42:43
Baiju Shah
Ooh. So I'm going to choose. It's hard because I love the metro parks, but my favorite place to catch a sunset? Lakewood Park.

42:51
Ashtyn Morris
Oh, it's stunning.

42:52
Baiju Shah
It's not just the solstice steps, but you see the world together, literally and figuratively, because it's such this international experience. It's an amazing place to catch the sunset and to catch Cleveland people.

43:05
Ashtyn Morris
Agreed. Favorite restaurant in Cleveland?

43:08
Baiju Shah
Jug.

43:09
Ashtyn Morris
Oh, so good. So good. Last question. Favorite Cleveland coffee shop.

43:15
Baiju Shah
So I'm a tea drinker and I make my own. I make my own home brew. But if I had to go to a Cleveland coffee shop, it'd be Rising Star.

43:23
Ashtyn Morris
Oh, that's a great location. Baiju, thank you so much for joining us today. I know for a fact that our listeners have gained valuable insights on the behind the scenes work you and your team are doing to amplify Cleveland on a national and global scale. Where can listeners find you if they want to connect?

43:40
Baiju Shah
Well, you can find me online. You can find me on social media. That's probably the easiest way to find me. LinkedIn. You know, I would encourage all your listeners to follow Greater Cle, Greater Cleveland Partnership on LinkedIn, on our other social medias, on Instagram, on Twitter, Facebook. If you've got listeners that are of a certain vintage, I think we even have a Facebook page.

44:02
Ashtyn Morris
I love your LinkedIn. That's where I get a lot of my information in terms of what's going on. So definitely follow it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

44:09
Baiju Shah
Great to see you.

44:12
Lisa Perry Kovacs
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