John Vickers , Founder & CEO of Blue Abyss. John is building one of the most ambitious and inspiring projects I’ve encountered while exploring what people are building in Cleveland! After spending eight years in the British A...
Laura Bennett and Alex Krooglik, co-founders of Embrace Pet Insurance, which was sold in 2023 for $1.5 billion to JAB Holding Company. The duo founded Embrace Pet Insurance after graduating from Penn’s Wharton School of Busin...
Dan Nitowsky, Chair of TIGER 21 Cleveland. Dan, like me is a native New Yorker who has made Cleveland his home & has spent 30 years here in Cleveland as a highly accomplished executive with a proven history of success in dist...
Fred DiSanto, Chairman and CEO of Ancora — the Cleveland-based investment firm with nearly $10B in assets under management and over 100 employees — which he’s led since 2006! Before Ancora, Fred had an expansive investing car...
Taylor Evans — Founder and President of Rust Belt Recruiting, a leading local manufacturing recruiting agency, which also hosts a kindred-spirit podcast to Lay Of The Land, called Rust Belt Rundowns, where they are amplifying...
My guests this week are my friends and partners over at Impact Architects —who many of you will note are the longest-time supporters of Lay of The Land and the community building work we’re doing together — Kris Snyder and Ji...
Sandor Gyerman and Jared Anderson , the dynamic co-founders of Andor Creative. Founded in 2018 when they were Sophomores at Cleveland State University, Andor Creative was born to find more innovative ways to produce advertisi...
Joshua Edmonds , CEO of DigitalC. The digital divide — this gap between people who have access to the internet and those who do not — is something you may have heard me bring up a few times before on this podcast — while not ...
Mike Malley, President and CEO of Malley's Chocolates . If you grew up in northeast Ohio it’s very likely you know of Malley’s Chocolates, a staple of this community, providing delicious chocolate candies & treats for over ei...
Craig Hassall , CEO of Playhouse Square Craig is a mainstay in the international theater community, with decades of experience operating and curating the most prestigious venues across Europe and Australia. Over his career, i...
Keith Gerchak and Marisa Guterman — Founders @ Double G Films This is a truly special episode — I always love exploring the parallels between entrepreneurship and art and in our conversation today, we get to explore the fasci...
Mitchell Vargo, Partner at Forward Hospitality Group. Since its founding in 2015, the Cleveland-based Hospitality Group has built out unique entertainment, bar, and restaurant experiences locally and all across the country — ...
Ian Maurer — Chief Technology Officer at GenomOncology and co-lead of the Cancer Informatics for Cancer Centers’ AI working group. With over two decades of software experience, Ian has led GenomOncology — a Cleveland-based so...
Umberto P. Fedeli — Founder, President, and CEO of The Fedeli Group I first had the opportunity to speak with Umberto on this podcast just over a year ago! At the time, our conversation extended far beyond what we were able ...
Matt Buder Shapiro — Chief Marketing Officer at Vytalize Health, Previously Founder at MedPilot (Acquired) I first spoke to Matt on this podcast 3 years ago. At the time, as a co-founder and chief marketing officer of MedPilo...
Aaron Slodov — CEO of Atomic Industries, a company he co-founded back in 2019 and has raised over $20 million from leading investors like Toyota Ventures, Impatient Ventures, Narya Capital, 8090 Industries, and others! Atomic...
Darren Small , co-founder and CEO of Oko . With over a decade of experience on Wall Street, Darren’s analytical background from the world of investment banking, stocks, and data, equipped him with a keen eye for efficiency an...
John Kempf — founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA), a regenerative agronomy company started back in 2006 to share the knowledge, tools, and systems that regenerate farm profitability, soil health, and plant health, all w...
Adam Graybill , co-founder and CEO of Journey Biosciences . With a robust 20-year tenure in the diabetes market, Adam has been at the forefront of assembling purpose-driven teams and forging impactful strategic partnerships a...
Phil Londrico , Founder & CEO of JaTango — an interactive broadcasting and e-commerce platform that gives individuals the power to host their own live shopping channel anywhere. For many years now, we’ve seen e-commerce grow,...
Dr. James Kenyon , Director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio The road to the Moon goes through Cleveland. With a budget of approximately $900 million, a staff of more than 3,200 civil servants, over 725 pate...
Ryan McManus — founder and CEO of SHARE Mobility Ryan is passionate about solving workforce and rural mobility challenges, creating and affording equitable access to transportation, and ultimately changing the way people actu...
Today we’re running a replay of one of my favorite conversations from 2022 with Lila Mills of Signal Cleveland . Since we last spoke, Signal Cleveland has continuously produced reliable daily journalism across a plethora of l...
Andre Cisco — Manager for MGK and XX Brands, Brand Strategist and Investor, co-owner of the 27 Club — the coffee lounge and kitchen here in Cleveland — and Managing Partner at Dead Logic, a marketing strategy and brand manage...