The IBJ Podcast

Inside the plan to extend life expectancy for residents of five Indy neighborhoods

One way you can gauge the health of a city is the number of cranes on its skyline. One of the biggest contributors of cranes over downtown in the last two years has been the $4.3 billion IU Health hospital campus under construction just south of Methodist Hospital. It’s a generational development for that side of downtown, but IU Health officials want to make sure it doesn’t overshadow the many needs of historic neighborhoods to the north and to the west.

For several years the hospital system has been planning an initiative and nonprofit organization known as Indy Health District. It focuses on five neighborhoods with a total of about 9,000 residents who, due to a number of socioeconomic factors, have a much lower life expectancy than folks who live in other parts of the Indy metropolitan area. The district’s leaders want to find solutions for most, if not all, of the issues weighing on these neighbors, including housing, transportation, land use, safety and food deserts.

It’s an incredibly ambitious undertaking that’s a bit difficult to wrap your brain around. It also prompts a healthy amount of skepticism. So we’ve invited Jamal Smith to lay out the plans for us. He’s executive director of Indy Health District and executive director of government affairs and strategic partnerships for IU Health. And he grew up with some of the impediments to success and good health that the residents of the district face.

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What Indy tourism guru Chris Gahl learned from his father’s murder, surviving cancer

Last week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast featured Chris Gahl, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Visit Indy, unpacking the strategy for promoting Indianapolis to a worldwide audience during Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. As promised, we have a follow-up interview with Gahl this week that is so different from last week’s that we needed to carve out a separate space for it.

Gahl is one of the most recognizable figures among those who promote Indianapolis—and one of the most important voices for the city’s brand of Midwestern hospitality and inclusive values. He’s known for his sunny disposition and easy way for expressing enthusiasm for almost any topic. But his adult life was shaped by childhood tragedy—the murder of his father.

Thomas E. Gahl, a U.S. probation officer for the Southern District of Indiana, was killed in 1986 by a parolee in Fountain Square. It of course was a catastrophic event for Gahl, his mother and his younger brother, Nick. Even today, he’s sorting through the repercussions of the loss of his father.

The tragedy reverberated in a different way in 2018 when Gahl was diagnosed with cancer. A father of two boys himself, Chris couldn’t help but see the potential for his sons to suffer a similar loss. Under the care of a legend in the Indianapolis medical community, he got a clean bill of health last year. And he generously agreed to talk about the lessons from his cancer journey and his father’s death for this week’s edition of the podcast.

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How Taylor Swift will give Indy a massive platform to promote itself

Does anyone need reminding that Indianapolis is less than two weeks away from hosting Taylor Swift and the last U.S. dates for the Eras Tour? There of course are three shows scheduled Nov. 1, 2 and 3 in Lucas Oil Stadium, and more than 50 related events planned across the city to entertain fans over what essentially will be a major holiday downtown.

About 200,000 people are expected to come downtown that weekend to either attend or simply celebrate the concerts. About 195,000 tickets have been sold, and about 80% of the ticket holders will come from outside Indiana. This is an immense marketing opportunity for Visit Indy, the agency in charge of promoting Indianapolis for conventions, entertainment and other tourism. Not only will the eyes of the world be trained on Indianapolis for an entire weekend, giving Visit Indy an unbeatable hook for hyping the city in its best light, but it will have days to make a lasting impression on tens of thousands of people just getting to know the city. The Eras Tour also will bring an untold number of corporate leaders and celebrities to the city, each with the potential to make a measurable impact on Indianapolis.

In this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King talks strategy with Chris Gahl, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Visit Indy. He explains how Visit Indy plans to leverage this nearly unprecedented opportunity with a campaign that incorporates social media, geofencing, Indianapolis International Airport, hotel managers, an army of volunteers, curated tours for corporate and celebrity VIPs, the Visit Indy suite at Lucas Oil Stadium and even outreach to Lyft and Uber drivers.

Photo by Paolo Villanueva (@itspaolopv) via Flickr

 

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What’s the potential impact of Lilly’s $4.5B ‘medicine foundry’ in Lebanon?

The LEAP Research and Innovation District under development near Lebanon represents a shift in the way economic development officials are working to attract companies to Indiana and create jobs. Its detractors have objected to the strategy by the Indiana Economic Development Corp. to corner thousands of acres of rural land for the project. Some are highly skeptical about the impact of channeling tens of millions of gallons of water per day to the site for its tenants. You could argue that the thing giving LEAP the most sizzle and credibility right now is its future anchor tenant: Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co.

In total, Lilly has committed to investing more than $13 billion in its facilities and activities at the district. It has revealed its plans over four announcements in the last two and a half years, with the most recent coming earlier this month: a $4.5 billion project called the Lilly Medicine Foundry. Where the previous investments were all about manufacturing, this latest announcement is more about research. The so-called foundry will focus on how to make new medicines better and faster, while also increasing capacity for clinical trial medicines. Other potential payoffs for Hoosiers include creating an anticipated 400 full-time jobs for highly skilled workers, who will include engineers, scientists and operations personnel.

In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, reporter John Russell puts it all in context and explores in greater depth the potential impact of the foundry as Lilly hovers near a milestone that would make it one of the most valuable companies in America.

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Indy food bloggers ‘A Couple Cooks’ on becoming internet famous, publishing new cookbook

Sonja and Alex Overhiser are among the most influential chefs in Indiana, but you won’t find them working in any restaurant. From the kitchen in their home south of Broad Ripple, they have created, tested and posted more than 3,000 recipes to their 14-year-old food-influencer website, acouplecooks.com. It logs millions of pageviews per month, while the Overhisers also maintain a social media following that includes about 107,000 subscribers on Instagram and 96,000 followers on Pinterest.

For the last several years, they also have been working on a glossy cookbook for publisher Chronicle Books that leverages the punny hook in their brand: A Couple Cooks. They’re not just two relatives: Sonja and Alex are married, and the cookbook addresses the joys and challenges of people who work together to make the same dishes. Titled “A Couple Cooks: 100 Recipes to Cook Together,” it also includes step-by-step instructions for sharing the workload for each dish. It will be available online and on bookstore shelves on Oct. 15.

The “cook together” angle helped the Overhisers land their book deal with Chronicle, which has given the $40 final product a hard-cover heft and high-end sheen suitable for a holiday or newlywed gift. As the guests for this week’s IBJ Podcast, the Overhisers pull the curtain back on the process for finding a literary agent and getting a deal with a publisher, as well as the process for marketing a cookbook. They also take us back to the early days of establishing acouplecooks.com. They worked for seven years to develop a fan base and learn the ins-and-outs of internet creator commerce before quitting their day jobs and going all-in on their food-blogger platform.

 

From the Army to finance to tech to owning an excavation firm, Andrea Sloan says ‘yes’ and takes chances

Readers of IBJ’s annual lists of fastest-growing Indianapolis-area companies might be familiar with GroundBreakers, formerly known as GroundBreakers Hydrovac Excavation. Between 2021 and 2023, its annual revenue grew 143.1% to $18.9 million, which was good for 10^th place on our most recent list. All of that growth came under President Andrea Sloan, who was recruited in 2018 to become the chief executive and buy the firm. She acquired it in chunks and became the outright owner in 2021.

So who is Andrea Sloan? Is she one of those management ringers that private equity firms hire to take over companies? Nope. Did she have a resume full of experience in the construction and utility services fields? No. Did she have an MBA? No. Andrea Sloan’s rise is a testament to many of the less traditional paths to business leadership we’ve discussed over the years on the podcast, as well as some of the less measurable philosophies of career management. Sloan is a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves, an entrepreneur and a jack of all trades with significant experience in a wide variety of fields. She also is a proponent of the “fake it til you make it” philosophy, enthusiastic networking, creating a supportive culture and always saying “yes” to opportunities.

As our guest on this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, Sloan discusses growing up on the east side of Indianapolis and attending Scecina Memorial High School. She shares what she learned from the reserves, co-founding a company and taking a side trip into state government. She extols the virtues of taking chances, finding mentors and hiring other veterans. And she recalls what she calls her “Pretty Woman” moment, when the banks that declined to loan Groundbreakers money started seeking out her business.

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

Fever’s sales guru on preparing for Caitlin Clark, using data and AI to win over fans

The Indiana Fever's 2024 season has been transformational for the team on the court, in the box office and in the revenue column, in particular with the advent of two major difference-makers. One, of course, is all-star rookie Caitlin Clark, and the other is the rapidly advancing technology that the sales and marketing teams use to entertain—and retain—ticket holders from the Fever’s sold-out games in Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

Todd Taylor, president of business operations for Pacers Sports & Entertainment, joins the IBJ Podcast this week to detail how the Pacers and Fever are using artificial intelligence and customer data to make potent connections with fans, as well as how the teams expect to be able to use those elements in the future. They can gather data to build customer profiles about attendees and what they enjoy about the experience; customize the communication they receive and when they receive it; and provide personalized offers. In the future, the teams hope to be able recognize where fans are in the fieldhouse at any given time and interact with them digitally. Taylor also explains how PS&E adjusted to the explosion in demand for tickets, how his staff calibrates ticket pricing for a vastly expanded array of options, and how its content creators are feeding the marketing beast.

At the beginning of the conversation, Taylor takes us back to early 2024 as the sales and marketing teams began preparing for the very likely possibility that the Fever would draft Clark. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion, however, and the department needed to consider other scenarios. Of course, ticket demand eventually skyrocketed, leading to three straight weeks of fielding requests for ticket packages. Staffers must remain flexible as the playoffs progress. For example, they won’t know whether there will even be a first-round game in Indy until Wednesday night.

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Orr fellows leverage networking to boost value of tech, entrepreneurial positions

Now in its 23^rd year, the Orr Fellowship program has helped develop an astounding number of leaders in Indiana’s tech and entrepreneurial ecosystems. It now counts 624 alumni who have worked at—and in some cases founded—nearly 300 significant companies and organizations.

The program was established in 2001 to help develop the early careers of promising college graduates, in part by matching them with high-growth Indiana companies for two-year stays. In addition to employment, the fellowship offers vast networking opportunities, workshops, pitch competitions and stipends to learn new skills. The hope is that Orr Fellows will decide to stay in-state and form the foundation for new generations of leadership. Indeed, 84% of fellows remain in-state immediately after the program. If you take into account all of the alumni over 23 years, about 60% are still Hoosiers.

We can get a robust sense of the big picture by narrowing the focus to an Indianapolis-based startup named Malomo. It was co-founded by serial entrepreneur Yaw Aning, who was a member of Orr Fellowship’s Class of 2007. Malomo’s head of strategy and operations is Alicia Gaba, a member of the Fellowship’s Class of 2008 and who joined Malomo in 2021. Mariah Parsons, who currently is Malomo’s head of marketing, joined the firm as a fellow in 2021 and was promoted to the leadership team soon after the fellowship ended.

All three are guests on this week’s podcast to talk about their experiences as fellows and a concept we call horizontal networking. In this case, it’s how Orr Fellows lean on their peers for mentoring, career support, job opportunities and even capital as they help grow central Indiana’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. We also take a side trip to talk about Indiana brain drain and whether that concern is less relevant in the age of remote work.

Pete the Planner on the best places to stash your cash

On Sept. 18, we will learn whether or not the Federal Reserve will lower its federal funds interest rate for the first time in four years. It could be one of the biggest financial events of the year, leading to lower interest rates for lending and quite possibly a big bump in spending in the U.S. economy. In this episode of the podcast, our concern lies in its effect on the interest rates banks pay consumers for parking their money in savings. That interest rate also would go down.

For the podcast, we’re defining savings as money you want to be able to get your hands on fairly quickly without disrupting your long-term investment strategy. But it’s not necessarily the money you keep in your checking account either. It’s relatively liquid—some people still call it “cash”. But you want to be able to watch it grow—at least a little bit. There are lots of options for savers, such as passbook savings accounts, high-yield-savings accounts, certificates of deposit and money market accounts. And you almost certainly know someone who wants to punt their savings to tangible assets like gold. Each option has advantages and drawbacks, depending on how quickly you want to access your money, how much interest you can get and the amount of exposure to risk. IBJ Podcast host Mason King always has been a money-under-the-mattress kind of guy, but he realizes now that this is tantamount to hiding your head in the sand while the dessert cart rolls by. This week, IBJ columnist Pete the Planner fills us in on the Fed’s impending interest rate decision and the best places to stash your cash.

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'Swiftianapolis,' 10 more can't-miss arts events, and what they all say about Indy

We are in the era of peak entertainment. Through our phones, computers and televisions, we have access to nearly every movie, album, TV show, book and video game ever created. You'd think many of us would decide it isn’t necessary to leave our homes. In the Indianapolis area, that apparently is not the case. IBJ just published its 2024-25 arts and entertainment calendar, and the number of music, dance, comedy, literary, film and theatrical events—not to mention art fairs and exhibits— to choose from is astonishing for an area that two generations ago was known as “India-no-place.”

IBJ arts reporter Dave Lindquist has curated a list of 125 artistically significant and culturally relevant offerings that our readers can trust will be worth their time. Looking at this list, we can learn a lot about how the arts and entertainment ecosystem in central Indiana has changed. Right off the bat, you’ll see that the 125 picks represent 60 venues, many of which only recently debuted as suburban communities engage in an arts amenities arms race. Not only is Indianapolis now a regular stop for Broadway performers like Leslie Odom Jr., it’s also a place that’s developing work for Broadway. Movies and musicians just beginning to sniff international recognition come to Indianapolis to help gain momentum. And then there’s the generation-defining cultural phenomenon, Taylor Swift, who has chosen Indianapolis for the climax of the Eras Tour in America. For this week’s IBJ Podcast, Dave has culled 10 events from his list for deeper discussion, and host Mason King adds a few more. And then they start examining the potential impact and import of “Swiftianapolis,” coming in early November.

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.