The IBJ Podcast

List of most influential Hoosiers contains dozen of new names

Last July, IBJ Media unveiled the inaugural issue of the Indiana 250—a compendium of the state’s 250 most influential and impactful business and community leaders. The definitions of “influence” and “impact” were intentionally broad, and the list included C-suite executives, not-for-profit leaders, civic bigwigs, lawyers, bankers, board chairs, artists, promoters, judges, philanthropists, and serial entrepreneurs. The biggest caveat was that the list didn’t include elected officials because their influence was already so obvious.

The beauty of the Indiana 250 concept is that the list is a living document that’s updated every year. On July 20, IBJ Media unveiled the 2023 edition of the Indiana 250, and there has been significant turnover with dozens of new honorees knocking others off the list. For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Nate Feltman, co-owner and CEO of IBJ Media, joins host Mason King to shed more light on the process of choosing honorees this year. They also shine a spotlight on 10 of the Hoosier leaders making their first appearances on the list.

 

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Inside the $89M plan to turbocharge Motor Speedway’s museum

It’s not hard to find the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum if you’re a fan of the track: It’s tucked on the inside of the short chute between turns 1 and 2. The ironic thing is that while the Speedway was originally built as a testing ground for new technology and the IndyCar Series has always made a habit of adopting racing innovations, the museum has seemed increasingly mired in the past. Its exhibits have been mostly static, including a gallery of Indy 500-winning cars that some say resembles the lot at a car auction. Until very recently, the museum only featured one or two new exhibits per year.

On July 11, museum officials announced plans for an $89 million transformation, ushering in a totally redesigned experience for visitors, a robust educational program for school-aged children and a beefier endowment that would help pay for more and better exhibits. Race fans might be tempted to think that this change is being driven by Roger Penske, who bought the Speedway and the IndyCar Series in 2020, but the museum actually is owned and run by an independent not-for-profit which leases the museum facility from the track owner.

In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Joe Hale, the museum’s executive director, explains how the planned renovation will be much more than a tuneup—more like a rebuild, with a sleeker design and all the latest technology to give visitors a greater sense of being in the driver’s seat.

Fast-growing MOTW Coffee and Pastries expanding from Indy to Chicago

Two years ago, Sajjad Shah entered the Indianapolis coffee shop market with his eyes wide open and a hook that could help differentiate his locations from the herd of java joints. His coffee shops would have a built-in audience through a very popular Instagram account that he founded in 2014, and they would be tied to the account’s overarching mission: promoting the Muslim community and raising millions of dollars for Muslims in crisis around the world. Indeed, the name of the Instagram account is Muslims Of The World, and it currently has about 680,000 followers. The coffee shops are called MOTW Coffee and Pastries. In just two years, Shah has gone from one shop to four, located in Carmel, Fishers, Castleton and on West 38^th Street in the International Marketplace District in Indianapolis.

In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Shah reveals that he’s planning an aggressive expansion outside of central Indiana, starting with a 3,000-square-foot shop expected to open within a few months in the Chicagoland area. He also tells host Mason King that within five years he hopes to have 40 to 50 MOTW shops in the U.S.—a mix of company-owned and franchised locations. Shah didn’t have a lot of experience with coffee when he got started, but he did have many years in corporate accounting and consulting, and he thinks he’s landed on a formula for lean and mean coffee shops that’s easily repeatable.

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Lilly in middle of big battle over future of drug prices for seniors

The health care industry in America is on the precipice of its biggest change at least since the passage of Obamacare 13 years ago. Passed last summer, the Inflation Reduction Act has given Medicare the green light to negotiate the prices of some drugs for its 60 million-some recipients. The program is expected to save patients many billions of dollars while significantly shrinking revenue for some pharmaceutical firms. Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. is intensely concerned about this development. Two of its most popular medicines are expected to be among the first 40 drugs subject to negotiations.

Lilly CEO David Ricks has gone on the record in public forums criticizing the new law for what he anticipates will be a chilling effect on the development of certain types of drugs. Meanwhile, other big players in the pharmaceutical industry are trying to squash the negotiations altogether. Two have sued the Biden administration, asking a federal judge to declare the program unconstitutional.

IBJ reporter John Russell has been studying the program for a story that’s on the front page of the latest issue of IBJ. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Russell discusses the program’s potential effects on patients, drug makers and the rest the health care industry, as well as the objections from Eli Lilly and Co.

 

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Brian Payne on the Cultural Trail, promoting equity, fighting systemic racism and leaving CICF

On June 30, Brian Payne will finish a 23-year run as CEO and president of the Central Indiana Community Foundation and president of the Indianapolis Foundation. You can think of CICF as an umbrella organization that includes the Indianapolis Foundation and many other foundations and charitable funds that make nearly $100 million in grants every year to help not-for-profit groups in central Indiana. Over 23 years of Payne’s leadership, the total assets of the CICF collective organization have grown from $338 million to more than $1 billion.

For that alone, Payne is widely considered one of the most influential not-for-profit leaders in the city. But he also is the founder and primary creative force behind the $63 million Indianapolis Cultural Trail that loops downtown, links its six cultural districts and has become a major driver of economic development along its path. He further cemented his reputation for taking on big challenges when, in 2018, CICF formally changed its mission to support racial equity and inclusion and to dismantle institutional racism in central Indiana.

At CICF, the new focus on fighting racism and creating opportunity for people of color led to changes big and small—from anti-racist training for its staff and cultivating new vendors to structural shifts that affected which programs and initiatives it decides to fund. The new focus was received positively by many and was criticized by others.

In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Payne explains why he has decided to retire from full-time work, what he plans to do next, and how CICF will change once he leaves. We also discuss the impact of the Cultural Trail, why CICF decided to change its mission in 2018 and the challenge of measuring its progress on a goal as large as dismantling institutional racism.

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Couple behind Wild Birds Unlimited risked $5.5M to turn golf course into Zionsville nature preserve

As Jim Carpenter tells it, he was “an unemployed bird watcher” in 1981 when he decided to open a feed store in Broad Ripple called Wild Birds Unlimited. Today, there are 365 franchised locations in the chain founded by Carpenter and his wife, Nancy—and the couple has a jaw-dropping new roost for watching birds. In 2021, they bought a former golf course in northern Zionsville so it could it slip back into its natural state.

The decision to buy the 215-acre Wolf Run Golf Club for $5.5 million was a bit of a gamble. The Carpenters were banking on Zionsville officials to buy the land from them—albeit at a discount from their purchase price—so it could be a town nature park. It took about two years, but the town council agreed last month to free up funds to pay $4.5 million for the land—which is now assessed at $6 million—and another $1 million to help prepare for its launch as Carpenter Nature Preserve.

Jim and Nancy Carpenter have for years practiced this kind of conservation philanthropy. They hosted the IBJ Podcast outside Wolf Run’s old clubhouse—amid a cacophony of songbirds—for an interview to discuss why they took a chance on buying the golf course, how they’ll stay involved with the preserve, and how they envision the property evolving. They also provide an update on how Wild Birds Unlimited fared during the pandemic, riding the sudden wave of interest in backyard recreation.

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Pete The Planner on potential student loan tumult and its wider economic threats

More than 40 million people in America are about to take a big financial hit, and it could have such serious repercussions on the economy that we could find ourselves back in at least a mini-recession.

Federal student loan borrowers haven’t been required to make loan payments since March 2020, due to the economic stresses of the pandemic. But the grace period is almost over: Some 44 million borrowers will be required to either begin or continue making payments in September.

Education officials have predicted that there could be historic levels of federal student loan delinquency and defaults. The companies that service these loans for the federal government also are in a tough position, restarting the machinery after years of inactivity or taking on millions of customers for the first time. In fact, it’s estimated that 16 million borrowers will have a different company to deal with by the time payments resume.

IBJ personal finance columnist Pete The Planner has been looking into the possible ramifications of this big shift for a sizable chunk of the country. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, he has advice for borrowers and their families to help prepare for the upcoming tumult, as well as some friendly warnings about the possible economic effects.

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Why does downtown need a $90M sports arena, in addition to its NBA and NFL venues?

Indianapolis leaders made sports one of the focus points of its downtown economic development strategy as far back as the early 1970s. Today, we have the 70,000-seat Lucas Oil Stadium and the 17,200-seat Gainbridge Fieldhouse, not to mention the 9,100-seat Hinkle Fieldhouse and 6,500-seat Indiana Farmer’s Coliseum a few miles to the north.

Apparently, civic leaders believe there is room for at least one more indoor sports palace, and it intersects with another one of downtown’s evolving selling points: the campus of urban university IUPUI. As we’ve discussed, IUPUI is in the midst of splitting into two separate campuses—one for Indiana University, one for Purdue University—with its Division 1 sports programs becoming part of what will be known as Indiana University Indianapolis.

In the two-year state budget that they just approved, Indiana lawmakers allotted $89.5 million to design and build the midsize sports facility that would be home for the IU Indianapolis indoor athletic programs. But the local leaders who pushed for the funding want the 5,000-seat arena to play host to a wide variety of events serving the city’s best interests as a magnet for tourism.

On this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King chats with IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey about the rationale behind the plans for the stadium, what needs to happen before construction could start, and how it could affect Indianapolis’ sports ecosystem.

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Indiana becoming garden spot for vital ag innovation, food security

For a century, Indiana’s identity has been informed by the bucolic farms folks can see from the window of an airplane or from the window of their cars as they zoom by on one of our many interstates. But folks on the ground know that the state has become one of the nation’s hubs for plant diagnostics, crop protection, gene editing, biotechnology, food preservation, field management, aerial intelligence, animal health and sources of renewable energy. The companies and scientists involved in this work have reached the critical mass for creating an ecosystem of innovation, where advancements in one area help drive results in another. Not only is this accumulated expertise good for the state’s economy, but it also plays into national security and global stability. What is more in mankind’s best interest than the production of healthy food in adequate supplies?

For the latest edition of the podcast, host Mason King is joined by Mitch Frazier, who draws on his considerable professional experience in technology and agriculture as president and CEO of Agrinovus Indiana. It’s a statewide organization devoted to fueling growth in the agbioscience economy. Frazier, who has one of the most expansive and rounded perspectives of agricultural innovation in the state, details how Indiana is becoming a major player in vital issues of food security.

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The big challenges and costs of being a 17-year-old racer in an IndyCar feeder series

Dan Wheldon, Kyle Kirkwood, J.R. Hildebrand, Jay Howard, Sage Karam, Oliver Askew, Spencer Pigot, and Rinus VeeKay. Beyond the fact that all of these drivers are either past or current competitors in the Indy 500, what do they have in common? They all competed in the USF2000 series, which is one of the feeder series to IndyCar.

Al Morey IV is 17 years old and a rookie in the USF 2000 series, competing for Indianapolis-based team Jay Howard Driver Development. He lives in Fishers, and ever since he started racing karts at the age of 9, he has had his sights on the upper rungs of professional racing. But the road to IndyCar is never easy, in part because it is so expensive. Running an open-wheel car for a full season in USF2000 can easily run several hundred thousand dollars for the driver. That includes tires, engineering and mechanical services, parts and labor, track testing and travel, food, and lodging. Drivers can defray some of those costs with sponsor dollars, but they typically must arrange those relationships themselves.

Al Morey’s father, also named Al Morey, says the cost of this season could be anywhere between $400,000 to $700,000, depending, for example, on how often the car is damaged. In the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, the father and son team talk about what it’s like in the trenches of professional racing, the costs involved, and how they work together to secure sponsors.

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