Women Of Influence

The startup he co-founded based on his original idea was running out of money, and he'd long since left day-to-day operations, but Chris Sauerzopf couldn't let go of the growing wire fraud problem it was trying to solve. SafeWire is back in business and growing, after investor and adviser Pete Kight – the CheckFree Corp. founder – took the assets of the former business as collateral for paying off its debts and brought back Sauerzopf as CEO...

What's a company known for providing free daily staff lunches do when everyone has been sent to work from home? At CoverMyMeds, the culinary staff wrote a cookbook, which was mailed to employees and business contacts over the holidays. But mostly they're busy planning how to move into a new Franklinton headquarters and at least at first shift to contactless grab and go meals instead of cafeteria style...

John Brooks knows how to throw a party. As managing partner of BTTS Holdings, he runs some of the city's biggest events venues that you've likely visited for work or leisure including The Estate at New Albany; Brookshire, in Delaware; and WatersEdge in Hillard. But the pandemic was a buzzkill – 120 of 130 weddings and other events were cancelled or rescheduled virtually overnight...

Elizabeth Martinez knows there's more to career growth than just rising through the ranks. "I think sometimes, we when we talk about growth, there is a disservice in the conversation to exclusively focus on vertical growth," Martinez, CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio, said during a recent taping of our Women of Influence podcast. "I'm a strong supporter of women climbing ladders within their organizations...

Covid-19 has pushed us all to work from home. So naturally, people are thinking about where they live, too. The housing market is exploding in Central Ohio as people rush to move to larger spaces, be they homes or apartments. And that's meant a change of business for Jonathan and Jamie Wilcox, of apartment developer and manager Wilcox Communities...

Capital University’s interim president Dave Kaufman doesn’t have a background in higher education, but the former Encova Insurance CEO is leading the university during one of the toughest periods for colleges and universities: the Covid-19 crisis...

Can meat move from pasture grazed to lab raised? That’s a problem Dublin-based Matrix Meats is helping companies around the world try to solve. The Dublin-based start-up received some seed-stage backing late last year and is growing, adding staff and looking for new opportunities. CEO Eric Jenkusky said the business’ partners already include about 25% of the companies in the nascent cultivated meat segment around the world. That includes clients on five continents...

Linda Swearingen didn't spend much time thinking about the fact that she was working with mostly men. She was early in her career, working for a real estate investment trust, and it wasn't that notable to her that out of 40 or so desks on the loan floor, only hers and one other were occupied by women. "Except one day, nobody was there," Swearingen recalled during a recent taping of our Women of Influence podcast...

Even before starting construction on a $100 million facility, a biotech affiliate of Nationwide Children's Hospital had to adapt to two huge changes simultaneously: Switching into for-profit mindset and securing safety in a pandemic. Andelyn Biosciences Inc. is building a 185,000-square-foot manufacturing facility for the genetic materials used in gene therapy research and treatments. Eventually the factory could double in size if it adds enough commercial-scale clients...

As of January, Nikola Labs Inc. was headed for its best year ever. By April, like many businesses shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, the startup was in "the fog of war." In the latest episode of Crisis Management, Columbus Business First's podcast about steering a business through the pandemic, Nikola co-founder Will Zell and CEO Brian Graham discuss how Graham succeeded Zell mid-pandemic after two years as COO...