In Review: The 3rd Annual Greater Summit Business Conference & Expo

The Black Pages Ohio and the Summit Magazine partnered with the City of Akron and County of Summit for the 3rd Annual Greater Summit Business Conference & Expo.

The event was hosted at the University of Akron’s Quaker Station on April 26, 2018. Small businesses and corporations from across the state of Ohio networked for business and procurement opportunities. The EXPO focused on collaboration between businesses, helping small businesses succeed, economic development in Summit County and diversity and inclusion with workshops and a vendor trade show.

Nearly forty vendors displayed their products and services during the trade show. Vendors included corporations such as Dominion, First Energy, Summa Health, CareSource, Cleveland Clinic Akron General, University of Akron, Kent State University, Cleveland State University, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Spectrum and Cook Paving & Construction Co. Inc. State agencies such as Ohio Development Services Agency, Ohio Department of Administrative Services, Ohio Department of Transportation and financial institutions Huntington Bank and KeyBank. Four workshops were offered at the EXPO.

Building sustainable partnerships: A Small Business and Corporate Workshop. This workshop moderated by Kumi Lane, Cleve-land Clinic, showed small businesses how best to secure partnerships with larger organizations while putting corporations into contact with certified small businesses from every industry to meet their outsourcing needs.

Andre Bryan, President of APB & Associates moderated the workshop Key Drivers for Small Business an Overview of financing, Bonding, and Health Care.

The third workshop, Doing Business with the State of Ohio provided info on becoming a certified Minority Business (MBE). Summa Health held the fourth workshop, a Supply Chain Workshop discussing opportunities and upcoming projects. Many of the attendees found the EXPO to be beneficial. Danielle Thompson, Community Marketplace Representative for CareSource meet new businesses with a potential need for health insurance and feels this was an excellent networking event.

The EXPO met the needs of Provident Advisor Group according to President Demetrius Ham- mett. He stated, “This EXPO is a good fit for us. We can do laser type networking rather than the shotgun approach where you don’t get anything out of it. This EXPO has deliverables. We have met four or five people and see opportunities.”

Sue Lacy and Michelle Cassetty Collins ConexusNEO president and vice president respectively, said “There are so many companies and organizations that are represented today and all really looking to address their workforce and talent needs. They are really open to talking about what their needs are. It has been a great event for us.”

Central State University students sponsored by Huntington Bank attended the Conference and EXPO too. Tikeya Anderson, a senior at Central State, would recommend the conference to freshman, sophomores and juniors in the Business School. She believes it will help students determine the types of internships they would like to do and start many students thinking about entrepreneurship early in their college life.

Ashley Span, Sharonda McDaniel and Joseph Lancaster all found the workshops to be meaningful. They all found the openness of the business owners refreshing and eye-opening. Ashley plans to learn more about the companies present today. Sharonda liked the collaborative nature of the businesses and noted how important relationships are among the business community. Joseph was intrigued by all the support for entrepreneurs.

Ilene Shapiro was the keynote luncheon speaker. Executive Shapiro asked business owners for their ideas and questions for the county. She also posed her own questions to the business owners, what is the county doing currently to meet their needs and what aren’t they doing. Executive Shapiro took questions directly from the luncheon audience and connected business owners with agencies who could meet those needs. The Executive also spoke about workforce development as a key component to economic development and asked attendees about the talent needed to do their business. She encouraged business owners to partner with workforce development agencies to establish their talent needs now and in the future.

And finally, Executive Shapiro was excited to see diversity at the luncheon. She called diversity, “the hallmark of what we want Summit County to be. Bringing in people in from all walks of life, all races and all nationalities to build our community for a brighter tomorrow. “ From all of us at Black Pages Ohio and the Summit Magazine, we thank all of you for your continued support in our continuing mission of creating partnerships and promoting diversity.

We hope that you will join us for our upcoming 4th Annual Greater Summit Business Conference & Expo in 2019.