CitySCOPE Podcast

Meeting the Moment with Inclusive Economic Development
Sharing the audio from our first live podcasting event! February 10, 2023 from NXTHVN in Dixwell. To celebrate the bridge from the end of Season 3 to the launch of Season 4, we held a live event bringing together Stanley Tucker, President, CEO and co-founder of Meridian Management Company, Inc (MMG) featured in Season 3 with Adriana Abizadeh, Executive Director, the Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT), featured in upcoming Season 4.

CitySCOPE favorite James Johnson-Piett, Principal and CEO, Urbane Development co-hosted.

The event also features musicians David Chevan and Warren Byrd of The Afro-Semitic Experience.

Hope you enjoy the conversation!

In our final episode for Season 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we have a bonus episode produced in collaboration with James Johnson-Piett and Maggie Clark from Urbane, featuring interviews from Urbane's work on the Philadelphia Equitable Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Assessment and Strategy report, completed in May 2021. Over the course of this season, we spoke with researchers, historians, practitioners, and city builders about efforts to support and scale Black-owned and Black-led businesses. In this bonus episode, we hear 10 BIPOC entrepreneurs in Philadelphia share about their entrepreneurial journeys and their views on how cities can create more equitable pathways to support thriving, diverse business founders move their businesses to the next level. Take a listen!

In episode 14 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we speak with Dianna Tremblay and Caron Gugssa-Howard from ICA in Oakland, CA about their work building a more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem through accelerator and investment fund programing. Topics include: pathways to growth in the dynamic Bay area economy, using a venture-capital CDFI model to develop an accelerator targeting entrepreneurs from low wealth backgrounds, operating an accelerator with attention to both business scaling and the production of good jobs, integrating direct investment with accelerator programming, and developing capital investment vehicles that fit the mission. Join us for a great conversation!

Join us for episode 13 of the CitySCOPE podcast. We speak with Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Professor of Practice at the School of Engineering and Academic Director of the IE Brown University EMBA program. She is also the Founder and Director of the Venture Capital Inclusion Lab at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship. In conversation with Kate Cooney, Senior Lecturer at Yale University School of Management, topics include: the role of entrepreneurial ecosystems in a regional economy, research on equity and inclusion in entrepreneurial ecosystems, gender bias in capitalization of start-ups, the role of racial and gender wealth gap in the entrepreneurship journey, practical steps we can take to build more equitable ecosystems, and what’s at stake if we do not do so.

In episode 12 of the CitySCOPE podcast, Kate Cooney, Senior Lecturer at the Yale School of Management, talks with Donna Lecky, JD, MBA, Managing Partner, Health Venture Capital, CEO & Co-Founder, Health Venture and Co-Founder & Board Director of HealthHavenHub, Inc. Donna is also CEO & Founding Member of Women of Color Capital Collective, Inc. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation about Donna’s career path, the founding of Health Venture Capital, Health Venture and HealthHavenHub, the digital health innovation space, and her views on access to capital and the role of networks in successful entrepreneurial outcomes from the venture capital perspective. Join us!

In episode 11 of the CitySCOPE podcast, Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Marissa King, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management about her book Social Chemistry: Decoding the Elements of Human Connection. Topics include: networks and why they matter, different types of social networks, a tool to assess your social network, why the structure of networks is important for building social movements, and the role of networks for economic development. Join us!

Join us for episode 10 of the CitySCOPE podcast where Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Brian Argrett, President & CEO of City First Bank and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Broadway Financial Corporation. Topics include: the merger of City First and Broadway Financial to form the largest Black-led bank in the United States, the consolidation of the banking industry, the impact of the 2008 recession on Black-owned and Black-led banks, the history of disinvestment in Black communities and households in the United States, and the passion and creativity that go into creating quality financial products for low wealth communities. Take a listen!

In Episode 9 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Topiltzin Gomez, Chief of Staff at Honeycomb Credit. Our conversation focuses on the decline of the community banking sector, the Jobs Act of 2012, the rise of crowdfunding, and the ways that community capital can be deployed for local small business investment. Topiltzin shares his journey to Honeycomb Credit, through the Venture for America program, and details how Honeycomb Credit builds out rungs to bankability for small businesses by connecting the community. Tune in!

In Episode 8 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Kylie Jiwon Hwang, Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Kylie’s research lies at the intersection of entrepreneurship, discrimination and labor markets. Our conversation focuses on her dissertation research examining entrepreneurship and employment for formerly incarcerated people. Topics include: the current statistics on incarceration and recidivism in the United States, barriers to employment in the labor market for individuals with a criminal record, entrepreneurship as a response to labor market discrimination, employers’ views of candidates with entrepreneurial experience, and the role of employment and entrepreneurship in reducing recidivism. Join us!

Episode 7 of the CitySCOPE podcast features a conversation with Kate Cooney and Boris Sigal, Co-Executive Director of the Community Purchasing Alliance (CPA). Boris graduated from the Yale School of Management in 2014. Post-graduation, Boris worked for a number of years in New Haven, first in a special one-year position created between the New Haven City Economic Development Administration and the Yale University Office of New Haven and State Affairs and later as Director of Business Development at New Haven Works, where he focused on building closer relationships with the regional business community and aligning local hiring opportunities with large employers like Yale University and Yale-New Haven Health. Topics include: insights from analysis of Yale University’s procurement spending and the impact of operational decisions on the regional economy, reflections on a year-long initiative to move some of Yale University’s spending on procurement toward regional vendors, the landmark Yale University New Haven Hiring Initiative, and the impact on local business development that can result from banding smaller anchors (churches and schools) into purchasing cooperatives. Join us!