Podcast
The IBJ Podcast with Mason King
Hosted by IBJ Media · EN
A weekly take on business news in central Indiana from the Indianapolis Business Journal. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
20episodes
Episodes
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Why do some big companies fail at meaningful innovation?
1w ago00:54:29Tap to summarizeVirtually every large or medium-sized company today says it’s dedicated to innovation, especially in light of the generational disruption in business created by artificial intelligence. But “innovative” is a broad and squishy term. One company’s so-called “cutting-edge development” might look to another like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Elliott Parker of Indianapolis-based startup builder Alloy Partners has seen many examples of what he calls “the illusion of innovation” – meaning corporate attempts at change that are either mostly for show or that don’t go nearly far enough to make a real impact. Indeed, Parker says, large companies often are unable to innovate their business models because they’re designed and incentivized to keep doing the thing they’re successful at doing. For the owners, executives and managers who are truly interested in making big bets on innovation and challenging dogma within their businesses, what will work? Parker is our guest this week to talk about his book, titled “The Illusion of Innovation,” and how companies can evade the traps. He also discusses how the recent explosion in AI is altering the innovation ecosystem and how companies are built and run. Parker says he’s optimistic, although “things are going to get very, very weird very quickly.”
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Final Four co-chairs debrief on Post Malone, Fan Fest, coach swag and what it all meant
2w ago00:52:55Tap to summarizeEarlier this month, Indianapolis wrapped up its ninth Final Four since 1980 — a Herculean hosting gig that requires thousands of volunteers and flawless coordination between the NCAA, the city of Indianapolis, hospitality officials, transportation services, public safety workers, a bunch of colleges and an untold number of vendors. Near the top of the organizational chart were the co-chairs of the local organizing committee — Judith Thomas and Nate Feltman. The world saw the basketball action online and on TV, and many in Indianapolis experienced big attractions staged in concert with the Final Four, including a three-day music festival witnessed by tens of thousands of fans. In this edition of the podcast, Thomas and Feltman take us behind the scenes of the three-year planning process and then the week of the event as plans played out in sometimes unexpected or poignant ways. For example, Feltman became a wingman of sorts for superstar Post Malone. Thomas, who attended Indy’s first Final Four in 1980, clearly saw her career arc from that experience to the convention industry, her role as deputy mayor, CEO of the Indy Arts Council and committee co-chair. Feltman, owner and CEO of IBJ Media, also experienced a change of heart on the city's lead role in financing the 800-room Signia by Hilton hotel, now nearing completion.
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Indianapolis criminal defense attorney Jim Voyles Jr. on representing Mike Tyson, the Indianapolis 500 and his new book
3w ago00:37:27Tap to summarizeIndianapolis attorney Jim Voyles gives each of his clients a card that reads, “Stop talking.” And Voyles is hardly what you’d consider a chatty guy in public, due in large part to the sensitive nature of his cases as one of the Midwest’s premier criminal defense attorneys. His clients sometimes are accustomed to having public platforms, so prescribing silence might be a challenge. Voyles has represented members of the Indianapolis Colts, including Pat McAfee, and members of the Indiana Pacers, including a participant in the infamous Malice in the Palace incident. He also served as local counsel for Mike Tyson during the boxer’s sexual assault trial in Indianapolis. After more than five decades practicing law, Voyles has co-authored a legal memoir titled "All Rise: My Life in Trials with the Famous, Infamous and the Misunderstood.” He recently made himself available for an interview with reporter Maura Johnson of IBJ sib The Indiana Lawyer for the publication’s eponymous podcast. We’re sharing it with IBJ Podcast listeners this week to provide a rare, first-hand account of Voyle’s career, his devotion to the Sixth Amendment and his lifelong passion for motorsports.
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Indians CEO on putting butts in seats at Victory Field, grinding it out
Apr 1300:58:00Tap to summarizeHere are a few tidbits the Indianapolis Indians want you to know this season. When it comes to professional sports in Indianapolis, the minor league baseball team is older than the Indianapolis 500 and has lapped both the Pacers and the Colts at least once. Likewise, Victory Field, which remains one of the great jewels in minor league baseball, is now older than Market Square Arena and the Hoosier/RCA Dome when they met their ends. And there’s no reason to fear for Victory Field’s fate: The Indians have been profitable every year for many decades, with the sole exception of 2020, and are always at the top or near the top of the minor league for attendance. Team operations had been under the control of the Schumacher family for many decades before 2024, when longtime executive Randy Lewandowski took over as president and CEO. The primary mission, as he puts it, is to put butts in seats while making sure those seats and the rest of the ballpark are pristine. Great players come and go, so the marketing pitch needs to focus on the Indians as an experience. Lewandowski is our guest this week to talk about the team’s revenue streams and the challenge of losing your most marketable players just as their hitting their strides. He also discusses his career in college baseball, how he found a position with the Indians organization in 1994 and then cut his teeth as director of operations at the brand-new Victory Field just a few years later.
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Pete the Planner on the chances for recession, plus petrodollars, mortgage rates and TACO trades
Apr 600:44:39Tap to summarizeThe U.S. economy has been sending troubling signals for months now in the form of high energy prices, rising inflation, modest hiring and slowing growth of gross domestic product. The United States began attacks on Iran in late February. Stalled tanker traffic at the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted the global oil market, and stock investors have yo-yoed along with mixed signals from Washington, D.C., about America’s goals for the war. IBJ personal finance columnist Pete the Planner sees signs that point toward recession in the U.S., as well as a humanitarian crisis in Asia. In this week’s podcast, Pete parses a passel of new challenges and layers on the potential impact of tariff refunds and rising mortgage rates. He also is concerned about the Trump administration’s apparent attempts at influencing investor sentiment with statements about America’s intentions in Iran.
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Mitch Daniels on bringing Purdue biz programs to downtown Indy; plus AI, Social Security
Mar 3000:32:57Tap to summarizeThis week's guest is Mitch Daniels, former governor of the state of Indiana and president emeritus of Purdue University. Barely a month after Daniels’ departure from Purdue's top job in 2023, the university named its business school after its former president, creating the Mitch Daniels School of Business and embarking on changes in its curriculum to emphasize technology and elements of a classical education. Daniels maintains some involvement in the business school’s evolution and is particularly interested in the growth of its programs in downtown Indianapolis, following the split of IUPUI that he championed late in his presidency. In this week’s podcast, Daniels and host Mason King cover those developments and their potential benefits for Indianapolis. They then take a deeper dive into the ways artificial intelligence is threatening to disrupt the market for white-collar jobs, and particularly entry-level positions. They also explore one of the biggest political, academic and economic debates of the last decade: What is the value of a college degree? Then, just for good measure, Daniels runs through his ideas for fixing Social Security.
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Downtown barbershop owner anticipating Final Four, new hotels, 'big boom ahead'
Mar 2300:37:44Tap to summarizeAlthough it looks like a time capsule from the 1930s, Red’s Classic Barber Shop in downtown Indianapolis was founded in 2007 by Alexandra Ridgway, Michael Ridgway and Roy Stevenson. They wanted to transport customers back to the era of traditional gentlemen’s barbering, populating it with antique furniture, equipment and supplies. In 2022, Red’s was purchased by William Hogg, a barber who has been managing the shop since its early days. He sometimes can be seen cutting the hair of prominent Indiana politicians, and his client list has included our four most recent governors. For this week's podcast, Hogg took a break between appointments to discuss how Red’s benefits from downtown’s big tourism events (including the upcomning Final Four), as well as the recent surges in residential and hotel development. He also digs into the value of the shop’s location at the literal crossroads of the Midwest as Red’s claws its way back from the pandemic years. And he shares his street-level perspective on the growth of downtown over nearly two decades and whether it’s as dangerous as some have persistently portrayed it.
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What are the opportunities for humans as AI impacts workforce?
Mar 1600:52:07Tap to summarizeJamie Merisotis, president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation, is one of the nation’s top experts on providing access to higher education and the ways higher education can prepare the future workforce. Several years ago, he realized how the rapidly accelerating development of artificial intelligence could profoundly impact these two vital currents of American life. In 2020 he published a book titled “Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines,” warning that the roles of workers will radically shift and spotlighting the need to redesign education, training and the workplace as a whole. Today, he admits he underestimated the speed of change due to AI. Last month, he delivered an address to the Economic Club of Indiana about what it means for jobs, education and the economy. On this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, Merisotis and host Mason King dig deeper into his conclusions. Number one: AI is here to stay. We humans need to focus on how we can complement AI and excel at work best handled with human traits and skills as AI begins to encroach on the turf of even C-suite executives. In the meantime, higher education must go undergo radical transformation.
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Originally on path to be preacher, Damar CEO leads efforts to aid thousands per day
Mar 900:53:47Tap to summarizeJim Dalton grew up in Indianapolis in a devout, church-going family. He entered college thinking he would become a preacher, but another career path made itself clear – one in which he’d be able to serve and guide children to healthier and happier lives. He didn’t know at the time that he eventually would be able to have an impact on thousands of people every day. Today he is just the third president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Damar Services, a 59-year-old nonprofit that provides essential support for adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He joined Damar as chief operating officer in 2002 and became CEO in 2013. Over that 24 years, the organization’s annual budget has grown from about $4 million to more than $140 million, and its employee count has grown from 67 to about 1,400, directly serving about 1,800 clients per day. It recently expanded from central Indiana to East Chicago and just launched operations in Richmond. Dalton is our guest this week to talk about his evolution from child psychologist to chief executive of one of central Indiana’s largest nonprofits. He also explains the aggressive strategy behind Damar’s expansion, which in a sense boils down this: “If there are still people who need our services, we should expand to meet them.” Here’s our conversation.
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Inside Christel House’s plan to expand its global network of schools
Mar 200:44:04Tap to summarizeLet’s go back about three decades to the mid-1990s when Indianapolis businesswoman Christel Dehaan sold her company Resort Condominiums International for $825 million. With a new focus on philanthropy and education, DeHaan created Christel House International, a global network of schools with a mission to not only educate its low-income students but to provide the necessary nutrition, health care and career mentoring – even after graduation – to help them break the cycle of poverty. DeHaan established Christel House schools in Indianapolis, Mexico, South Africa, Jamaica and India before her death in 2020.Today, the network is entering a new era of growth. David Harris, probably best known in Indianapolis as the founding CEO of education reform group The Mind Trust, became Christel House’s president and CEO in 2024, succeeding former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson. Harris soon established a new plan for expansion that calls for boosting Christel House’s presence in countries where it already operates while opening new schools in Colombia and Nepal. In this week’s episode of the podcast, Harris discusses the challenges of continuing Christel House’s mission without its founder, how it now finances its mission, the organization’s process for establishing schools from scratch in new countries and the expansion of a global program that’s now helping students from four Indianapolis high schools succeed after graduation.
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