Crain's Detroit Business

Ashley Williams is founder and CEO of Rizzarr, a content-creating platform for consumer brands seeking to market their products to millennial customers. She talked to Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood on the Detroit Rising podcast about her Detroit company. The platform has a network of 5,200 freelancers who produce articles, videos, podcasts and photos that companies use on their social media, websites or marketing materials. The company also does market research on millennial customers for corporate brands. Rizzarr's clients have included JPMorgan Chase & Co., Glassdoor, DTE Energy Co., Bridgewater Interiors, First Independence Bank and Warby Parker eyeglasses.

Andrew Leber, vice president of hospitality at Bedrock Detroit, says the city needs a new large-scale convention hotel attached to TCF Center (formerly Cobo Center). "It's one of the things that limits the ability of the city of Detroit to attract larger-scale convention business," Leber said in the Detroit Rising podcast. "And that business is hugely impactful to the economy." The executive in charge of Bedrock and billionaire Dan Gilbert's downtown hotel properties discussed the hotel and hospitality market in an interview with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood.

At the Detroit Digital Inclusion Summit event on Oct. 7 in TechTown, Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood talked with four IT professionals about Detroit's digital divide between the greater downtown and the city's neighborhoods. The guests on this episode of Detroit Rising include: Joshua Edmonds, director of digital inclusion for the City of Detroit Katrina Turnbow, Google Digital Coach and founder and CEO of Kanopi Social consulting agency Samantha Schartman-Cycyk, founder and CEO of Connected Insights Karlos Harris, co-founder of the Detroit School of Digital Technology

Stephanie Byrd, co-owner of The Block restaurant in Midtown, talked with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood about how her family-owned restaurant has thrived since it rebranded. She talks about coming back to Detroit to join her father's restaurant and hospitality. "I didn't expect to make it this far," shes said.

Emery Matthews, co-founder of Real Estate Interests LLC, and his firm's managing director, Damon Jordan, talked with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood at Detroit Homecoming on the "Detroit Rising" podcast about their brokerage work on The Mid high-rise mixed-use complex planned for 3750 Woodward Ave. in Midtown. Matthews said the 30-story tower will include a hotel and 51 condos at the top, some of which could reach $1 million in cost.

At the last day of Detroit Homecoming VI, charter school philanthropist Bob Thompson, Danielle Jackson from Thompson's University Prep schools and charter school founder Jalen Rose talked with Skillman Foundation CEO Tonya Allen about their work in improving Detroit's public education system. Thompson, a road-building magnate, talked about the network of charter schools he founded in Detroit.

At the sixth annual Detroit Homecoming, Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood talked to Detroit expats Ken Buckfire of Miller Buckfire & Co. and Chicago attorney Ty Fahner about Detroit's finances, the city's post-bankruptcy recovery, future land use and how debt-ridden Chicago is at risk of the same financial peril that landed Detroit in bankruptcy court.

Xenith LLC, the football helmet and protective gear company owned by billionaire Dan Gilbert, now claims 10 percent market share of the helmet business and is closing in on producing 100,000 units annually at its southwest Detroit manufacturing facility. Xenith CEO Ryan Sullivan recently sat down with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood to discuss the company's upward trajectory, the business impact of tariffs on Chinese-made parts for its helmets and what's next for the company as it branches off into other football protective gear and apparel.

Tech entrepreneur Suneel Gupta has joined Techstars Detroit as a founder-in-residence focused on mentoring other entrepreneurs with technology-based startup businesses. He and Techstars Detroit Managing Director Ted Serbinski and Program Manager Kelly Kang talked with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood on the Detroit Rising podcast about Gupta's new role with the business incubator, which is now based in Lear Corp.'s innovation center in Capitol Park in downtown Detroit.

Amy Nelson, CEO of Venture for America, and her organization's Detroit director, Sarah Craft, talked with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood on the Detroit Rising podcast about the entrepreneurship-focused fellowship for young professionals, which has brought 145 fellows to work in Detroit startup companies over the past seven years. They were joined by VFA alum Lauren Kase and Ashton Keys, a current fellow with the program who is working at Quicken Loans. Keys is a Detroit native and graduate of Cass Tech.

Joe Comartin, Canada's consul general in Detroit, sat down with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood to discuss his country's concerns about attempts by Michigan politicians to shut down Enbridge Energy's Line 5 oil pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, the status of trade negotiations between the U.S. and Canada and the outlook for early construction work on the long-planned Gordie Howe International Bridge.

Tony Michaels, president and CEO of The Parade Co., talks with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood about how the Ford Fireworks come together each year and the not-for-profit company's need for a new warehouse to build and store floats for America's Thanksgiving Parade.

Fred Batayeh and Kimberly Hassan of the Arab American and Chaldean Council (ACC) discuss the non-profit's plans for a mixed-use housing development at John R Street and 7 Mile Road as well as ACC's partnership with Quicken Loans for four years of community improvement projects in conjunction with the Rocket Mortgage Classic PGA golf tournament at the Detroit Country Club. They talked with Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood for an interview on the Detroit Rising podcast.

John Hohmeier, an insurance industry defense attorney at Scarfone & Geen in Madison Heights, talks with Crain's Senior Reporter Chad Livengood about the fraudulent claims he sees in Michigan's unlimited medical coverage under the 1973 no-fault auto insurance law.

Michigan's no-fault auto insurance law allows insurance carriers to "file and use" their rates with little oversight by the state. In this week's segment of the Crain's "Detroit Rising" podcast, senior reporter Chad Livengood talks with insurance industry researcher Doug Heller, who has studied Michigan's law for the Coalition to Protect Auto No-Fault.

Steve Tobocman, executive director of Global Detroit, discusses how foreign-born immigrants have helped stem Detroit and Michigan's population loses in recent years and how more highly-educated immigrants could fill the state's workforce shortages.

Kirsten Ussery, co-owner of Detroit Vegan Soul, and JPMorgan Chase bank executive Peter Scher talk with Crain's Senior Reporter Chad Livengood about JPMorgan Chase's Entrepreneurs of Color Fund and how the vegan restaurant used the loan fund to open its second location on Detroit's northwest side.

Lt. Gov. Brian Calley sat down with Crain's Senior Reporter Chad Livengood to talk about outgoing Gov. Rick Snyder's emphasis on turning around Detroit and taking the city through a historic bankruptcy reorganization.

Sherif Marakby, CEO of Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC, discusses how Ford Motor Co.'s team working on the business strategy and deployment of autonomous vehicles is utilizing the automaker's first building of an eventual campus in Corktown anchored by Michigan Central Station. Marakby sat down with Crain's Senior Reporter Chad Livengood for an interview at The Factory at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Rosa Parks Boulevard.

Todd Sachse, CEO and founder of Sachse Construction in Detroit, discusses his company's efforts to recruit more young people into the skilled trades and why the current labor shortage is slowing the number of construction projects in metro Detroit.