Ohio 500 and other lists tell a story of Ohio’s growth
By Terry Troy
For the last three years, we have been tracking executive leaders in our state in our Ohio 500 issue. Designed as a compendium of the most influential, powerful and effective organizational leaders in our state, the executives celebrated on these pages represent the very best Ohio has to offer.
It’s been often said that you can’t get to where you are going until you know where you have been. That’s the importance of benchmarking: the process of comparing organizational and executive performance to that of others in your industry. Comparing a company’s products, processes and functions against others in the same business space allows you to identify areas where there are opportunities for improvement.
And when it comes to business excellence, Ohio is improving.
In its most recent 2024 rankings, CNBC not only ranks our state in the Top 10 in the country, but also said that we have improved from 2023, jumping from 12th to seventh place this year. If you’re unfamiliar with its rankings, CNBC scores all 50 states on 128 metrics in 10 different categories, including infrastructure, workforce, economy, quality of life, cost of doing business, technology and innovation, business friendliness, education, access to capital and cost of living.
Our state ranked second best in the country in terms of the cost of doing business and fourth in the country in terms of our cost of living. We were also rated very highly in categories such as education and being business friendly. Kudos to our business-friendly administration in Columbus and the nonprofit organizations across our state supporting regional and local economic development, like JobsOhio, REDI Cincinnati, Team NEO and One Columbus, to name but a few.
But our government and nonprofit economic development engines can only take us so far. And lists like the Ohio 500, while important to charting growth, are not the only answer.
That’s where organizational excellence comes in. The executives listed on these pages are driving excellence within the organizations in which they serve, improving products, processes or services—driving their respective organizations to unparalleled excellence and leadership.
It’s only fitting that we recognize them. The only unfortunate aspect of a publication such as the Ohio 500 is that we don’t have enough room to recognize all who have been nominated. While their names might not appear on these pages, they have surely contributed in a major way to moving Ohio—its economy and business community—forward.
So our list is by no means complete. There are other unsung heroes toiling in organizations whose efforts have gone for the most part, unnoticed. However, those numbers are shrinking year by year. And that’s thanks to you, our readers, who have nominated these folks for recognition in the Ohio 500.
As the nominations grow year after year, it comes increasingly more difficult to winnow down the Ohio 500. That creates an environment for constant improvement, of building on organizational excellence that has already been created by the Ohio 500 leaders.
Starting with our original benchmark of three years ago, the Ohio 500 clearly has us moving in the right direction.
Terry Troy, Editor