Editor’s Note: CNY Executive Q&A is a feature appearing regularly in The Central New York Business Journal, authored by guest writer Jeff Knauss, who is president of his own digital-marketing firm. In each edition, Knauss chats with a different executive at a Central New York business or nonprofit, with the interview transcript appearing in a conversational Q&A format.

In this issue, I speak with Robert M. (Rob) Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO. In 2011, Simpson was appointed by Gov. Cuomo to serve as co-chair of the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council (CNY REDC), a commission responsible for coordinating economic development for Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Onondaga, and Oswego counties. Simpson graduated from Colgate University in 1997. He earned a master’s degree in public administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Rob, his wife Corinne Ribble, and their son Benjamin live in Syracuse.

KNAUSS: Rob, tell us a little bit about your background.

SIMPSON: I grew up in upstate New York and it has pretty much always been my home. When I was 3 months old, my dad took a job as a professor of political science at Utica College. That is when we first moved here. We also lived oversees twice when I was young. When I was in kindergarten, his job took us to Europe, and then we went back when I was in 4th and 5th grade. By the time I was 12, I had lived in France for three years and I had seen 27 different countries. Living abroad was really transformative for me but upstate New York is really home.

I attended college at Colgate University and earned a degree in political science. After graduation, I went down to Washington, D.C. and worked on Capitol Hill. My wife, Corinne, whom I met at Colgate, is also from the area. We both attended graduate school at Syracuse University and earned our MPAs from the Maxwell School. In 2003, we moved to Syracuse. The rest is kind of history.

KNAUSS: Why did you end up in Syracuse and why have you stayed?

SIMPSON: Syracuse is where we want to be. Upstate New York is where we want to be. First, it’s home for my wife and I, and two, for all the great experience — professional and personal — we had in Washington, D.C., that wasn’t ever going to be home. We knew we were never going to raise a family there. We were never going to buy a house there. This is the type of community that we were seeking. We missed this quality of life. That was a part of the draw when we were 27 and it’s even more part of the draw now that we’re parents with a 4-year-old.

KNAUSS: Tell us about how CenterState CEO has evolved and why you got involved with CenterState?

SIMPSON: When we were looking to come back to Central New York, there was a job opening with the Metropolitan Development Association (MDA). August was actually the 13th anniversary of my joining the MDA. The MDA was one of the two predecessor organizations of CenterState CEO. The MDA was sort of for the business leader or CEO of the 125 largest companies, offering networking and focusing on economic and civic issues. The other organization was the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, which focused on networking and engagement of smaller businesses at all levels of the company.

I worked for the MDA, doing a variety of different things, but mostly regional economic-development planning. I was fortunate enough to be asked to step into the role of president and CEO in 2009. Within six months to a year, we merged the MDA and the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce into what is now CenterState CEO. The goal was to create a single voice for economic development and business leadership in the region. We wanted to put the focus where it belongs, which is on our members, the community, and the work that we can do to support them.

KNAUSS: Were you always in leadership roles growing up?

SIMPSON: On and off. The older I got, the more I found myself gravitating toward those roles. When I was younger, candidly, I rejected those roles. I grew up in a household with two very strong parents, both of whom were leaders. My dad was a professor turned college president three times over and my mom was a minister. I think when I was young, I isolated myself from that because I was trying to carve my own path. It’s funny how your upbringing catches up with you. One day you wake up and you find yourself stepping into leadership roles. When I was attending the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, I was the student body president. I didn’t seek it out necessarily, but increasingly, I found myself more comfortable with these types of positions. 

KNAUSS: So if I were to ask your employees what kind of leadership style does Rob have, what do you think they would say?

SIMPSON: i would encourage you to go out and ask them. It’s actually probably more interesting if you went out and asked a bunch of them. The thing that is exciting for me about working here is that we have people who, top to bottom of the organization, are smarter and more capable than the person sitting next to them. That’s a big part of what makes CenterState a fun place to work. We find really talented people, who are really passionate about this community and want it to thrive. Whether it’s the Tech Garden, downtown, our neighborhoods, or workforce development, it is their ideas, their passion and energy that we harness and put to work for the region. I think if there’s a cultural element to CenterState CEO, it’s that our passion is our mission, and we do everything we can to achieve the goals that people expect of us.

KNAUSS: How many employees does CenterState CEO have?

SIMPSON: It depends on how you count it. CenterState as the umbrella organization, has about 35 employees. If you look at the whole family of affiliated companies, we have 14 different affiliated companies that are part of the CenterState CEO umbrella, there are about 102 of us.

KNAUSS: What are the qualities that you look for when you’re hiring?

SIMPSON: I think first and foremost, it’s about passion. The candidates we hire have passion. Our stock and trade, the value we add, is people’s commitment and willingness to solve problems — whether it’s solving a problem for a member who is struggling with a regulatory issue, or for an entrepreneur who is trying to buy a building, or an elected official who is trying to get a piece of legislation passed. That’s really what we do. Our people have a few of characteristics — they are passionate, they have high integrity, and they are really skilled and eager to learn even more than they already know. I can’t think of a person inside this organization that doesn’t come to work hoping to learn something new even though most of them already know an awful lot.

KNAUSS: What do you think is one of the largest risks you took in your career, and did it pay off?

SIMPSON: One of the largest risks I have taken in my career was leaving Washington, D.C. and moving back to Syracuse. At that time, that was a big risk. In retrospect, it’s been one of the most rewarding things I could have done. What I found was a place on a scale where you can make an impact. In Washington, working on Capitol Hill, it’s really hard to cut through all the noise, but as a young kid who had a pretty good set of responsibilities, just moving sight unseen to Syracuse was probably a risk. I would also say, we try here at CenterState CEO to take measured and calculated risks with the work that we do. Downtown is a pretty good example. Ten years ago, I don’t think anyone would have predicted the scale of revitalization of our city center. And while Syracuse is doing great, we know there is even more we can do. We are working to push the energy from downtown into our neighborhoods, throughout the city, the north side, near west side, and south side. We are always thinking about what that next risk is that you can take to transform the community.

The merger of the two organizations was clearly a risk, but it was also something that frankly needed to happen. It was obvious that the organizations were not working as efficiently as they could. We weren’t serving our members as best we could. So the right thing to do, risk or not, was to put them together.

KNAUSS: What do you think is the biggest challenge that CenterState CEO faces in the next 12 months?

SIMPSON: The community is at a tipping point. There is a lot of energy and momentum that’s building. What’s happening downtown is exciting. The renovation of the Hotel Syracuse is remarkable, and so is the fact that in the last couple months, there have been announcements of 2,000 jobs coming downtown. It is so exciting to see a lot of people’s hard work starting to pay dividends. But, at the same time, we have some of the most persistent poverty and economic inequality in this community of anywhere in the country, and it’s not good for the economy and its not sustainable. I think figuring out how to take the momentum and energy we have built and try to continue to grow it is important, but at the same time we must recognize that we have to grow in ways that are more equitable and sustainable. I think that’s a real challenge.

For us organizationally, we have also been growing and trying to evolve. As we hire more people, as we’re asked to go and do work in places that we haven’t perhaps historically worked, we have to be able to continue to learn and evolve along with the community. I think it’s that process of continuous innovation and improvement that is, frankly, a lesson that every one of our business members has learned at some point, the easy way or the hard way. As a not-for-profit organization, we have to do that too. We can’t just sit back and be satisfied with what we’ve done. We have to get better all the time. We have to use our resources more efficiently. We have to find new programs. We have to communicate in new and creative ways. The world around us is changing fast. We have to change with it and keeping pace with that is something that is a lot of work.

About the author: Jeff Knauss is managing partner & president of a digital-marketing firm, DigitalHyve.com, and has always been interested in hearing successful executive’s stories. He lives in Camillus with his wife Heta and son Max. For more, check out his blog at www.CnyCeo.org