City Brokers, Leaders Step Up After Wexner

On Jan 31, 2022

On a recent October morning, Fifth Third Bank regional president Francie Henry and Ohio State University president Kristina Johnson share the stage at the Cardinal Health Ballroom on the second floor of the Lincoln Theatre. Music echoes through the space—courtesy of a single saxophonist in the back of the room—but Henry and Johnson are harmonizing on something else: a $20 million capital investment from the Cincinnati-based bank that could help transform the neighborhood that surrounds the Lincoln.

Columbus’ new power dynamics are also on display. Henry is part of a group of emerging (and often outspoken) female community leaders who’ve pushed the city’s civic establishment to focus more on affordable housing, diversity and racial inequality in recent years. And as Johnson speaks enthusiastically about the mission of PACT—Partners Achieving Community Transformation, the Ohio State-led nonprofit collaborating with Fifth Third on the initiative—it’s easy to see why she often draws comparisons to her Bricker Hall predecessor Gordon Gee, a master of community engagement and one of the founders of PACT.

In the back of the room, keeping an uncharacteristically low profile, is Alex Fischer, the CEO of the Columbus Partnership, the city’s most influential civic organization. In recent years, Fischer has been perhaps Columbus’ most visible power broker, in the middle of seemingly every major community initiative, from Save The Crew to Smart Columbus to Downtown development. These days, however, he’s a lame duck of his own making. In early January, Kenny McDonald, the head of One Columbus, the Partnership’s sister economic development agency, will replace Fischer, who surprisingly announced a few months ago he was leaving the organization. And that’s not the only major Partnership leadership change in the works. For the first time since its founding in 2002, Les Wexner is no longer the group’s undisputed guiding force. Also in January, Huntington Bank’s Steve Steinour and AEP’s Nick Akins will become the new co-chairs of the civic organization, assuming a role that Wexner has occupied since the birth of the business group.

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These changes have inspired both hope and fear in Columbus. When asked if this is the most uncertain Columbus leadership landscape he’s ever seen, one longtime politico responds, “That’s an understatement. It’s times two—and on steroids.” A nonprofit leader describes the current power structure as “confused” and “scattered,” while a veteran civic leader adds, “It’s a very, very curious time. It’s a very transitional time.”

To get a clear view of the city’s evolving power structure, Columbus Monthly spoke with 29 nonprofit, political, business and civic leaders, most talking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the topic. Almost everyone agrees that power distribution is widening—a phenomenon that isn’t entirely new. Columbus has been moving in this direction for decades as it has grown larger, more sophisticated and less beholden to the so-called “Titans,” as this magazine has long called the group of Columbus business leaders who once exercised iron-fisted authority over politics, health care, development, education and philanthropy in the city. Still, the decentralizing trend has accelerated in recent years—first following the 2016 death of Columbus Dispatch publisher John F. Wolfe (Wexner’s friend, civic ally and Partnership co-founder) and now as Fischer and Wexner make their leadership transitions.

What do these shifts mean? Some envision positive outcomes: more freedom, transparency, openness. Some hope for new leaders to emerge—perhaps a breakthrough moment for women and minorities. Some hope for collaborative decision-making. Some would like to see ideas embraced that come from all corners of the city, not just from a handful of people with access to those at the pinnacle of power. Today, “You can get things done if you have the base to get them done without having to check in somewhere,” says a political insider. “I don’t think anybody has veto authority in Columbus.” But the changes also could have a downside: factionalism, paralysis, helplessness. Some civic leaders fear Columbus may struggle to pull off the kind of complex public-private partnerships that have been so critical to its success over the past two decades without a Titan (or two or three of them) rallying the community around an ambitious vision. “We are rudderless,” says a nonprofit executive. “There is no plan.”

No matter where folks fall on the spectrum of optimism and anxiety, most agree on at least one thing: The era of the Titans is over. Even though the region is coming off a record-setting decade of economic growth, it still faces plenty of challenges: violent crime, inequality, a failing city school district, an overdose crisis, a housing shortage—all of which seemingly have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. And solutions to these problems will have to emerge in a new leadership environment, probably without bigger-than-life powerbrokers setting the agenda. “You don’t know what you miss until it’s gone,” a civic leader says.

Finding the next generation of leaders in Columbus: Alex Fischer steps up

In the mid-2000s, when the Columbus Partnership was still fairly new, its leaders decided they needed to better understand Columbus’ strengths and weaknesses. With that in mind, the group hired 10 MBA students at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business to produce white papers in five key areas: education, economic development, arts/culture, health care/human services and philanthropy/leadership.

A former elected official recalls being generally unimpressed with the students’ work, which compared Columbus to similar cities such as Cleveland, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Indianapolis and Milwaukee. But the official did pay close attention to the leadership findings, which speculated on whether a new generation was ready to inherit the mantle from the previous one. At the time, a power duo stood far above everyone else in Columbus: Wexner (the billionaire retail tycoon) and Wolfe (the newspaper publisher with an unrivaled commitment to the city). The elected official spoke to Wolfe about the report. “Look,” the politico told Wolfe, “if something happens to you and Les, what happens to this community?”

In many ways, the Partnership was a response to that question. After the 1994 death of the city’s most domineering Titan, J.W. Wolfe, the Dispatch Printing Co. chairman and second cousin of John F. Wolfe, Wexner ascended to the top of the city’s power hierarchy, boosted by his extraordinary philanthropy and cosmopolitan vision for the city. J.W. Wolfe was a fierce rival to Wexner, but his younger and more gracious relative developed a friendship and civic partnership with the L Brands founder after taking over the leadership of the Dispatch Printing Co. empire. Together, Wexner, Wolfe and New Albany Co. chairman Jack Kessler formed the Partnership to serve as a vehicle for Columbus’ top business leaders to solve community challenges and develop a culture of civic engagement among the city’s corporate elite.

When the unthinkable finally did occur—John F. Wolfe’s 2016 death from cancer—the Partnership had matured into a nationally acclaimed group known for a collaborative culture called the Columbus Way. Today, 80 CEOs are part of the organization, with members leading large nonprofits, giant public corporations, emerging tech companies and higher education institutions. Partnership leaders have said that the organization’s outreach efforts have developed a deeper community bench that helped fill the void created by Wolfe’s death. But in reality, there was no way to truly replace him. Though Wexner was widely considered the city’s most powerful person, Wolfe was the Titan with the broadest interests, focusing closely on politics, the nonprofit sector, philanthropy, Ohio State, real estate development—pretty much everything in Columbus.