CitySCOPE Podcast
Welcome to CitySCOPE, a podcast about cities and inclusive economic development from Kate Cooney and her students at the Yale School of Management.
In Season 1, Remaking the City: Charting the Opportunity in Opportunity Zones, we spoke with developers, community organizers, housing experts, impact investors, foundation fund managers and public sector officials to learn more about how Opportunity Zones might be utilized for community benefit. In Season 2, the theme is Rethinking Community Engagement: Investigating the Role of Narratives in Inclusive Economic Development. In Season 3, we explored the history and research on efforts for Supporting and Scaling Black Businesses. Season 4 is organized around the theme Infrastructure and Equity. Take a listen!
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Kate Cooney
Senior Lecturer in Social Enterprise and Management
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Kate Cooney's research uses institutional theory to study the intersection of business and social sectors. Current work focuses on the cross-country comparisons of new social business legal forms, corporate supply chain transparency, social return on investment methods and inclusive economic development strategies in the American city. To understand how hybrid organizations are shaped by commercial and institutional isomorphic pressures, she has studied commercialization in the nonprofit sector, social enterprise, workforce development programs, and the emergence of new social business legal forms. She has also written broadly about market based approaches to poverty alleviation the negotiation of competing institutional logics in social enterprise organizations. Projects underway include CitySCOPE podcast, a series examining inclusive economic development in American Cities (Listen to Season 1 Charting the Opportunity in Opportunity Zones) and a MacMillan Center funded grant titled Consumer Activism and Supply Chain Transparency: Anti-Slavery Movements in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Prior to joining the faculty at Yale SOM, Dr. Cooney was on the faculty at Boston University teaching courses on nonprofit management, urban poverty and economic development, and community and organizational analysis. Kate Cooney currently serves on the Board of Directors of Dwight Hall at Yale, Center for Public Service and Justice.
Episodes
CitySCOPE live from New Haven!
Meeting the Moment with Inclusive Economic Development
Voices of the Entrepreneurs
In our final episode for Season 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we have a bonus episode produced in collaboration with James Johnson-Piett and Maggie Clark from Urbane, featuring interviews from Urbane's work on the Philadelphia Equitable Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Assessment and Strategy report, completed in May 2021. Over the course of this season, we spoke with researchers, historians, practitioners, and city builders about efforts to support and scale Black-owned and Black-led businesses. In this bonus episode, we hear 10 BIPOC entrepreneurs in Philadelphia share about their entrepreneurial journeys and their views on how cities can create more equitable pathways to support thriving, diverse business founders move their businesses to the next level. Take a listen!
Building Equitable Ecosystems with Accelerators
In episode 14 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we speak with Dianna Tremblay and Caron Gugssa-Howard from ICA in Oakland, CA about their work building a more equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem through accelerator and investment fund programing. Topics include: pathways to growth in the dynamic Bay area economy, using a venture-capital CDFI model to develop an accelerator targeting entrepreneurs from low wealth backgrounds, operating an accelerator with attention to both business scaling and the production of good jobs, integrating direct investment with accelerator programming, and developing capital investment vehicles that fit the mission. Join us for a great conversation!
Venture Capital, Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Inclusion
Venture Capital, Networks and Access
Networks and Why They Matter
Merger Leads to Largest Black-Led Bank in U.S.
Join us for episode 10 of the CitySCOPE podcast where Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Brian Argrett, President & CEO of City First Bank and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Broadway Financial Corporation. Topics include: the merger of City First and Broadway Financial to form the largest Black-led bank in the United States, the consolidation of the banking industry, the impact of the 2008 recession on Black-owned and Black-led banks, the history of disinvestment in Black communities and households in the United States, and the passion and creativity that go into creating quality financial products for low wealth communities. Take a listen!
Crowdfunding for Main Street
Entrepreneurship, Employment and Careers for Individuals with a Criminal Record
In Episode 8 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney, faculty at the Yale School of Management, speaks with Kylie Jiwon Hwang, Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Kylie’s research lies at the intersection of entrepreneurship, discrimination and labor markets. Our conversation focuses on her dissertation research examining entrepreneurship and employment for formerly incarcerated people. Topics include: the current statistics on incarceration and recidivism in the United States, barriers to employment in the labor market for individuals with a criminal record, entrepreneurship as a response to labor market discrimination, employers’ views of candidates with entrepreneurial experience, and the role of employment and entrepreneurship in reducing recidivism. Join us!
Anchor-Based Business Development
Episode 7 of the CitySCOPE podcast features a conversation with Kate Cooney and Boris Sigal, Co-Executive Director of the Community Purchasing Alliance (CPA). Boris graduated from the Yale School of Management in 2014. Post-graduation, Boris worked for a number of years in New Haven, first in a special one-year position created between the New Haven City Economic Development Administration and the Yale University Office of New Haven and State Affairs and later as Director of Business Development at New Haven Works, where he focused on building closer relationships with the regional business community and aligning local hiring opportunities with large employers like Yale University and Yale-New Haven Health. Topics include: insights from analysis of Yale University’s procurement spending and the impact of operational decisions on the regional economy, reflections on a year-long initiative to move some of Yale University’s spending on procurement toward regional vendors, the landmark Yale University New Haven Hiring Initiative, and the impact on local business development that can result from banding smaller anchors (churches and schools) into purchasing cooperatives. Join us!