Bob Scannell founded Scannell Properties in 1990 with a focus on build-to-suit leased projects for clients that needed such projects on a repeat basis. He hoped to build a “streamlined, entrepreneurial company that could develop projects anywhere in the U.S., using its own capital to fund the developments,” his bio reads on the company‘s website. Since its inception, Scannell has added speculative projects to its portfolio and expanded the company‘s operations to Europe. The company now completes more than $4 billion in new development each year and has built more than 300 projects in 44 states, plus Canada and Europe.
Bill Shrewsberry founded engineering and consulting firm Shrewsberry & Associates in 2001. He “envisioned a company that would do more than just provide quality engineering and environmental solutions.” He determined to encourage “a culture that would create opportunities for a diverse group of professionals to be trained and mentored.” Now, the firm also has offices in Cincinnati, Louisville, Dallas, Denver, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Shrewsberry has served in various government roles, too, including as a senior staffer to former Gov. Evan Bayh, as commissioner of the Indiana Department of Administration, and as deputy mayor of public policy to former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson.
Indiana love: “Hoosier Hospitality”
Toughest challenge: “After attending a segregated elementary school three years in Jeffersonville, Indiana,” his toughest challenge was “to be judged by the content of my character and not by the color of my skin.”
Dan Starr has served as president and CEO of Fort Wayne-based Do it Best—the state‘s largest private company—since January 2016. He joined the member-owned wholesale distribution and services company—which supports independently owned hardware stores, home centers and lumberyards—in 2005 as director of human resources and general counsel. He is leading Do it Best‘s development of a new headquarters, which will be the anchor tenant at Electric Works in Fort Wayne. Before Do it Best, Starr was a partner at Barnes and Thornburg. He‘s the Parkview Health board chair and is a trustee of Manchester University.
Reading: “I am re-reading ‘Boundaries for Leaders,‘
by Henry Cloud.”
A better Indiana: “Our infant mortality rate needs to change. … How we care for the most vulnerable in our community says everything about who we are.”
Indiana love: “The lakes and smaller communities of northeast Indiana. Our state is blessed with beautiful farms, pasturelands and lakes.”
Paul Thrift founded Thompson Thrift Development with John Thompson in 1986. He serves as president and CEO today. The business has grown into a nationally recognized full-service real estate company that has developed more than $3.7 billion of ground-up real estate projects. The company has 550 employees and is active in 20 states, with offices in Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Houston and Phoenix. As president and CEO, Thrift oversees growth of the company‘s asset portfolio and new
market opportunities.
Admires most: “Jesus Christ. I strive to be a disciple of Christ.”
Worries about: “Everything.”
Hobby: “I have a passion for snow skiing, and ski as many days a year as I can.”
Turner Woodard is an Indianapolis-based real estate executive who, in 1993, purchased the historic Stutz factory complex just north of downtown. He revived the vacant complex into a space that was about 90% occupied with 200-plus tenants, including artists and manufacturing and tech companies, when he sold a majority of his ownership in early 2021. New York City-based real estate investment firm SomeraRoad Inc. bought his majority stake in the 400,000-square-foot property, which includes the Stutz Business and Arts Center and Stutz II. Now, Woodard is redeveloping several properties in Carmel.
Something surprising: “I work late into the night. It‘s not uncommon for me to make phone calls up until midnight.”
Advice for young people: “Dream and then take action to follow through on them. Dreams, goals, plans, actions, results!”
Indiana love: “The changing seasons and family and friends. It‘s that simple.”
Kristian Andersen leads design, marketing, and startup ideation and validation at venture studio High Alpha, which he co-founded with partners Eric Tobias, Scott Dorsey and Mike Fitzgerald in 2015 with the goal of conceiving and growing business-to-business software companies. Before co-founding High Alpha, he founded Studio Science, a design and innovation consultancy that he sold in 2019. He previously co-founded the seed-stage venture fund Gravity Ventures and a number of software companies, including Octiv, Lessonly, Visible and Pathagility.
Something surprising: “I own over 30 pairs of cowboy boots.”
Walk-up song: “Arkansas”
Hobbies: “I‘m an avid hunter, angler, gardener and beekeeper.”
Indiana love: “That Indiana loves you back. I‘ve felt embraced and supported by this state and its residents in a way I‘ve never experienced anywhere else.”
Chris Baggott, one of Indiana‘s most successful serial entrepreneurs, co-founded direct-email firm ExactTarget with his brother-in-law Scott Dorsey in 2000. It went public in 2012 and was acquired by Salesforce for $2.5 billion in 2013. Baggott also founded Compendium Software, which was acquired by Oracle Corp., before he turned his attention to food. After opening Tyner Pond Farm, an open-pasture, direct-to-consumer livestock operation in Greenfield, he purchased the Frosty Mug drive-in in Greenfield in 2014 and launched farm-to-table restaurant The Mug. He then launched cooked-food delivery service ClusterTruck in 2015. The delivery-only restaurant now has locations across the Indianapolis area and has branched out to other states.
Scott Jones is founder, chair and president of Eleven Fifty Academy, a software development and cybersecurity coding academy that‘s trained more than 1,000 coders in Indiana since its start in 2014. Before Eleven Fifty, Jones was a founding partner in Boston Technology, the world‘s largest voicemail provider. He also founded music and database company Gracenote, now a division of Nielsen, and invented the internet search engine ChaCha, which answered 2.25 billion questions before shutting down in 2016. He‘s raised over $200 million for his companies.
Favorite part of being a leader: “Helping people grow to become great leaders and contributors.”
Something surprising: “I helped dig ‘Bucky‘ the T-rex at [The] Children‘s Museum [of Indianapolis] out of the ground to start the most successful exhibit in the history of the museum.”
Hobbies: “Constant reader and absorber of new information. Western and Eastern medicine. My primary hobby is changing
the world.”
Tony Katz is a radio host. His shows include “Tony Katz and the Morning News” on WIBC-FM 93.1 and “Tony Katz Today,” a midday program played on stations across Indiana and in Atlanta; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and St. Louis. He also has a cigar-and-bourbon radio program—“Eat! Drink! Smoke!”—that‘s played on stations nationwide and is the largest program of its kind in the U.S. He‘s regularly featured on cable news, including Fox News and NewsNation, discussing politics and culture.
Hobbies: “Every hobby I‘ve ever had I‘ve turned into a vocation. Politics, culture, bourbon, cigars. If I took up golf, I know I‘d end up designing courses in about an hour.”
Civic causes: “I was happy to help raise funds to rebuild the L.S. Ayres clock and to host a fundraiser on my morning show to benefit the Kurt Vonnegut Museum.”
Walk-up song: “I‘m one of the few people I know who has their own theme song, so I would use that. It was written for me by Gary Steven Eaton.”
Peter Kelly was named CEO of KAR Global in 2021. Before assuming that role, he was president, a position he was named to in 2019. As president, he oversaw all KAR business units and brands, including ADESA, AFC, BacklotCars and TradeRev, and was responsible for the company‘s digital platforms and solutions. He joined KAR in 2011 when it acquired the online auction platform OpenLane, of which he was president and CEO. Under Kelly‘s leadership, the company announced in February it had agreed to sell its physical auction unit ADESA to Carvana Co.
Reading: “The Future is History,” by Masha Gessen, and “A Pale View of Hills,” by Kazuo Ishiguro
Advice for young people: “Find challenging work that you enjoy and give it your best. If possible, find a mentor.”
Sabbatical topic: “I‘d travel with my family to a part of the world I‘ve not been to before and spend six months learning about their culture, history and their natural world.”
