CenterState CEO, Brookings Institution release metropolitan business plan

SYRACUSE — CenterState CEO and the Brookings Institution today released a metropolitan-business plan that identifies five “key” findings with “clear” implications for “redefining the region’s economic profile.”

That’s how the organizations described the report, titled “CenterState Agenda for Economic Opportunity,” which they released during a Thursday morning event at Syracuse Stage.

The report, which was “developed collaboratively,” follows research conducted over the past year-and-a-half, Robert Simpson, president of CenterState CEO said during his remarks.

Simpson provided an “overview of some of the lead initiatives that we think we need to be working on … in fact, we already are working on to implement … that we think can help drive the community forward.”

The report found the region holds “strong potential to excel” in new technology fields and that growth in global markets can boost the region’s exports, CenterState CEO said in a news release.

It also found the region’s innovation ecosystem is still emerging and requires new investment, and that the region must retain and expand a skilled workforce, grow economic opportunity, and develop employer-driven approaches to align workers and jobs.

The report also found that the present-day economy requires modernizing local government.

Based on the findings, the report also recommends eight strategies that are designed to drive growth, build synergies, and create “a new center of gravity for the next economy,” the organizations said in the news release.

They include positioning the region as a global center for data-to-decisions (D2D) firms, people, and ideas. That effort will include establishing the Data to Decisions Innovation Alliance to “catalyze growth through research, product, and market development and attraction of “world-class talent,” CenterState CEO said.

The strategies also include efforts to “strengthen the region’s position as a leader” in cybersecurity, thermal, and environmental-control systems, and agribusiness.

Additionally, they include efforts to grow exports and foreign-direct investment and implement the Metropolitan Export Initiative to double regional exports in five years, the report said.

The strategies also include an effort to build out an ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship and launch a regional seed and venture fund that would offer investment support for the region’s emerging companies.

The strategies also include developing employer-driven approaches to align workers and jobs; setting priorities for infrastructure investments and improvements; cultivating “opportunity-rich” environments by developing market-rate housing; and building “effective” public and civic institutions and culture, including the development of a commission on government modernization, according to the report.

CenterState CEO listed 18 organizations, including itself, Syracuse University, Mohawk Valley EDGE, and the Central New York Community Foundation, that provided financial support for the report.

The full market analysis that produced the report is available at www.centerstateopportunity.com, according to CenterState CEO.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com