Erik Johnson was always the handy friend who could fix your lamp or build your table. “I’ve always been making things: the odd piece of furniture, here and there, for my own apartment, my own loft.” Now his clients range from Bergdorf Goodman t

Penda Aiken, founder and CEO, Penda Aiken Inc.

Apr 26th, 2018 33m 51s

Diversity hiring is a business watchword these days, but Penda Aiken was pursuing it long before corporate America fully realized its importance. Launched in 1990, her Downtown Brooklyn firm Penda Aiken Inc., is now a leading staffing agency, u

Marissa Evans Alden, co-founder and CEO, Sawyer

Apr 10th, 2018 29m

“Sawyer is for pretty much anyone that has children,” co-founder Marissa Evans Alden told us of her Brooklyn-based tech startup, Sawyer. “We’ve built an online marketplace where parents can come and discover the best education opportunities for

Jim Munson, co-founder and CEO, Brooklyn Roasting Co.

Mar 30th, 2018 24m 53s

Jim Munson has had an influential hand in two important local industries: beer and coffee. After spending more than a decade as a VP and partner at Brooklyn Brewery in the 1990s and then seven years as a VP of Dallis Bros. Coffee, he decided to

Chelsea Brownridge, co-founder, Dog Parker

Mar 16th, 2018 33m 54s

Chelsea Brownridge has had dogs her whole life, but it wasn’t until moving from North Carolina to Brooklyn with her current dog, Winston, that she realized just how often dog owners have to leave their furry friends at home. Planning a day of w

Emma Straub, co-founder, Books Are Magic

Mar 8th, 2018 36m 42s

When the beloved indie bookstore BookCourt in Cobble Hill announced its closing in December 2016, the neighborhood (and beyond) was crushed. Famous writers and neighbors filled social media with mourning. The very same day, however, came a ray

Steve Koepp, editor and founder, The Bridge

Feb 27th, 2018 31m

“You can live in a place and really not know it as well as you think you might,” Steve Koepp mused about Brooklyn as he recalled the founding, the present and the future of The Bridge. The site is one year old today, so we figured it was time t

Dave Bolotsky, founder and CEO, UncommonGoods

Feb 13th, 2018 27m 41s

Whether you’re looking for taco-themed baby booties, whiskey-chilling stones, or an avocado-tree starter kit, Brooklyn-based UncommonGoods has got you covered. The e-commerce company, headquartered in the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park,

Nasir Memon, co-founder, NYU Center for Cybersecurity

Feb 7th, 2018 38m 21s

“A hacker is someone who is very curious by nature and loves to just dig his or her hands into something and find a little point somewhere that breaks the whole thing down,” says Nasir Memon, a Brooklyn-based computer-science professor who has

Jenna Weiss-Berman, co-founder, Pineapple Street Media

Jan 11th, 2018 29m 44s

Jenna Weiss-Berman is a co-founder and producer at Pineapple Street Media, the Brooklyn-based podcast company responsible for some of the most novel shows of our time, including Missing Richard Simmons, Still Processing and Women of the Hour wi

Jeremy McCool, founder and CEO, HEVO Inc.

Dec 22nd, 2017 40m 47s

Jeremy McCool, the founder and CEO of Brooklyn-based HEVO Inc., has always been a tinkerer and an entrepreneur, from mowing lawns at age nine to his current role as chief of a tech company with global ambitions. HEVO, which stands for Hybrid

Jeremy McCool, founder and CEO, HEVO Inc.

Dec 22nd, 2017 40m 47s

Allison Kopf, founder and CEO, Agrilyst

Dec 12th, 2017 29m 30s

To feed a hungry world, farmers will increasingly be growing crops indoors, which hugely boosts efficiency. This trend gave Allison Kopf a compelling idea. She’s the founder and CEO of Agrilyst, a Brooklyn-based startup that has created a data

Joseph Lubin, founder, ConsenSys

Dec 5th, 2017 29m 19s

Joseph Lubin is a renaissance man of technology, having ventured into fields ranging from robotics to digital music to finance. But it was a fateful moment in 2011, when he first heard about Bitcoin, that launched him on the path to creating a