Working the Room: Highlights from the 2023 Business Hall of Fame & Community Leader of the Year Awards

The Business Hall of Fame and Community Leader of the Year awards celebrate Cleveland's best and brightest. By Terry Troy

What started in 1996 as a project to help Cleveland celebrate its Bicentennial has grown into our city’s premiere annual business and social event.

More than 200 business and community leaders, as well as our city’s elite, attended Cleveland Magazine’s and Community Leader’s Business Hall of Fame & Community Leaders of the Year Awards, packing the Union Club at the sold-out event.

Attendees were treated to a cocktail get-to-know-you reception, as well as a dinner with speakers and video presentations that told the success stories of the honorees at the event.

The Business Hall of Fame welcomed three new members, brothers Jules and Mike Belkin (the latter posthumously) who pioneered the Rock and Roll and music industry in Cleveland as well as Robert Klonk, Oswald Companies chairman and CEO, a pioneer in insurance and risk management. These titans of business and industry joined Cleveland legends, such as John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Winton, Cyrus Eaton, Henry Sherwin and hundreds of others.

Jules Belkin and Michael Belkin (son of the late Mike), related the experiences the brothers had building the legendary Belkin Productions, which started with two shows by the New Christy Minstrels and the Four Freshman at the Music Hall and a show at the old Cleveland Arena with Miles Davis and Sarah Vaughn in 1966 and grew to include the massive World Series of Rock, a multi-band concert that drew tens of thousands of fans and eventually became the model for concerts across the country.

Those concerts helped launch the careers of dozens of rock legends, many who now grace the halls of our own Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The Belkin brothers were also involved in the development of dozens of local bands and artists including Michael Stanley, Donny Iris and the Cruisers and Breathless. With their dozens of other accomplishments and lengthy list of community services, it’s no wonder the Belkins were inducted into the Cleveland Business Hall of Fame.

While not as attention-grabbing as the glitz of show business on the rock stage, Robert “Bob” Klonk’s accomplishments, both in business and civic involvement, are no less significant. A business visionary, Klonk pioneered a successful path to the top of the industry, which included the creation of bold insights into an evolving business. After being named CEO of the Oswald Companies, a Unison Risk Advisors Company in 2013, Klonk continued to build Oswald. Today, the employee-owned insurance brokerage company and risk management consulting firm is one of our nation’s largest, with more than 1,000 employees across five states. The company recently solidified its 130-year-plus commitment to our city, signing a lease to move its headquarters to the E&Y Tower on the East Bank of the Flats.

This year’s crop of Community Leaders of the Year were recognized for both their leadership and community commitment. The illustrious list included: Lillian Kuri, an immigrant who came here from Lebanon and now heads up the Cleveland Foundation; Sonia Winner, who has led the transformation of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History; Kevin Clayton, who is making a difference on and off the court as head of societal impact for the Cleveland Cavaliers; Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, who has led a massive cleanup effort and directed the rebuilding of our wastewater infrastructure to help protect our water; and Tania Menesse, who, as CEO and president of Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, is revitalizing our city one neighborhood at a time.

If you were there, use these images to reminisce. If you couldn’t make it, here’s a small sampling of what you missed. We hope to see you next year!

Amanda Martinsek and Nelson Axelrod enjoyed a drink before the crowd closed in.