Global Cleveland Turns 10 | Baiju Shah

Baiju Shah, Founding Board Chair and Trustee, shares the inspiring origin story behind Global Cleveland; his personal motivations as a son of immigrants; and the unique opportunity to make the organization part of the region’s civic and economic development fabric through partnerships with business and public leadership. 

Growing up, I knew that we were one of very few Indian families in the Cleveland area. As the son of immigrants, I experienced the welcoming and adaptation of immigrants from a personal perspective. 

I remember my parents’ efforts in creating connections to other Indian families to preserve culture and also navigating how to connect to the broader American community. Missing the food from home, how do you convert the food you found here to make it more like home? How do you celebrate our holidays and weddings in a new country and culture? As a Marquette grad student in Wisconsin in the early 1960s, my father met a wonderful family who welcomed students through their local church. They taught my dad all about football. To this day, my dad is a big Green Bay Packers fan. 

After graduate school, my father went back to India and found it to be extremely “clubby and corrupt” after his time in the States. He had two job offers, one in Cleveland and one in Boston. He knew an Indian family in Cleveland who said that it was a good place, and that is how our family settled here. Because of that, when his brother and many of his nephews and nieces were ready to come to the States, they all came to Cleveland. That is the story of how immigrant communities form, through an open and welcoming spirit creating this broader sense of community. 

There are so many immigrants with stories just like this. People who helped families like ours navigate the immense cultural differences and ultimately feel welcome, acting as helpful guides and helpful voices. It is vital for the immigrant experience and very important to me. We need to be warm and welcoming to immigrants and their families.

In addition, from an economic development perspective, I recognized the importance of immigrants to thriving technology clusters. But that’s only a part of the story as immigrants contribute to the economy across a range of sectors and also create jobs as entrepreneurs. Beyond tech, from mom-and-pop shops, cleaners, hotels and motels, trade and distribution businesses, and more, I realized that thriving regions benefit from ethnic diversity and immigrants’ work ethic. For revitalizing Cleveland, it was important to attract, retain, and expand these communities.

Immigrants have been and can continue to be a significant contributor to Cleveland’s growth. To explore the idea, Albert Ratner, former Forest City CEO, arranged a breakfast for me with Steve Hoffman, the President of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and also discussions with Ronn Richard, President and CEO from the Cleveland Foundation. They recognized that to be a thriving region once again, we needed to welcome immigrants and their families and appreciate their economic, social, and cultural contributions that greatly enhance our community. With the support of two of our leading foundations, we launched an organization dedicated to that vision.

In the early days, Global Cleveland was like any start-up going from vision and mission to action and impact, with a lot of experimenting on programs. It was critical to keep this organization apolitical. It was about taking that welcoming spirit and keeping it services-oriented to move it forward. It was also critical to establish tight relationships with the public sector, with Mayor Frank Jackson, who has always been a strong supporter, and the city’s International Affairs liaison Chief Valerie McCall; working with Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald; and with Governor John Kasich. We all recognized how important this could be to Ohio, with Democratic leaders in Cleveland and the Republicans in the state capital, and the larger corporate, civic, public support driving economic development. 

As Global Cleveland evolved, we found the leader in Joe Cimperman who could activate and amplify the Global Cleveland mission and partnerships through his boundless energy and enthusiasm. When you have an organization that has a leader and a team that directs you as a Board member, that helps you become even more targeted and effective knowing where to plug in and play a role. Joe and his team have been striving to raise Cleveland’s profile in the national Partnership for a New Economy Index. Positioned and driven by Joe and his team on what we could and should be doing, Joe has set the stage for Cleveland to be firmly recognized as one of the top ten cities in the country attracting, connecting, and welcoming immigrants into our nation. What that means is the percentage of foreign-born, first and second-generation immigrants are rising dramatically from the 2010 census to the 2020 census, and then increasing and doubling our Cleveland area immigrant population again by 2030. It is hard to believe it has been ten years. It is truly amazing.