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Business for a Better Ohio

​Ohio corporations are delivering a massive positive impact for all Ohioans. From foundation and charity work, to community development and supporting small businesses, communities throughout the entire state experience a better quality of life because of large businesses like those that make up the Ohio Business Roundtable.

Community Improvement

Large companies are funding the revitalization of many towns and cities in Ohio. That corporate engagement is helping to preserve the traditions and values of Ohio communities.

Careers
and Jobs

Corporations are bringing meaningful careers to areas and individuals that previously didn't have those opportunities. Special workforce initiatives are delivered to better serve sidelined populations, including veterans, returning citizens, and more.

Ohio

Excellence

Our state is leading the world, because of innovations, firsts, and world-class operations of Ohio's corporate community. Ohioans should be rightfully proud of that history and the force that large companies drive to increase the capability to win global races to the top in every industry in our state.

Small Business Support

Supplier networks of OBRT members are rooted in Ohio small business and small business owners can flourish because of their partnerships with large corporations. Large corporations are actively engaged in supporting the entire economy, not jus the large-cap market.

The Ohio Business Roundtable was established to improve Ohio’s business climate

1992 / Ohio Business Roundtable is created

The OBRT helped forge a coalition of statewide business organizations that worked closely with Governor Voinovich and a bipartisan group of legislative leaders to enact House Bill 107, Ohio's most comprehensive workers' compensation legislation in decades.

1993 / Workers’ Compensation Reform

Launch of Ohio’s BEST – the broadest and deepest coalition of its kind – to drive statewide education improvement.

1994 / Ohio’s BEST

OBRT launched initiative to promote, support and lift up best-in-class business-education partnerships to improve student academic achievement and school operations and cost-effectiveness.

1995 / Business-Education Partnerships

OBRT led an initiative to promote and preserve federal funding support for Ohio’s aerospace industry.

1996 / Promoting Ohio’s Aerospace Industry

Landmark education accountability initiatives, including design of Ohio’s first-ever annual school district report cards.

1997 / Accountability in Education

Worked with lawmakers on passing landmark civil justice and tort reforms, including caps on noneconomic and punitive damage awards and elimination of joint and several liability.

1997 / Tort Reform

OBRT worked in conjunction with the ACT national college admission organization to identify foundation skills entry-level employees need to succeed, setting the stage for standards-based education reforms.

1998 / BRT Ohio Skill Gap Initiative

With analytical support from McKinsey, BRT launched the Ohio Growth Project to identify the public- and private-sector actions – and clusters to invest in – to increase Ohio’s economic growth.

2000 / Ohio Growth Project

With a $10 million gift from Battelle Memorial Institute, OBRT created Battelle for Kids as an independent voice for “rigor” and to promote high standards, “value added” assessment and capacity-building to improve student achievement.

2001 / Battelle for Kids

OBRT published “World-Class Ohio: A Prospectus for Achieving Success in the Third Frontier” as recommendations to State leadership for strategic direction and investment priorities for technology-based economic development in Ohio.

2002 / Technology-Based Economic Development

OBRT created BAHEE at the request of Governor Taft as the business voice in driving higher education improvement.

2004 / Business Alliance for Higher Education & the Economy (BAHEE)

Major overhaul and modernization of Ohio’s anti-competitive tax system to broaden the base, lower the rates and significantly enhance capital investment, exports and job growth.

2005 / Tax Reform

OBRT helped lead ballot issue and voter approval of the initial $1.1 billion bond funding for Third Frontier to spur technology-based economic development.

2005 / Third Frontier

OBRT published “The Talent Challenge: What Ohio Must Do to Thrive, Not Merely Survive, in a Flat World.”

2006 / Ohio’s Talent Challenge

Launch of the Ohio Business Development Coalition to brand, market, promote and sell Ohio as the location for business investment and expansion – a precursor to JobsOhio.

2006 / Ohio Business Development Coalition

With $15 million in funding support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in collaboration with Battelle, creation of the Ohio STEM Learning Network and six regional STEM academies to educate, cultivate and train Ohio’s next generation of innovators.

2007 / STEM Learning Network

OBRT helped successfully negotiate the removal of the proposed harmful sick-leave ballot initiative.

2008 / Sick Days Ballot Issue

Launch of the Ohio Solutions for Patient Safety initiative to reduce healthcare-associated infections and medication errors, with leadership and funding support from Cardinal Health.

2009 / Patient Safety

OBRT leads ballot issue and Ohio voter approval – by a margin of 62-38 – of the $700 million renewal of Ohio Third Frontier bonds.

2010 / Third Frontier Renewal

JobsOhio, a private, nonprofit corporation created by Gov. Kasich to lead Ohio’s business development efforts – initially incubated and housed at the BRT, with ongoing advocacy and back-office support.

2011 / JobsOhio

With analytical support from McKinsey, an OBRT task force provided benchmarking and analysis to provide ideas for closing Ohio’s $8 billion budget deficit.

2011 / Budget Solutions

With analytical and systems design support from Accenture and in conjunction with the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation, OBRT created a sustainable, regionally focused workforce forecast and information exchange.

2012 / Improving Ohio’s Workforce

OBRT-commissioned analysis of proposed oil and gas severance tax provisions informed high-stakes dialogue about shale gas development in Ohio.

2013 / Oil & Natural Gas Analysis

OBRT released “Failure is Not an Option,” its groundbreaking study of high-performing, high-poverty schools, as evidence that the quality of principal leadership is the most important factor in student academic achievement.

2014 / “Failure is Not an Option”

With support from McKinsey, OBRT launched a comprehensive energy competitiveness initiative, examining the supply of natural resources and the methods used to generate and distribute electricity and gas to consumers.

2015 / Energy Competitiveness Initiative

With funding support from the State of Ohio, and an exceptionally strong partnership with The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, OBRT launched an unprecedented principal leadership program – BRIGHT New Leaders for Ohio Schools.

2015 / BRIGHT New Leaders for Ohio Schools

OBRT developed and released a six-point, research-driven comprehensive energy agenda to: (1) maximize Ohio’s natural gas advantage, (2) meet the evolving needs of the power market, (3) build the required support infrastructure, (4) improve the ease of doing business, (5) ensure adoption of renewals and advanced energy technologies is market-based, and (6) drive economic impact from energy competitiveness.

2016 / Energy Agenda

The OBRT Board selected former Congressman Pat Tiberi to serve as President and CEO of the organization.

2018 / New OBRT Leadership

In partnership with AEP, JPMorgan Chase, and the national Business Roundtable, OBRT helped launch the Office of Talent Strategy at Columbus State Community College.

2019 / Workforce Partnership Initiative

Led by the Ohio Business Roundtable, the Coalition is a collaboration of over 180 businesses, non-profit organizations and education institutions. Its goal is to mobilize a grassroots effort by ordinary Ohioans to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and curb the spread of the virus.

2020 / Stop the Spread Coalition

At the request of Governor DeWine, the Ohio Business Roundtable assisted to establish a public-private partnership to address the rampant unemployment fraud in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

2021 / Public Private Partnership to Combat Unemployment Fraud

OBRT joined with Ohio’s five other major business associations to successfully advocate for the state using federal COVID-19 stimulus money to payoff the $1.5 billion in unemployment compensation debt, saving Ohio business from footing the bill when collection of the debt was set to begin.

2021 / Unemployment Compensation Debt Payoff

30 Years of Results

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