The Buffalo News’ inaugural Voices of Vision event, attended by more than 100 community and business leaders, young professionals and other community stakeholders, featured an engaging panel discussion on the future of leadership in the region.
Held at the Burchfield Penney Art Center on March 20, the open discourse centered on building the next generation of leadership in Buffalo and fostering innovation and entrepreneurship.
Presented by Aleron, a homegrown, family business that provides companies around the world expertise in talent acquisition and workforce management, the event featured insights from Scott Stenclik, president and CEO of Aleron; Erich Reich, past 43North board chair; Peter Petrella, president of TalentRise, a member of Aleron Group that recruits and develops high-performing executives; and Nick Kosinski, managing director of US East at Odoo.
Tom Wiley, publisher of The Buffalo News, moderated the discussion, which will serve as the first of several upcoming forums over 2025.
“This initiative is about creating opportunity for leadership growth and fostering connections between leaders of various projects and community efforts,” Wiley said.
As experts in job recruitment and management, Aleron leaders like Stenclik see firsthand the need for cultivating emerging leaders.
“We’re a much more diverse and international community now. We need bold leaders who understand addressing this broad constituency, including those who are traditionally underrepresented and left out of the conversation,” Stenclik said. “We need to have leaders who will fight for this city’s rightful relevance in the future.”
Petrella emphasized the qualities inherent in living and working in Buffalo that bolster recruitment of leaders and changemakers.
“There’s a lot of uniqueness to our community,” he said. “We have architectural beauty; we have a rich history of industry and entrepreneurship. Then there’s the people of Buffalo. There are generations of people with grit and determination that you don’t see anywhere else. We need to find ways to leverage that uniqueness. If we do that, we’ve created a competitive advantage other cities don’t have.”
Kosinski, who returned to Buffalo with Odoo about five years ago, described some of those advantages, both personal and professional, that drew Odoo to the Buffalo Niagara region, where they’ll add 1,000 jobs in the next four years.
“Buffalo is a much easier sell than a lot of people think it is,” he explained. “It’s super affordable, and what we’re doing here today … sitting side by side have this conversation, you’re not doing that in New York or San Francisco.”
Reich, formerly of 43North, agreed the accessibility matters for creating opportunity for young professionals.
“Your ability to get access to the people who can make a difference is much greater than anywhere else,” he said.
Leadership Buffalo and other organizations were recognized as important incubators for building the next generation of community leaders as the region looks to build out its workforce and recruit new talent.
Stenclik looks forward to continued collaboration on finding solutions to the challenges Buffalo Niagara faces, as well as find ways to convert these to opportunities.
“This was a hub of innovation 100 years ago,” he said. “It happened then, and it can happen again if we leverage our collective strength. We can make a difference here.”
The conversation will continue at the second Voices of Vision event, planned for May 1 at the Burchfield Penney. The community is welcome to share feedback, questions or ideas at the Voices of Vision website.
