Ariana Smith, Educational Engagement Manager at The City Club of Cleveland will serve as the emcee of thinkBIG! Summit.

Smith was born and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and graduated from Shaker Heights High School. Upon graduation, she attended John Carroll University focusing on entrepreneurship and business management. However, it was the experiences had outside of the “traditional classroom” that truly set her on her professional path. Notably, the ECITY program, dedicated to nurturing youth entrepreneurship, and the Freedom School program, designed to instilling a passion for reading among young minds, both played pivotal roles in shaping her career trajectory.

Over the last 15 years, Smith has taken pride in her role as an educator, focusing primarily on nurturing the intellectual growth of middle and high school students. Her instructional portfolio encompasses a diverse range of subjects such as entrepreneurship, character/leadership development, financial literacy, and career preparedness. Thus far, her work has left a impact on more than 6,000 young minds and the numbers continue to grow.

Currently, Smith serves as the Educational Engagement Manager at The City Club of Cleveland and is a recent graduate of Cleveland Leadership Center’s Bridge Builders program.

Amy Mucha will serve as a judge for the thinkBIG! Summit competition.

Amy lives in Kent, OH with her husband Nate and her three kids Peter the mathlete, Charlie the artist, and Daisy the dancer (and the company namesake). As a former high school math teacher turned professional pop artist, Amy still tries to use all of that educational and math knowledge to run Daisy Pops in the most efficient, fun, and organized way. After five years of running the cake pop empire out of Amy’s home, Daisy Pops moved out in April of 2023 to their first brick and mortar in downtown Kent where there is a dedicated team of 15 pop artists producing about 3,000 pops per week. In order to keep up with the mass production of cake pops, Amy and her husband also started 3D printing cake pop tools to make the process more efficient. Those tools now make up another company named Daisy Makes, and they currently have forty 3D printers supplying the global demand of cake pop tools!

Aisha Childers will be as a judge for the thinkBIG! Summit competition.

Driven to help those with less access to economic opportunities, Ms. Childers was driven to serve as a resource to help people reach their full potential, despite any obstacles they may face. In 2009, she became the executive director of the Making the Change Foundation and founded Let’s Make a Change Enrichment Center, where she currently serves as an executive director. After the initial stages of her career, Ms. Childers established Bite Creole Kitchen, where she currently serves as the executive director. With the rise of entrepreneurs opening their own businesses, Aisha Childers saw a need to open a space for them to not only lounge, but learn, develop, create and grow. Create-A-Space is both a co-working and social space that offers both in-person and virtual amenities to support small- and medium-sized businesses.

Hunter Cooper is crafting the award plaques for all finalists.

Hunter is a junior at John Carroll University studying business to own his own. His biggest accomplishment is starting and running a profitable woodworking business. He is doing 75% promotional products – large corporate batch orders used for employee gifts, award plaques etc. Hunter’s major is Finance but interests extend much further than that. All aspects of running a business thrill him.

He is currently interning at Eclipse Co LLC to learn what makes a company in that industry successful. He is grateful for the people who have given him this opportunity.