Revitalizing Cincinnati: Corey Bowman’s blueprint for local leadership

I'm Vince Molinari and welcome to FinTech TV.

We're broadcasting from the iconic New York Stock Exchange, and we're here to cover, as usual people and ideas shaping business and policy not just here in the United States but around the world.

Our guest today is Cory Bowman, pastor, entrepreneur and now candidate for mayor of Cincinnati, and he also happens to be the brother of Vice President JD Vance.

Corey's story isn't just about one city, it reflects a bigger question how local leadership.

Become a blueprint for the challenges facing America as a whole.

Corey, so delighted, honored.

Welcome here to FinTech TV on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Hey, Vince, thank you so much for having us and all the FinTech team.

This is truly an honor and has been an incredible day so far, my first time being on the floor here.

Well, we love the first time anybody come in.

It is part of that.

Epic moment, you know, going back to the establishment of the New York Stock Exchange, way back to the Buttonwood agreement and curbside trading and the history and the businesses that have been fostered and really the framing of the United States coming right here from the New York Stock Exchange.

Yeah, it's incredible.

I believe I was talking to a gentleman named Eddie over there who's been here for 41 years, I believe.

So I was like, You know, I probably sounded like I was grilling them, but I was just asking questions about what these years look like, what these years look like, because we've looked at the market, the history of the market.

I have an economics degree and so I'm very interested to see like how everything played out here and it's just been incredible to hear the stories of what has happened in this room and you experienced a bit of it firsthand.

There's so much history.

And the people that are here on the floor, particularly that have been here for decades, are so proud and want to engage and share that history as it's evolved, right, and we've moved to technology and we're going to talk more about that.

But I want you to jump in, right?

So, so taking this leap from being a pastor, an entrepreneur, now running for mayor.

What was that decision like, you know, what inspired you?

Yeah, so, you know, we, like you mentioned, I'm a pastor, and the Bible actually has a verse that states that a person perishes for the lack of vision, right?

And so the vision for our life and for me and my wife, we actually have 4 kids as well, and we.

Thank you so much.

We actually love the city of Cincinnati.

You know, I grew up in the area, went back and forth because my father was a custom home builder, but what ended up happening was that I always knew I was going to come back to my hometown of Cincinnati, the downtown area, the culture that we have there, the sports scenes, the broadcasts, everything.

But the vision for our life has always been to help people.

And so we started a church just over 5 years ago in one of the urban areas there.

We've done grocery outreaches.

We just have a heart for the community.

Then we started a business about 2 years later after that because economically that's important too.

It's not just about the spiritual aspect, but it's about showing that economically we need to impact these areas as well.

Well then over the course of those years I felt like I was getting a front row seat to failed policies.

There was a week where my business didn't even have customers because the snow wasn't removed in front of our streets.

Then we have potholes everywhere.

There are certain buildings and communities around our neighborhood that have been stifled with development and growth because of red tape.

And so these are things that I just had a front row seat to and I said, Hey, something's got to give.

Well then what ended up happening was, and we can, you know, talk about it later, but you know, when it came down to the inauguration of my brother, I wanted to ask you about that.

Yeah, so my brother got inaugurated as the Vice President of the United States and basically long story short, I asked myself what part can I play.

And seeing impact in our city now initially I thought I was just going to get behind a candidate, but then I realized like this is something that we have to step into to really make a stand, and that's what's happening right now.

We're running for the mayor of Cincinnati and the election is this November in 2025.

Well, certainly, best of luck to you with the election.

We want to talk more about that.

But it's really an interesting thread.

So here, your brother is being inaugurated Vice President of the United States kind of touches you in a way, Jose, you know, how do I pull that back to a local position?

Yeah, a local, and when I say position, not necessarily elected official at that point, but doing your role, so you're you're frustrated.

There's no snow removal, there's potholes.

It's impacting economic growth and prosperity, your own livelihood.

So you take a little personal responsibility and hold up your hand and say, Hey, I want to support somebody.

Absolutely.

There's nobody to support, right?

And all of a sudden they're called civil servants, right?

They're called public servants, and I think a lot of times people in government fail to realize that this isn't a career, it's a service, it's a duty that you have to offer to your communities.

Well, What was that like, if I'm asking it too personal, you know, it's, it's a big leap to go from Pastor, entrepreneur, your family, your wife and say, Hey, we're going to jump into politics, you know, talk about pivoting and iterating and taking a whole level of being a civil servant and I say broadly a servant as an extension of what you're doing as a pastor.

What was that like at family life?

Well, I mean, luckily we had an incredible example of my first political race, just 3 years.

It's incredible.

So he wrote, you know, he wrote his book and that became a New York Times bestsell. so he got the notoriety there, but like his first political race, I mean the guy doesn't know how to lose.

It's just insane to see the progression of where he's ended up right now.

And I tell people, you know, whatever side of the aisle that you're on, the man came from poverty.

He took advantage of the GI bill after serving his country in the Marines, and then he goes off, starts business, and then he gets into politics as a service to his community to give back to his nation.

And so that acceleration.

Kind of gave us an indicator of what was to come.

What's possible.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, what's possible, but also kind of the backlash you will get some of the hardships that come with that public service.

So we kind of knew what we were getting into there.

Um, it was never really a political aspiration.

Mind, it was always about just this is a this is something that we know we have to make a stand and do because in our city right now we're seeing decaying infrastructure.

We're seeing businesses that aren't able to thrive.

They say they're coming to Cincinnati, but really they're going outside the city limits because of red tape and policies and crime.

And then that's another thing the rising crime that's happening in our city, it's deterring businesses from wanting to come, and there's multiple businesses that have left the downtown area because of that.

I want to talk more about that, you know, we You know, sometimes we forget as a society the economic engine, the capital formation that drives job creation, that drives our economy, that drives our tax base, and sometimes we forget that that engine is input, sometimes we forget that iterating and as entrepreneurs, I think being some of the biggest resource of our country.

But technology, you know, here we are as FinTech TD.

You and I have had wonderful conversations about blockchain and AI, you know, Ohio having such a rich industrial history.

You know, how do we look at local communities, job creation, economic prosperity, and the linkage back to technology so that so that we do have prosperous cities and Cities and safety cities, I think partly comes from the driving of the economics, yeah, and so the thing that I noticed about the floor here is that the technology is second to none when you talk about people that are adapting on the floor here to know that they are selling and buying to the best of their capability.

They're impacting industry to the best of their capability.

They're utilizing whatever tools that they can, and the reason why that is is because of the free market.

The reason why that is is because of competition.

I've toured this now today, blown away by what's going on now, but then I actually have toured multiple government facilities over the last 6 months, and to be honest with you, a lot of them are so antiquated and they don't have the technology that they need to make it run as efficiently as it needs to.

And the reason why is because they don't have competition.

No government has competition.

It's like, no, they just do whatever they want.

They have everything analog.

Do that.

So I think that one thing about local leadership is that you have to realize that you have to facilitate the cutting edge technology.

You have to facilitate industry.

The optics of a lot of politicians is, oh, I want to get behind the bar of a local coffee shop.

I want to get behind, you know, I want to put on an apron and act like I'm supporting the mom and pop store.

That's all fine and good.

Small businesses help run this country.

Also, let's not forget that industry runs this country as well.

Let's not forget that there can be manufacturing and logistics and all sorts of different other industries that can not only employ one or two people in a city, but they can employ thousands in a city.

And I think that's what we've lost touch of in Cincinnati right now.

The optics of everything is we've got to get behind our small businesses, which is good, but I want to have come back to Cincinnati.

We have an entire riverfront that has so much potential from an industrial standpoint.

I want to bring back technology.

I even see, I mean this is just getting into all the specifics of everything, but I see, you know, hydroelectricity through our river helping to, you know, basically facilitate, let's say, blockchain technology, let's say facilitate mining or whatever else needs to happen.

In our city there's some very smart and young entrepreneurs in our city that want to take advantage of these technologies when it comes to blockchain, when it comes to logistics, when it comes to AI, and when it comes to really manufacturing, because let's not forget people still need to make things.

There still is a driving need for manufacturing.

And so I'm talking to all these industries.

I'm saying the day needs to come where they come back to Cincinnati, employ the thousands that have become reliant on the government systems.

Well, there's so much I want to unpack.

Yeah, I think we could do another 5 episodes, Corey, but you know, if we think about that thematically, one thing that resonates with me, really struck a chord, you know, when we do this little comparison to entrepreneurial businesses and government, right?

It just dawned on me there really isn't that competition, right?

It's the free market that fosters the next pain point that you're going to solve, that next technology embedding as the evolution.

A we maybe we don't have that incentive as government, we absolutely, no, we absolutely do not because they've been in power.

They're like, hey, this is what we do.

We oversee this no matter what.

So yeah, it makes sense to have all of our paper documents in some basement filing cabinet and let's not actually digitize anything.

But also I think that that's what scares a lot of the politicians as well, because let's, you know, take the public ledger for instance.

Could you imagine the entirety of the budget being on a public ledger system?

Well, then we're going to know where the money's going.

Then we're going to know what's being funded truly, and I think that's a thing about the turn of what we're seeing in politics right now.

People are demanding transparency.

They're demanding that, and I think that blockchain technology can help facilitate that transparency in every aspect from smart.

Contracts from medical fields.

I mean, there's so much funding that comes out of a city budget that goes into nonprofits, NGOs, and other aspects that there's no accountability for.

So it's not instead of hiring like, let's say an auditor, how about let's put everything on a public ledger and you find out for yourself where the money's going.

Corey, you don't know how much I love having this conversation and you know what a big fan of blockchain.

We are an AI, but you know, you nailed it there when you talk about the ability to have transparency, have immutability, and you go back to that term you used, being a servant, right?

If we're a public servant, why not have full transparency to what's in a budget, to what's buried within a bill, right?

So you're, you're answering to your constituents and I think there is no better way when you go back to all the things that we talk about.

A title reporting instruments to just governance itself.

What a better way, and I love your thoughts.

Also efficiency and time.

There's so much possibility when it comes to real estate and property development in Cincinnati, but so much of it.

Hindered months and even years because of title work or because of development contracts.

Imagine putting all of that on smart contracts on the blockchain to where in 12 minutes you could transfer everything needed to be able to get to work on this vacant property.

And wouldn't that create a reduction in budgets and across the board it's all about efficiency as well.

And I have to just pull on that thread again, you know, I love the vision of talking about the riverfront, and we talk about mining.

Hey, maybe that is a wonderful usage of a natural resource and you have bitcoin mining or other mining going on that's job creating, that's, you know, refurbishing and reinstituting industry and data set and all the things that we can go on and on.

I absolutely love the vision.

I'm not being a downer, but I'm going to ask you a little bit of a pointed question.

I think, I think it's 4 or 5 decades or so Cincinnati hasn't. elected a Republican mayor.

You talk about the underdog there.

Give me a little sense of what you're feeling, what you're thinking, and man, what a wonderful successful outcome that that could be.

But you know, being the underdog.

Yeah, so what I'm maybe I maybe I shouldn't be saying underdog.

Well from a historical standpoint, from a historic standpoint, it is an uphill battle.

We've been told that from the beginning that this is going to be a fight, so we know what we're up against.

But what I'm experiencing, because I'll be in all honesty, when I put my name out.

And this isn't a good thing politically to say, but I didn't think I could win.

I just put it in because I said, Hey, if nobody else is going to stand up, you know, there was bullies in school.

You might not have any chance of beating them, but I can't stand by and let a bully take the place of, you know, over somebody and being mean to somebody like that.

So I don't like political bullies either.

And so when I saw that somebody was going to run.

Po, hey, if I got to put my hat in the ring, then at least I'm going to make a statement that somebody was willing to step up.

But then over the course of the last 6 months something has shifted because we're getting the word out to the right people.

We're getting the word out to the people that are in the city that see that there is time for change.

And what I tell people as well is that local government tends to always focus on national politics, you know, just to give you an example, our city council in Cincinnati.

In the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, put out a resolution for a ceasefire in Ukraine.

And I'm sitting there like we need to put a resolution for a ceasefire on our city's streets right now.

There are bullets flying in our urban area.

We need to do that locally as well.

So what I tell people is that I'm kind of this wildcard to them because I'm not going to debate you on national politics.

There's things that we might disagree on when it comes to that, but overall we need clean streets.

We need safe streets, and we need prosperous streets, common sense, exactly.

And so that's what's shifting right now.

And the more that we get that word out, the more people come on board.

I've had one on one conversations with former presidents of the NAACP.

I've had conversations with union members.

I've had conversations with people that you would never think that they would ever turn our side politically, but whenever we sit down and talk about the issues that are important to us when it comes to our city, they are completely on board.

And so my job over the next 2.5 months really right now is to keep on getting that word out that it is time for change and we are going to give our city a choice that they can believe it.

On that note, Corey, thank you so much for joining Corey Bowman, candidate for mayor of Cincinnati, joining us here on FinTech TV.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you.