CityGrows has a new CEO!

CityGrows has a new CEO!

Posted by Stephen Corwin on Nov. 08, 2017

Four years, eight months and change ago, I made the first commits to an app called Razefeed, a poorly-named permit data scraper that would (somehow) eventually morph into what is now CityGrows. I had no idea at the time that I was starting a startup. All I knew was I wanted better access to public data — specifically the kind that would help me figure out what the heck was going on with real estate development in Downtown Los Angeles’s Fashion District. And so I set out to do just that.

Before long however, the project ballooned far beyond a simple permit scraper. With almost daily requests for more data, better features, and installations in new cities, it became clear that I’d stumbled into an unmet need that was bigger than anything my simple web scraper could handle. But only after taking a few steps back and looking at what was really missing from the market — transparency, real-time data, standardization across governments — was it clear that what the world needed was not a data scraper, not the pet project of a software developer with a thing for urbanism, but rather, a fully-fledged platform, designed specifically to meet the evolving needs of the next generation of local governments. At that point I realized I needed to start a company.

I incorporated CityGrows Inc in January 2015, shortly after I began work on the new version of the web app, and since then, I have served as the company’s CEO. That said, the title was never one I would have selected for myself. True, I founded the company, and yes, at the time of incorporation I was indeed the one wearing all the hats, but the reality is, both my passion and skills align much more closely with a CTO / Head of Product role. As it turns out, my CEO title has almost nothing to do with the actual job, and nearly everything to do with the simple fact that the state of Delaware requires someone carry the title. As a one-person company, that role fell on me.

My cofounder Catherine joined CityGrows 18 months later in June 2016. Though her title to date has been COO, the reality is that she stepped into the CEO role from day one. Her experience, wealth of specialized knowledge, and (as I like to call it) her “networky” brain have all served as the perfect compliment to my own skill set. But beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, from day one, Catherine’s involvement in CityGrows has injected a special kind of energy into our team, which has served to inspire, support and unite us, and has truly enabled each of us to create our best work. If that’s not the kind of thing a CEO does I don’t know what is.

And so without further ado, I’m proud to announce that we’ve officially decided to shuffle around the titles: Catherine Geanuracos will be CityGrows’ new CEO.

Congratulations homegirl. It’s about damn time.


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