S3,E20 - Rob Simpson

Posted on October 15, 2025

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This is Talk CNY, a semi-monthly podcast by CenterState CEO. We're an independent nonprofit committed to creating inclusive, equitable, and sustainable economic growth in Central New York. Join us as we meet the people and explore the projects driving the regional economy forward. This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, Director of Communications at CenterState CEO and your host for Talk CNY.

On this Talk CNY quarterly check-in. We welcome back CenterState CEO President and CEO Rob Simpson. Rob joins this episode to share lessons learned during his sabbatical, his renewed goals now that he's back in the office, and what he's excited for in 2026.

Rob, welcome back.

It's so good to be back.

I mean, you have many stories, I'm sure from your time away, but are there ones that stick out to you as particularly meaningful, maybe even a little surprising or wild even?

Yeah, I mean, listen, there were so many amazing experiences I managed to have. I'll just highlight a couple. I mean, first and foremost, I got to spend real quality time with my parents, which was such a gift. I think a big piece of my desire for time away is the fact that I've spent now, the last 30 years of my adult life living at a minimum of 2000 miles from my family. And that's hard. So it was really great to be able to spend, on several different occasions, real quality time with my mom and dad and be able to enjoy things together, experience new places, take them to new national parks, get outside and just build memories together. As much as anything, if I think about all the things I'm grateful for my time away, that is certainly one of them. And the opportunity to see more of this amazing country. I got to several new states that I'd never been to. I think I visited 12 national parks, 15 national forests, the things that really light my soul on fire, and those experiences were just truly incredible.

So (you) spent a lot of time traveling, a lot of time with family, a lot of time just generally resetting. What was the beginning like for you - where you go from being always on to suddenly taking time for yourself?

It's funny, I think in the conversations I had with people leading up to leaving and those that I've had since in the week and a half or so that I've been back, I think there's an element of surprise that maybe I was able to shut it off quickly. So my last day was June 27th and on the 30th of June, the next Monday happened to be my 49th birthday. I got up at 5:30 in the morning, and I climbed Mount Marcy, the highest point in New York state, and it was at 18 and a half mile hike. I did about 5,000 feet of climbing over the day, and that was how I chose to jump into my time off. It wasn't sitting around and wondering what I was going to do with my day. I had a plan, which was to get out and do the things I love, to retrain my body to be more active and to give my mind some quiet space to think about the time ahead and what I wanted to accomplish with it. It was magical. And over the course of the next couple of weeks, I did a lot of hikes. I climbed a bunch more mountains and really gave myself a strong foundation for being able to enjoy my time away.

It was not hard at all to pivot from work mode to not work mode.

You said this was a lot easier than what I thought it was going to be.

I actually wasn't expecting it to be hard. I knew that I was ready for rest, and when the opportunity came to finally, I think as I sort of described it before I left, is take the armor off, put it down. I was ready to do that. I did it instantly, and I truly and honestly managed to stay in that mindset the entirety of the three months I was gone.

That's pretty great.

I mean, it was pretty amazing.

Were there times where you kind of were like, "I want to see what people..."

 No.

No, there wasn't. And I say that with total confidence for two reasons. One, because I was very focused on maximizing my time away and I recognized that there was a defined time period I was going to get to do this, and so I wanted to enjoy every second and moment of it, and I can sit here today and tell you I truly did that. Second, I had total and complete confidence in this team. You and everyone else at CenterState, our incredible staff, Ben Sio, our volunteer leadership and all of our community partners. I wasn't worried at all about the work, and I knew that when I came back, I'd have a chance to get the headlines and get caught up, and I was genuinely excited. I think more than anything, when I did think about work, it was excitement for seeing what happened in my absence. What people were doing, what was new, the decisions that the community was making and the exciting changes that are happening here in Central New York.

I want to go back to what you did while you were away for a little bit. Like you said, many new states you visited, lots of national parks, lots of forests. Where there national parks or forests or states that really stood out to you that you got to experience for the first time?

I mean, listen, I put about 8,000 miles on my truck over the course of five and a half weeks of my road trip. So most of my time I spent based out of my place up in the Adirondacks, that was sort of home away from home. I think I spent less than 72 hours in Syracuse over the three months I was gone.

You've been here quite a while.

That was very intentional because I wanted to make sure that I was putting myself in a scenario where I wasn't going to be tempted to get pulled into conversations, run into someone at Wegmans, which as you know is an occupational hazard for all of us. And so about 8,000 miles and man, every single new place that I saw, I found joy and discovery and curiosity in, and that was a big piece I think of the learning that I take away is that I wasn't doing enough of that for a very long period of time as we all have been hyper-focused on helping the Central New York economy make this transition from post-industrial, the high tech, advanced manufacturing.

It had become all-consuming for me in a way that was certainly unhealthy and in a way that was failing to fill the bucket that allows me to have that ever-present joy. So every time I saw a new place, I saw a new landscape out the window of my truck. I got out of my truck and went for a random hike on the side of the road that looked interesting, ducked into a national park or national forest. Each one of those experiences just filled me up in a way and reminded me of the joy of discovery and the creativity that I get from being exposed to new things. And that is one of the things I'm really excited about bringing back into the work is that creativity, which I've always felt deeply proud of, and that maybe the last couple of years I haven't had as much of as I would like. And so the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, there are almost too many to name these places. They're all magical, and they're all just outside of our doorstep in this amazing country, and it was truly a gift that I was afforded by all of you and by our community to be given a chance to go spend some time refilling that well of creativity that I had pretty much emptied out in service of the cost.

What were some of the things you had the chance to learn about or to really embrace while you had your time away? Were there lessons that you kind of realized or reflections you made that are sticking with you now?

One of them is just how important it is for me to be out in nature moving, and for anyone who knows me, knows I love to mountain bike, and I love to hike, and the Adirondacks are my happy place. It turns out that that is incredibly true. It's deeply important for me and the periods of my life, including the last year and a half or two where I have not prioritized those experiences is when I found myself draining my batteries down. And so I climbed or biked 85,000 feet of elevation change in the three months that I was off. I hiked eight high peaks. I hiked mountains all over the West. It felt so good just to be out and moving, and my body feels strong, which helps your mind feel strong. That's one of the lessons I bring back into the job, which is I need to prioritize that better. Especially over the course of the last 18 months, I had been more probably sedentary than I had at any point in my life, and I wasn't feeling good about myself. And as a result, that probably was manifesting in how I was showing up at work. And so that's got to continue to be a priority for me for sure.

Now, how do you think your views on or perception of leadership have shifted coming back after your time away? What new things are you bringing to the table here?

Well, I think one of the things that I observed immediately about coming back was just the incredible feedback that I've gotten about how this team has performed. And I'll just say to you, it is a deep source of pride and it is wonderful validation of the team and the culture and the leadership that we've built and the deep bench that CenterState CEO has in terms of talent and capability that every single point of feedback, every single point of feedback I've gotten in the 10 days I've been back has been extremely positive that people saying that the impact of CenterState wasn't diminished at all when I go and I had someone say, 'Hey, well, doesn't that make you feel like you're not needed?' And I was like, 'No, not at all.' Honestly, it's like the best validation of the team that we built over all these years.

So I'm super proud, and I think one of the things that I want to make sure that we do is to continue to empower people that have been empowered in my absence and to allow them to continue to lead in the ways that they've done successfully and figure out how I can come back into this work and support other leaders in this organization, in this community do the important work that's necessary. So yeah, there's no doubt my thoughts on leadership have changed, are changing. I don't have it all unpacked yet. The God's honest truth is I didn't actually come back to Syracuse until Sunday night at 6:00 p.m. the day before I was coming back to work on Monday night.

I didn't take a whole lot of time to debrief and reflect. I really packed as much in as I possibly could, but the conversations that I'm having now with our team and our volunteer leadership and community partners are giving me a really good, healthy perspective to think about how we do this work next, how I show up in this work in a way that adds value, but that continues to empower other leaders and continue to build a great bench that we have.

I mean, this experience has obviously been super meaningful, super effective, too. You seem completely refreshed, but I'm sure there are other people in the community who were feeling the same feeling you were just a few months back, just really burnt out, really tired, who have been working tirelessly for the community. What would you say to them now that you've had the experience of taking that step back, that often difficult time or difficult step back?

Well, let me say this first. When I announced publicly, we put out a statement that I was going on sabbatical, the response that I got was overwhelming, I think compared to any message or LinkedIn posts I've ever put out. I have more feedback on that than I've gotten at any point in my professional career, more than the Micron announcement, more than when one of my dogs passed away a couple of years ago. These things that sort of stand out as the moments where you've gotten a lot of support, it was overwhelming. And one of the things that I found eye-opening was how many of those comments came to me? Hundreds of people in Central New York, hundreds, 400, 500, who reached out to me sharing a story of their own struggles and their own challenges and their own burnout or overwhelm or whatever it may be that they were confronted with, sometimes stories of things they'd overcome in the past and a story of hope and resilience. And sometimes people commiserating that they were in it right now too, and they needed to do something for themselves. I will just say to every single one of those people who might be feeling burnout or overwhelmed, you will never regret advocating for yourself, and you will never regret taking time if that is what you need or asking for help if that is what you need. For me, it has been a life-changing experience, and I want other people to feel empowered to do that. And I recognize that not everyone feels empowered, right? This is a hard conversation to talk about, talking about mental health, talking about burnout, talking about vulnerability, and it shouldn't be hard because it's a superhuman thing. And I want to figure out how in addition to jumping back into this work, I do want to figure out how I can help speak more openly about the experience I had and talk with others who might be feeling things and encourage more employers to allow their employees to have more flexibility in life. I think that's one of the things I'm really proud about our culture at CenterState is that we do try to, we run at a really fast pace.

But we also try to afford as much human compassion and flexibility as we possibly can. And I think that's something that is important for all employers to do. So that's a message that I'm unequivocally going to be carrying forward and championing as best I can here inside CenterState for our team members who need it, but also outside in the community. And I would say I am more than happy to talk with anybody who might be thinking about, Hey, how do I pull this time off? Hey, what was your conversation like with your board chair when you first broached this topic? Right? It wasn't an easy conversation. It was terrifying. But the payoff has been so great for me as a human being, and I hope it's been really good for the team here at CenterState to be able to see just how capable all of you are at thriving with different leadership and all of you stepping into new roles. And that's just a conversation that I really want to be a part of. I think it's super, super important in modern society right now.

We are going to have much more with Rob in just a moment, but we're going to take a quick break with a word from our presenting sponsor, NBT Bank.

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Welcome back. This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, Director of Communications at CenterState CEO, and your host for Talk CNY. On this episode, we welcome back CenterState CEO President and CEO Rob Simpson. Rob, thanks for being here.

It's great to be back.

So we, as an organization, had a big summer. We hired Dr. Carlene Lacey to lead ONRAMP. We supported Micron's DEIS process, and, of course, we opened the INSPYRE Innovation Hub just down the street on Harrison Street, coming back into the office after all of these accomplishments and more. What was it like? What were you kind of surprised by? I mean, there's a whole new building that you could explore when you got back. What was all that like?

Yeah, but I would just say to the three things you just mentioned. Yes, yes, and yes. It feels so good. I was completely disengaged, right? So on my last day at work, I took my work phone, I turned it off, I dropped it in my desk drawer, and then I took my key fob and I dropped it in the drawer right behind it. So I couldn't even come back into the office and get my phone if I wanted it. I never looked at LinkedIn, sorry, Tim Kennedy. I didn't look at syracuse.com a single time. I really embraced the spirit of what I was trying to do, which is to pull away and allow others a chance to lead and to reset myself on a personal level. Coming back and seeing Dr. Lacey in her office running full speed, taking the ONRAMP initiative and putting her own stamp on it and leading our community forward is awesome, right? The feedback that I've gotten from the community partners and from Micron directly about just how incredible the business community showed up in the Micron DEIS process is so deeply rewarding, and I'm just so proud. That was a strategy that didn't exist when I left. It was a strategy that was built and executed by the team that was here, and it was flawless, and I'm really proud of that. And then coming back to INSPYRE, my very first day back last Monday, I started my day sitting down with Ben Sio, just talking about the headlines. What are the big things that happened? What didn't? And when we were done with coffee, we walked over together, and I got to see INSPYRE finished for the first time.

And as someone who has spent eight, eight and a half years thinking about, dreaming about, working towards the realization of that vision, raising money, building partnerships, negotiating leases with the city, just dealing with all those things with our team, to be able to finally see it come to life in its full form is just, I don't even have words for how awesome that was. The building is beautiful. The tenants have been sending me incredible notes of appreciation and satisfaction. The new programming that's being built over there is completely leveled up from what we had done before, and just the physical footprint of the building and how it projects into our downtown space.

It projects energy and vitality and innovation and all these things that we wanted it to be a beacon for. And so it is the most rewarding thing to be able to come back and see just how much progress has been made. How many big things, big balls have been moved down the field. As you can tell, this is genuine excitement. I'm so, so happy to see all these things coming together and so proud of the people that have continued to push the ball forward.

Now that you are back, what are you excited to get your hands on and start working towards through this last quarter of 2025?

Well, first and foremost, I really want to make sure that I don't disrupt the great dynamic that seems to have been built inside our team with new leaders stepping into new roles. I want to make sure that I don't want to be a disruptive force. I know that that could be the case. And so I'm very focused on not doing that. I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I'm going to be curious, and I want to find the places where I can add the most value, whether that's with external relationships, whether that's with fundraising, with public policy. That'll be an ongoing work in progress, something that we will spend time as a team focused on. I'm very excited about the fact that we're going to break ground with Micron at the end of this year. The fact that we're going to clear trees on that site. We're going to be ready to pour foundations next year.

I want to give the county and the state and all of our other partners so much credit for continuing to move forward on the DEIS process. Micron themselves. This is a massive project, and they've put a ton of time and energy into it. And so that is remarkable. And them starting construction unlocks, the full range of supply chain opportunities from partners from Japan, some of whom were hosted here in Central New York last week, thanks to Onondaga County and partners in Taiwan and other parts of the world. That's a remarkable opportunity that I want to be a part of capitalizing on. So there's a lot that I'm excited to roll my sleeves up. I'm just truly, genuinely also excited to be back amongst my colleagues and my peers. And as you know, this is home for me, and this work is something I've been deeply passionate about for a long time. I haven't lost that passion. If anything, I think I'm bringing maybe more of that passion rekindled, hopefully back to the table. I just have to be mindful of doing this work a little bit differently for myself now in a way that I don't completely empty the well, which is I think the mistake I made the last time.

Yeah, we have a few months left here in 2025, and I can't believe it, but it is almost 2026 already.

Amazing.

So what is on your 2026 to-do list right now? I know we're not there yet. We've got some time left in 25. Some things still to accomplish, but we are looking ahead to the new year.

We are. I mean, I think, listen, one of the things that we just have to acknowledge and be mindful of is the macroeconomic condition that has been changing over the course of the last year. Certainly, we saw a lot of economic disruption over the summertime. We're now in a period of a federal government shutdown that has its own economic disruptions. We know that there's some challenges and opportunities associated with tariffs that we have to be mindful of. So the macro picture, right. If you think about the global context in which our local efforts nest, the global context is changing. And that requires us as an organization to be nimble, agile, and one of our core values and figure out how we continue to show up and position the economy in a way that is complimentary to and not pushing against those macroeconomic trends. So that's one of the things that we have an offsite coming up for the corporate leadership team.

We're going to be talking about how those trends might influence our work for 2026, but we know that with Micron going in the ground, we're going to see more international supply chain opportunities, and we've got to work with our partners to capitalize on that. We know that we have this incredible new space at INSPYRE that we need to program, and we need to invite all of our community members into to be able to create their dream and making sure that we're in a position to execute on those things, I think is incredibly important. I think I'm also very focused for 2026 on supporting our membership. Our members have been so loyal to Central New York over so many years, and in periods of economic uncertainty, which I think I would characterize the current moment is economic uncertainty. It gets scary. I mean, it gets scary for us as an organization that depends on partners and membership dollars, but it also, it's also nerve-wracking for them.

And I think back to what it was like in the last period of significant economic disruption with the COVID Pandemic. Our members needed us more than ever. So we're talking a lot as a team about how we can show up to support businesses in every industry, from manufacturing, to technology, to service sector businesses, and we can be the best possible partner we can so that they can continue to succeed and thrive in that period of economic uncertainty and maybe even capture some new opportunities that can help Central New York take another leap. These are just a couple of things that are top of mind. Obviously, I'm still in rediscovery mode.

Absolutely.

But I think those are significant elements that we can anticipate are going to be on the agenda. The other thing is we know that 2026 is going to be a tough budget year for New York State, and that will have downstream ramifications for a lot of our members and for a lot of programs and things that are important to our regional economy. And we're figuring out how we navigate that is going to be really important.

I will now back up just a little bit to the end of this month. We have our Economic Champions celebration. So for those who might be...

Can I tell you one thing?

Yes. Tell me.

I am so excited to have Coach Jack join us.

I'll let you take it from here.

For those who are watching and listening, she is one of the most dynamic people that I consider a friend in this community. I've really enjoyed the opportunity I've had getting to know her over the course of the last year. I love her energy. Her perspective on what it takes to win. The importance of preparation in terms of execution. She is just a genuinely wonderful person. And I think many people, many, many people in this town are very familiar with Syracuse Athletics, but maybe not as familiar with women's sports as they probably should be, as we want them to be. And so I'm really proud that we're in a position to feature her. I know without having seen what she's going to say, I know she's going to bring the house down, and I'm super excited about being able to share the stage with her and really rally our business community around the moment that we're in.

Well, you took the words right out of my mouth, talking about Coach Jack, so we can wrap up here. Rob, it's so good to have you back. Thanks for being here today.

It's great to be here. Thanks for all that you and everybody at CenterState has done. This time away has been a life-changing gift, and I'm deeply grateful to all of you for your understanding and for your support and for the leadership that you have shown over the course of the last couple of months to keep Central New York thriving. So thank you to all of you.

CenterState CEO's podcast Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, is available on all major podcast platforms or centerstateceo.com. Additional content and clips can be seen across CenterState CEO's social media channels. For new episode reminders, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast listening app, and don't forget to leave a quick review or five-star rating. Thanks for listening to Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank.