An Aspen Ideas Fest in Minnesota?

Leaders of the Aspen Institute’s Climate & Clean Energy group started their week in the Twin Cities, meeting with government officials, policy experts, CEOs and innovators ahead of setting the agenda for their annual climate conference next summer in Chicago. But the even bigger potential? Moving Aspen Ideas: Climate to Minnesota in 2027.

The nonprofit thought leadership group launched this multiday conference four years ago to convene global policymakers, scientific experts, corporate leaders and inventors. After three years in Miami, the climate conference moved to Chicago last year, where it will again take place in 2026. “We’re starting to think ahead to 2027 and what that might look like,” said Greg Gershuny, Aspen Institute’s strategic leader in Climate and Clean Energy. He told me he’s open to a move and especially intent on highlighting Midwest innovation. “Right now, it’s about bringing the good things that are happening here to Chicago next summer.”

Minnesota’s climate and energy experts delivered. Dan King, chief technology officer at Darcy Solutions, showed the Aspen group one of its geothermal groundwater systems, recently installed on the campus of Macalester College to efficiently heat and cool buildings. CleanCounts, the nonprofit clean energy registry, hosted a happy hour at its downtown Minneapolis office for Gershuny and his colleagues. The room was a who’s who of the local environmental sector with representatives from 3M, Cargill and many lobbyists in attendance. Chefs Mateo and Erin Mackbee of Krewe in St. Joseph served up appetizers and drinks made with ingredients sourced from solar farms and prepared with clean energy.

CleanCounts CEO Ben Gerber welcomed the group by saying, “The conversations that happen at Aspen Ideas events shape investment, shape regulation, shape philanthropy — and shape public imagination. That’s real power. Minnesota has a lot to contribute to that conversation.”

The Aspen Institute leaders nodded in agreement. “I think the Midwest as a whole is not getting as much credit as New York or California,” Gershuny said. “We want to bring the coastal investment to the Midwest. We’re trying to make the Midwest a center of gravity for action.”

Fashion shows are expensive to produce and often with limited return on investment — especially in a place like Minnesota where the audiences tend to be filled with more enthusiasts than retail buyers. So Tracy Call and her team at Media Bridge, the Minneapolis agency that owns the Fashion MSP brand and online platform, decided to disrupt the usual calendar of shows with an intriguing proposition: What happens when you offer up an event space to the fashion community for one day and challenge designers, models, stylists, photographers and aspiring creatives to decide for themselves what to do with it? We’ll find out Saturday when the Experiment, a first of its kind event takes place at the Whim in Minneapolis. Tickets are still available.

More than a fashion experiment, it’s a social experiment in how people — particularly a community of creatives —organize themselves without a designated leader. “I thought it would crash and burn,” said Gayle Smaller, an associate director of DEI at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health who produces fashion events on the side.

Call believes the potential for “deconstructed” events goes way beyond fashion. “People are unwinding from the old ways of doing business. We’re moving away from one leader at the top.” She credits a growing reliance on contractors and AI for the shift away from hierarchy. “We see more collaborative spirit. And we want this community to be looked at as the leader.”

Jamie Millard is the new co-owner and managing partner of executive search firm Ballinger Leafblad following the retirement of venerable founding partner Marcia Ballinger, who led more than 300 searches across nonprofits, foundations, higher ed and corporations. Millard joined the Twin Cities firm last year, but said she’s actually been talking to Lars Leafblad about this role since he and Ballinger teamed up in 2014. Leafblad pegged Millard as a connector from their very first mentor meeting.

Millard previously worked in marketing and publishing, serving for nearly a decade as executive director of the media arts nonprofit Pollen Midwest, which shut down in 2024. “I know what it’s like to be recruited and not get the job,” she said. “It gives me a deep amount of empathy.”

Millard said her style is quieter than Leafblad’s — he’s prolific on social media and known to post selfies from just about every coffee meeting. But like her new partner, Millard prefers to meet in person (The Fox and Pantry is her west metro go-to; Flava Coffee & Café is her St. Paul pick).

“The on ramp of that relationship is so much faster and deeper in person,” she said. And, Millard added, as AI makes most résumés look the same, human engagement is key to landing the job. “It’s less about category expertise and more about pattern recognition. Has this leader rebuilt something? Can they collaborate across sectors? The future is going to belong to leaders who can lead through complexity.”