How Your City Will Change

● Increased sense of personal dignity

● Renewed sense of identity (personally, professionally)

● Increased sense of belonging to a particular place and community

● Incentivized pathways for creation

● Transformed ways of earning and learning

● Elevation of under-represented groups into the city’s future success

● Faster & cheaper innovation channels with greater upside for both the creators and investors

OKLAHOMA CITY

CASE STUDY

Catalyzing Oklahoma City (OKC) from an industry focus on oil & gas toward transitional energy, aerospace, biotech, and media & entertainment through a shared vision and transformative partnerships. 

Context and Challenge

OKC enjoyed decades of economic success following the oil & gas boom of the 1980’s and 1990’s; however, a new era of industry and workforce patterns quickly brought the economic thriving, livability, and desirability of OKC to a critical juncture. And by 2020, several leading stakeholders in the city were already hard at work aligning around a shared vision for the future of OKC.

A progressive and inclusive mayor, an innovative Chamber of Commerce, a thriving university system, entrepreneurial communities eager for opportunity, and a portion of the private sector that was open to investing risk capital on developing new capabilities.

When MCP entered OKC, the challenge was the lack of a coordinated strategy for advancing shared vision and the partnerships that could catalyze these plans forward with quantum leaps, rather than marginal steps.

Process

By embedding directly into a leading venture capital, private equity and impact investment firm that held direct investment and leadership positions within all critical institutions, the development of a shared vision, coordinated strategy, and measured process was not only possible but aligned with existing incentives throughout the city’s ecosystem. MCP was then able to bring valuable regional and national partnerships to advance these plans.

Value Creation 

We introduced the following regional and national stakeholders to OKC to accelerate their shared vision and opportunity:

  • Family offices who were already active across the region but had not yet engaged OKC with direct investment or capabilities;

  • Nationally recognized entrepreneurship programming and placemaking capacity that could accelerate the start-up ecosystem and provide inclusive pathways to under-resourced entrepreneurs;

  • Philanthropic platforms and resources that could provide charitable models, impact investment, and connections to leading thought leaders and best practices;

  • Policy champions who could supercharge local efforts through regional and national scale by drawing from existing volunteers and mature, political relationships; and,

  • Cultural ambassadors and industry insiders who could realize and co-create a Middle Coast hub for music, media and entertainment productions and original content.