Merchants Bonding Co. announced that Melissa Harden has joined the company as chief marketing and communications officer, succeeding Therese Wielage, who will retire in January. Harden most recently served as vice president and group director of search Intelligence at Digitas, a Boston-based global marketing firm, where she led teams developing data and AI-driven growth strategies….

Simpson College announced Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and educator Nikole Hannah-Jones will visit campus on Thursday, Jan. 29, to receive the George Washington Carver Medal for the 2025–2026 academic year. The honor recognizes individuals whose achievements reflect Carver’s legacy of curiosity, courage, service, and humanity. A native of Waterloo, Hannah-Jones is the creator of the 1619…

Sid Juwarker, who joined the Greater Des Moines Partnership in May 2024 as vice president of economic development, has left the role for a new position with his former employer Terracon. Juwarker previously worked for Terracon for nearly nine years as a client development manager. In his new role, which began in September, he is…

Julia Kuyper, chief human resources officer at CQ Medical, responded Thursday to questions about the closure of the company’s Orange City office.  According to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act data, CQ Medical, formerly CIVCO Radiotherapy, of Orange City, is closing and laying off 33 people at the location. A longtime Iowa business, CIVCO started…

Downtown restaurateurs are facing a variety of concerns, from worries about lack of downtown workers to fuel lunch traffic and changes in the delicate ecosystem of neighborhoods, to changing habits of diners, who are drinking less alcohol and going out at different times of the day. “If a restaurant is important to you, if it’s…

When Jim Lewis was preparing to interview for the job of executive director of the Vaughan Institute of Risk Management and Insurance at the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business, he did what any entrepreneur and creative strategist would do. He interviewed his customers. “I talked to probably 100 students, and walked around campus,”…