Dan Snyder

Dan Snyder Rob Hardin | Columbus CEO

About: Dan Snyder is an experienced serial entrepreneur in the finance and technology space. He’s an investor and co-founder of multiple businesses including a nationwide title agency, digital insurance company and real estate brokerage. Dan is the co-founder of Homeside Financial, a top 50 lender in the country that continues to expand nationally with 32 offices in 17 states. In 2019, he launched Lower.com with the goal of helping every American realize the dream of homeownership by helping them find a house, find a real estate agent, buy insurance and secure a mortgage. Snyder’s companies have consistently been recognized as top places to work.

Outside of work: Snyder is a donor and board member with New Albany Foundation and is a pillar donor and actively involved with Children’s Hospital Healthy Homes. He also partnered with Junior Achievement to fund the development of a financial services internship with underserved high school students in Columbus, and helped lead fundraising efforts to support Black-owned businesses in Columbus.

What does Columbus need to thrive? We need more skilled workers. As Columbus expands and more companies move here, the supply of talent needs to keep up the pace. There are workshops, vocational programs and internship programs for high school students happening, but we need to do more as a city to support this or innovative companies will not come—and they’ll potentially leave.

Snyder’s idea: Having diverse leadership teams is crucial in building innovative and successful companies. A challenge is that the pipeline of candidates traditionally is from the same sources. So if the traditional source is dominated by white males, the company’s makeup will reflect that. I think it would be interesting to get a group of leaders and hiring managers in a room to uncover more diverse recruiting sources and tap into those pipelines.