HEALTH CARE: Baxter write-down shows it overpaid significantly for Hillrom. PAGE 3
HEAT: Natural gas prices higher in suburbs than in Chicago. PAGE 4
CHICAGOBUSINESS.COM | NOVEMBER 28, 2022 | $3.50
Baxter CEO José Almeida
FORUM MICHIGAN AVENUE
PUTTING THE MAGNIFICIENT
BACK INTO THE MILE Once a prime Chicago destination, Michigan Avenue is ripe for a reimagining | PAGE 13
and
FIND THE COMPLETE SERIES ONLINE
GETTY IMAGES
ChicagoBusiness.com/CrainsForum
Chicago’s marketing makeover New Choose Chicago CEO calls cultural attractions and a vibrant downtown key to reviving conventions and tourism I BY DANNY ECKER
TODD WINTERS
L Lynn Osmond
ynn Osmond has made a career out of opening minds to new experiences. In her new role as Chicago’s top tourism official, her challenge is changing minds about a city battered by a drumbeat of bad press. She spent the past quarter-century popularizing architecture as head of the Chicago Architecture Center. Before that, she built mainstream audiences for classical music as a symphony executive in New
York, California and her native Canada. “You’ve got to get them in through the John Williams and the popular music before they go into the Prokofievs and the Mahlers,” Osmond says. Now she is selling another product that could use a public image boost: Chicago. As the city’s COVID-pummeled hospitality sector labors to recover from the public health crisis, hopes for improving a national reputation sullied by crime and the
pandemic are pinned in an outsize way on Osmond. The 65-year-old started in May as CEO of Choose Chicago, the agency that promotes Chicago as a convention and vacation destination. Her task of rebooting leisure and business travel to Chicago amid persistently negative storylines would daunt any experienced salesperson, let alone one with no prior experience running a convention and visitors bureau. With the health of the McCormick Place convention center—one of the area’s most important economic engines—at stake, See OSMOND on Page 28
NEWSPAPER l VOL. 45, NO. 47 l COPYRIGHT 2022 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
P001_CCB_20221128.indd 1
11/23/22 12:28 PM