Los Angeles Business Journal

For Gina Woullard, persistence and discipline are crucial both on the dance floor and in the vice-presidential office at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Palmdale site. A dancer since the age of 5, Woullard took lessons in ballet, tap and jazz in her formative years, believing she would be performing on a dance floor after graduating high school.

As co-founder of Sherman Oaks-based fintech firm PayScout, Cleveland Brown has spent years building payment systems spanning continents and cultures. Beyond fintech, Brown’s story is rooted in philosophy and mentorship. Brown approaches business like a philosopher. He describes himself first and foremost as a philosopher – a mindset he says shapes how he solves problems in business and in life.

Julian de Salay co-founded Chatsworth-based JB Office Solutions in 2012 and serves as its chief executive. The office supply retailer became one of the fastest-growing businesses in the San Fernando Valley, even during the Covid-19 pandemic when working from home became the norm. That workplace shift last year prompted De Salay to add a solutions wing to the operation, to cater to people setting up home offices or shared workspaces.

The state of California inked a deal with Anthropic in late June to bring generative artificial intelligence tools into government agencies – a move that extends to the Los Angeles area. Per the agreement, San Francisco-based Anthropic will provide state agencies a 50% discount on its generative AI chatbot, Claude. The company will also provide free training on how to use the product and automate specific job processes, like summarizing documents.

In 2023, McDonald’s Corp. tried something new. The ubiquitous fast-food chain created a nostalgic marketing campaign focused on Grimace, a purple company mascot. The company introduced a viral purple milkshake, unveiled a side-scrolling video game featuring the character and held Grimace’s birthday party at the Worcester Palladium, where hundreds of people – including Ronald McDonald – attended. Following the campaign, McDonald’s saw in-store sales spike by 12%.

First started on Santa Monica’s storied Muscle Beach in 1946, fast-food chain Hot Dog on a Stick is poised to find a new life beyond the West Coast as Las Vegas-based Amazing Brands Group bailed it out of the bankrupt Fat Brands Inc. Stephen Siegel, founder of Amazing Brands, announced Wednesdaythat a company affiliate has acquired the octogenarian through a bankruptcy court-approved transaction.

A major mixed-use wellness and education campus next to Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Willowbrook has won county approval. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors late last month approved the 14-acre mixed-use wellness and education campus project on a parcel owned by the Compton Unified School District.

Editor’s note: A version of this story was originally published by the Orange County Business Journal. Long Beach is the latest target for an Orange County-based joint venture that has poured its dollars into open-air retail centers. This time, the combo of Redwood West and Panattoni Development has acquired The Pike, an iconic 370,000-square-foot shopping center along the city’s harbor, from SITE Centers, an Ohio-based real estate investment trust, for $50 million. The deal closed June 25.

As tech companies and real estate developers rush to create data centers, they’re finding new opposition in what would be those data centers’ neighbors: everyday residents. Monterey Park residents voted by a wide markgin to ban data centers in their area in early June, becoming the first city in the U.S. to do so.

When Tom Stevens’ mother, Nancy, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2011, she had two companions: a caregiver and a goldendoodle puppy named Golden Bear. Golden Bear had to be rehomed after getting aggressive with a caregiver, exacerbating Nancy’s loneliness. Her experience inspired Stevens to create Tombot Inc., a Santa Clarita-based robotics company that raised $7 million in late June.