Wintrust Business Lunch

Craig Bolanos, Co-Founder and CEO of Wealth Management Group, joins John to talk about how many interest rate cuts he thinks we’ll see this year, a second-quarter GDP report that showed the economy growing, why he believes the Fed has done a good job curbing inflation, what he makes of today’s market rally, how he anticipates the […]

Segment 1: Nondas Plesiotis, Owner/Operator, McDonald’s in Wauconda, joins John Williams to talk about his history in the food industry, why he chose to work with McDonald’s, the way his community grew around McDonald’s, his experience running the business, and why the most important aspect of McDonald’s is the people. Segment 2: Bree Fowler, Senior Writer, […]

Steve Grzanich has the business news of the day with the Wintrust Business Minute. Discover Financial Services and Capital One face a proposed class-action lawsuit over their merger. The lawsuit claims the $35 billion dollar deal will hurt competition and raise prices for consumers. The complaint also claims the merger will mean fewer and less […]

Steve Grzanich has the business news of the day with the Wintrust Business Minute. Scientists at the University of Illinois-Chicago are working on a new antibiotic that’ll make bacterial resistance nearly impossible. The new antibiotic attacks bacteria is two ways, which makes it 100 million times more difficult for bacteria to develop resistance. That resistance […]

Nationally syndicated financial columnist and author Terry Savage joins John Williams to talk about her recent column about applying for scholarships, why the markets are down today, how the lead up to the presidential election impacts the stock market, and if she was surprised that the markets didn’t move much after the RNC and when President Biden dropped […]

Segment 1: Tom Gimbel, job expert and founder of the LaSalle Network, joins John to talk about job interview tips and what you should or should not share during an interview. Tom tells John what we should know about political messaging at work. Segment 2: Longtime Chicago radio veteran Harvey Wells, Founder, Lower Tech Bills, talks to John […]

Segment 1: Ilyce Glink, owner of Think Glink Media and Best Money Moves, joins John to talk about the cost of last week’s global outage, and new homes being cheaper per square foot than existing homes. Segment 2: Jim Dallke, Director of Communications, TechNexus Venture Collaborative, tells John about a new report finding that Chicago venture capital firms are increasingly investing in startups […]

Steve Grzanich has the business news of the day with the Wintrust Business Minute. A new report says there are significant challenges accessing capital in Chicago’s tech ecosystem. A local nonprofit, P33, says early-stage startups are having trouble pulling in local capital, even though Chicago has the third-largest gross domestic product in the country. The […]

Steve Grzanich has the business news of the day with the Wintrust Business Minute. United Airlines isn’t the only Chicago area company impacted by the CrowdStrike outage. McDonald’s and and Metra also reported problems. Three Metra-Union Pacific routes had delays that the transit agency blamed on on the CrowdStrike outage. An update of the cybersecurity […]

Segment 1: Michael Miller, Economics Professor, Western Washington University and Professor Emeritus at DePaul University, chats with John about a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post comparing the economies of former president Trump and President Joe Biden. Segment 2: Alison Rigsby, past president of The Lake Zurich Lions Club, joins John to talk about the 2024 (and 79th […]

Segment 1: Steven Esposito, President of Yellowstone Wealth Management in Lake Forest, talks to John about the consumers willingness to spend, how we are starting to see a broadening of the market, good retail sales data, the signal that interest rates are coming down, and what would interest rate cuts mean for the market and economy heading into […]

Steve Grzanich has the business news of the day with the Wintrust Business Minute. Gas prices could spike in the Chicago area after a power outage impacted the ExxonMobil refinery near Joliet. Damaged transmission towers have been fixed but it’s unclear whether power’s been fully restored to the facility. It lost service for several days. […]

Steve Grzanich has the business news of the day with the Wintrust Business Minute. Farm machinery maker Deere & Co. is planning more layoffs. The Moline-based company has notified salaried employees there’ll be additional global salaried workforce reductions beginning July 24th. The company says the decision is due to declining customer demand, rising costs, and […]

Nationally syndicated financial columnist and author Terry Savage joins John Williams to talk about how she is able to avoid financial scams, the Dow and S&P both performing extremely well this year, the inflation environment having a better outlook, and how many Fed rate cuts we will see this year, how AI is impacting the economy, and the importance […]

Steve Grzanich has the business news of the day with the Wintrust Business Minute. Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Rush University Medical Center are among the top hospitals in the country. That’s according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2023-2024 Best Hospitals list. University of Chicago Medical Center is also high up in the rankings. Northwestern […]

Jennifer Bias, owner, Camp Aramoni, joins John to talk about the camp being a destination for boutique camping, how she came about to running a campground, how she ‘stumbled’ into finding the land, what the facility is like when you come for a stay, the restaurant on site for the campers, what other amenities they offer, […]

Segment 1: Tom Gimbel, job expert and founder of LaSalle Network, joins John to talk about what employees need to know if they are posting on social media and how business leaders need to be transparent about company policy. Segment 2: Philippe Weiss, President, Seyfarth at Work, joins John to talk about how business leaders can take lessons from […]

Segment 1: Phillip Shaw, CFP, Senior Advisor, Goldstone Financial Group, tells John about inflation continuing to come down, what that means for Fed policy and interest rates, how many rate cuts he expects to see this year, why he says inflation is personal, the concern over mounting credit card debt, and how people should navigate their investments right […]

Steve Grzanich has the business news of the day with the Wintrust Business Minute. A Chicago-based cannabis operator raised nearly $95 million in April. And according to a group that tracks fundraising by startups, it’s the largest money round for a Chicago startup in the second quarter of this year. PharmaCann made the haul according […]

Segment 1: Paul Nolte, Senior Wealth Advisor and Market Strategist, Murphy & Sylvest, joins John to talk about the inflation data released yesterday, how the market has been reacting to inflation data, what last week’s job report might mean for the economy, what all this data means for Fed policy on interest rates, and how many […]