It's been a busy week for Madison's Best of Business leaders

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May 21, 2025

I was surprised to see so many newsworthy emails in my inbox earlier this week having to do with recent Madison Magazine Best of Business Leadership Award winners.

First, I learned of a new essay series on Wisconsin ingenuity launched by Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF. CEO Erik Iverson was one of this year's Best of Business awardees, in the same year WARF — the world's first university technology transfer office — turns 100. The first essay in the series is authored by a big name in biotech, and I look forward to the essays that follow this year (that you'll be able to find here).

Then, an email came through about an acquisition: Recovery.com (a 2025 Best of Business awardee) acquired RedFox AI (a 2024 Best of Business awardee). Hearing that these two health tech operations are joining forces makes so much sense, and I'm excited to see what's ahead for the fast-growing mental health and addiction recovery website.

These are just two small bits of news that serve as a reminder that Madison's biotech industry is innovating at a rapid pace. A similar reminder of this came at the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce's 2025 Icebreaker luncheon late last month. Among several speakers, we listened to Suzanne Winter, president and CEO of Accuray, which is a radiotherapy treatment innovator that just moved its headquarters from California to Madison. After we heard from Winter, Greg Piefer, the founder and CEO of SHINE Technologies, took the stage to talk about next-generation fusion solutions. And there we go again with the Best of Business connections — we celebrated Piefer in 2020.

All of these innovators call Madison home, and their work and research — in digital health, AI, nuclear energy and more — are helping shape our future on a global scale. That's accomplished when we "build on what we do best," writes Exact Sciences CEO Kevin Conroy in his essay on ingenuity for WARF.

Andrea Behling is editor-in-chief at Madison Magazine and an award-winning writer. She curates this monthly newsletter. Reach her at abehling@madisonmagazine.com.

From Neil Heinen: Just think for a minute about how often parks show up in your life, in your memories, your favorite songs, books, plays, paintings and experiences. It's kind of remarkable. And yet parks are even more important than that. They are an indispensable asset in the urban environment and in how we maintain civic life. We need cities. And cities need parks. And parks need support.

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🐐 Madison's cutest little landscapers return
Speaking of parks: Madison Parks welcomes back a herd of 80 goats who have been helping clear invasive plants since 2020. This year they'll munch across 56 acres at seven parks from May through September. The practice has proven to be highly efficient — the goats have cleared around 70 acres of park land each year they've been used. Read more

🤝 Recovery.com acquires RedFox AI
Two Madison-based companies that use technology to create better access to health care are joining forces: Mental health and addiction recovery website Recovery.com announced today its acquisition of AI startup RedFox AI. Both are recent Madison Magazine Best of Business awardees. Read more

🧬 Exact Sciences' CEO kicks off WARF's new essay series
What sets Madison apart from other research hubs, says Kevin Conroy, is that it's not just a place where big ideas form; there's infrastructure here that's able to help transform big ideas into something meaningful. But challenges remain, including the availability of early-stage capital and attracting and retaining top talent. Read more

😢 The restaurant business remains arduous
"One & Only will close May 31, citing financial hardship" is a headline you hate to read, but not exactly surprised by. One of the owners of the 2-year-old Monroe Street restaurant points out how "economic instability" and "tightened purse strings" continue to effect the restaurant industry. Related: This is Short Stack Eatery's final week of business. Read more

📚 Madison Public Library breaks ground on 10th library
While eroding federal support and other challenges cause uncertainty and will likely lead to programming cuts, there's still a lot to celebrate right now about the library: 2025 marks a 150th milestone anniversary, and construction began on May 8 for a 10th library, the Imagination Center at Reindahl Park. Read more

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A 1949 'selfie' in rural Wisconsin

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Does Madison have a bike path etiquette problem? Doug Moe asks the question in one of his recent stories, referencing his own experiences on the Southwest Commuter Path. What's been your experience?

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