Technology and Professional Services

Summit County has an ideal environment for technology and professional services businesses.

Summit County, with three major health care systems, two Fortune 500 headquarters, and several Fortune 1000 headquarters and regional offices, is ideally situated for professional services companies. In addition, our robust advanced manufacturing sector requires a strong banking, insurance and legal network to support their expanding business needs. Team NEO in August 2018 issued a report that Northeast Ohio has the 2nd highest concentration of headquarter employment among the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the country.

Summit County has regional offices for national banks including Huntington, U.S. Bank, Key Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Fifth Third, and PNC. Local banks also call Summit County home. Citizens, Westfield Bank, Peoples and CF Bank are just a few with headquarters or significant regional office presence in the County and several credit unions provide services for Summit County and surrounding areas.

Huntington Bancshares, with $105 billion in assets, acquired First Merit Bank in a $3.4 billion acquisition deal in 2016. Huntington, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, committed to a regional headquarter in Summit County and is investing $10 million in community development grants over a 5 year period. Huntington has a full line of banking services including a focus on funding automotive dealerships and manufacturers.

Summit County is also home to the headquarters of National Interstate Insurance. National Interstate, a provider of specialty property and casual insurance with a focus on logistics and distribution, invested in a $25 million expansion of their headquarters in Richfield in 2016 and committed to hiring an additional 200 employees over the next several years to add to their 500 person workforce. In close proximity to Summit County is Progressive Insurance's headquarters. Progressive employs 33,000 people in 400 offices nationally.

The legal community is robust in Summit County. Northeast Ohio is one of the top five legal centers in the nation. Several major law firms with offices in several states have their administrative offices in Akron and serve clients throughout the nation and globally.

Our county is a hub of IT activity. Our robust manufacturing, health care and financial institutions create the perfect location for IT companies. We are also home to a variety of Data Centers.

Diebold Nixdorf is headquartered in Summit County. Diebold provides end to end software and hardware solutions to the financial industry. Diebold partners with 90 of the top 100 financial institutions in the country to provide IT solutions. One of every three ATM machines is a Diebold product and more than 75 million people use their technology every day around the globe. With 23,000 employees in over 130 countries, Diebold is at the top of providing services to the financial and retail industries. Plus, they have committed over $156 million in research and development to create new technical solutions.

OEConnection, LLC is located in northern Summit County. OEConnection provides technology solutions for the auto and heavy truck industries. They work with auto makers and dealers to facilitate the sale of original equipment (OE) replacement parts. Summit County's location makes it a perfect place for established and start-up technology companies working with the auto manufacturing industry.

Metisentry, a 2018 Weatherhead 100 company, provides scalable business solutions. From app development to private/hybrid cloud solutions and AWS managed services, Metisentry is growing to meet the demands of businesses throughout the nation. A Summit County start-up, Metisentry is expanding because of the strong support our region provides for new technology companies.

The Bounce Innovation Hub, located in downtown Akron, is the region's first open innovation hub serving the entrepreneurial and innovation community. Bounce will provide space and mentoring for developing technology companies, creating a strong ecosystem for IoT development.