What does a Forbes Under 30 honor mean? A 2015 lister from Cleveland reflects

Posted by: Laura DeMarco on Thursday, October 5, 2023

A Cleveland Forbes Under 30 honoree reflects on how the honor impacted his business then - and now

The Forbes Under 30 Summit is heading to Cleveland in October, bringing together hundreds of the most innovative and inspiring young Americans – and celebrating Cleveland as a hub for innovation.

The honorees include 25 individuals who either grew up, studied or worked in Ohio. It’s a big deal for the region – and listers. It can be a life-changing recognition, one that takes a business or career to the next level.

For more perspective on what this impressive recognition means, GCP recently sat down with 2015 Under 30 honoree, Eugene Malinskiy, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lazurite medtech company, about what being named to the Forbes list mean then – and what it still means today.

Malinskiy, who holds a Master of Science degree in biomedical engineering from Cleveland State University, was CEO of DragonID healthcare innovation and engineering consultancy at the time he was named to the list. He founded Lazurite later in 2015 – thanks in part to the Forbes spotlight.

The Under 30 Summit will be here soon – with a new class of honorees. I wondered if you could reflect on your honor and what it has meant since then?

Sure, well the first thing I think of was that there was a pretty famous person in that class: Elizabeth Holmes. (Laughs)

Well, your trajectory has been much more positive than hers.

Yes! Absolutely.

Was the honor a surprise at the time?

I had no clue. I literally got a call one early morning: ‘Hey, this is Forbes Magazine. You've been selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and we expect to see you at our event.’ I was like, ‘Wow. Okay, wonderful. Thank you very much.’ It took a week or two for that to actually settle in, for the impact to be felt.

Did they mention what made you stand out among the nominees?

At the time, I was running a medical device consultancy … the thing that actually stood out was one of our projects was a cardiac project where we were creating a system used during a very crucial and now growing surgery called TAVI: transcatheter aortic valve replacement.

How has the Forbes honor benefitted you?

I'm very proud to say that Forbes 30 honor definitely generated a lot of positive press. Although I was young, it gave me a lot of gravitas to be able to go out and raise money and do the things that I wanted to do with what became Lazurite. … Recognition by Forbes is very valuable in the business world.

Stepping off from that, why have you decided to stay in Cleveland, and have you found it to be a good place for innovation?

Absolutely. Actually, early in the company history – no names will be named –but early in the company history, we had an offer from an investor to give us a sizable amount of money on the condition that we would move to Silicon Valley.

We turned it down. We have made a conscious choice to stay in Cleveland.

We keep growing our offices, which is wonderful, and we've made a conscious choice to stay within the region. There are many ways it is very helpful. There are fantastic engineers. The costs are ridiculously low. And you have institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, where we can literally get a lab in a week’s notice. There's no way we could do that out of the Valley or in Boston. It absolutely is wonderful here – especially the health care access, the top-notch research facilities.

Forbes offering 'Local Entrepreneurs' Summit Discount

You are invited to join the best and brightest entrepreneurs and celebrity guests for four days of connecting, learning, teaching and building. Forbes is now offering Ohio entrepreneurs discounted registration.

The growing list of celebrity speakers includes founder of 818 Tequila, Kendall Jenner; artist & entrepreneur, Cleveland's own Machine Gun Kelly; content creator, Alix Earle; comedian Matt Rife; and chart-topping Grammy winner Bad Bunny.

Find more on the Summit here.