Business

The birthplace of American women’s lacrosse plays host to the 2022 World Lacrosse Women’s Championship starting Wednesday evening, when Team USA takes on Canada in the first round of pool play at Johnny Unitas Stadium on the campus of Towson University. The event, which is held every four years and features teams from 30 countries across the globe, was delayed for a year due to the pandemic. Wednesday’s game starts at 7 p.m.

The rollout of sports betting in Maryland has been much slower than most expected. And with Gov. Larry Hogan pushing to make mobile betting available by the end of the summer, the panel that oversees the industry took another small step forward. The Sports Wagering Application Review Commission (SWARC) held a special meeting Wednesday to go over the proposed rules and applications that would apply to Class B retail establishments, as well as to licensees for companies that host mobile wagering.

Howard University is working with a Portland, Oregon-based education tech company to ensure equity is front and center in the design of a new course and platform. Lumen Learning provides digital teaching and learning materials for students and faculty at more than 500 higher education institutions in the United States. The company is partnering with Howard’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Assessment to design Lumen’s Introduction to Statistics course, the company announced Wednesday.

The duo behind Seven Reasons and the freshly Michelin-starred Imperfecto are extending their reach into suburban Maryland. Seven Restaurant Group co-founders Enrique Limardo and Ezequiel Vázquez-Ger have inked a deal to open a roughly 5,000-square-foot restaurant, JOY, at The Collection in Chevy Chase. The “sexy-casual Latin American concept,” as the pair describes it, is slated to open this fall at 5471 Wisconsin Ave.

Workers at the Apple store in Towson won national attention and praise from President Joe Biden after becoming the first of the tech giant’s U.S. employees to unionize. Less than two months earlier, Starbucks baristas in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood became the first of the coffee chain’s Maryland employees to organize. Now comes the hard part. While the workers are among those leading what union organizers see as a resurgence in the labor movement, most of these campaigns are in the early stages and labor experts warn that employees face difficulty ahead in a process tilted heavily in favor of employers.

Aledade Inc. is hitting the gas on its national expansion, with plans to hire hundreds of new workers and open offices in multiple markets to support its growth. The Bethesda company — which helps independent physician practices implement care models that compensate them based on health results, rather than just fees for services rendered — said Monday it will initially open offices in New York, San Francisco and Durham, North Carolina, to go along with its local headquarters and the Austin, Texas, office it inherited when it acquired Iris Healthcare in January. The New York and San Francisco offices will support Aledade’s regional teams overseeing the company’s expansion in key markets.

It takes time, focus and dedication to become a CEO, president or business owner. But to be a leader is something else entirely. This rare trait — defined by the ability to not only set a path to future success, but also to inspire others to follow alongside you — is what the Baltimore Business Journal looked for in selecting our 2022 Women of Excellence honorees.