Kumar Arora makes it his business to promote all things Cleveland

On Friday night, August 8, 2025, rap artist and Cleveland native Machine Gun Kelly leapt onto the Jacobs Pavilion stage for XXCon, the concert and celebration he hosts to kick off the Machine Gun Kelly Day Festival. One of the first things he did was thank Kumar Arora for his role in growing the concert into a major multiple-day event.

“A friend of mine, Kumar, who is a huge help in putting together this whole MGK Day weekend,” Kelly said while pacing the stage before a roaring crowd. “I don’t know why we call it MGK Day. It clearly lasts for a fucking whole week, he sent me a video of me when I think I was 18 years old, standing right here, and I was on this video essentially begging people to come see the show, and I don’t think more than 20 people showed up, and here we are this many years later, and uh…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence because more than 30,000 cheering fans finished it for him with their applause and full-throated roar.

XXCon also featured a DJ set by Emo Night Brooklyn and served as the venue for MGK to announce his new record label, “Floor 13.” He also played songs from his new album “Lost Americana” released that day.

On Instagram that night, Arora, founder and CEO Of Arora Ventures, posted the video of MGK acknowledging his role with this comment: “16 years ago — we were all just kids trying to put Cleveland on the map. Never did I think we would return to the same exact location where it all started. Helping build @machinegunkelly’s early beginnings has been a gift of a lifetime. Everyone finally sees what we all saw those years ago.”

Arora has known the rapper since Kelly was in high school and served as his first agent on his tour. He helped generate his early merchandising and his first website before MGK exploded into a major international recording and performing artist.

In 2022, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb proclaimed August 13 “Machine Gun Kelly Day” as an annual celebration in Cleveland to commemorate the artist’s 2022 sold-out concert at FirstEnergy Stadium and to celebrate his commitment to the city and community engagement.

“We have turned that into a much bigger thing, a festival that’s all about supporting local makers, small businesses and Cleveland Municipal School District, which the proceeds go to,” Arora said. “It’s all about getting eyes on Cleveland, so we haven’t charged to put on that festival. It’s all on the various businesses, the city, and MGK puts up a lot of his own funding to make it happen, but we’re trying to build and create more activity for our local economy.” 

Leading others to succeed in Cleveland

MGK’s event represents just one example of Arora’s love of helping people break out and become nationally or even internationally known, whether it’s a rap act or a business.

“Kumar always likes to extend a hand because it’s so hard to make it from Cleveland,” said Eric Vajda, a DJ, producer and entrepreneur who co-founded Underdogs, a creative marketing firm, with Arora. “Sometimes you have to get out of Cleveland at some point in your career to expand your network, so he wants to help young creators, artists, musicians, business owners to make sure that business stays in Cleveland.”

Jolyn Parker, director of Leadership Cleveland, said: “Kumar understands collaborative leadership. He understands what’s good for Cleveland is building people up and having them expand, and they will come back.” 

In June, Arora graduated from Leadership Cleveland’s 2025 class with 65 other business and civic leaders. The 10-month program brings together leaders from government entities, large and small nonprofits, large and small for-profit businesses and entrepreneurs to collaborate on their passion projects.

“Kumar was a leader in his own way because he was one of the entrepreneurs in the class and brought a different lens to the group,” Parker said. “He was so engaged with the program that at the end of the year, he developed a hat for each one of the participants that had Leadership Cleveland and the year on it and on the inside some of our virtues that we pursue.”

Hands in multiple enterprises and investments

Arora’s company is called Arora Ventures. He founded the company in 2005 to  serve as the hub for all of his investments and projects, which include Ilthy, a clothing brand. Sora, his sushi and Asian fusion restaurant in the Flats next door to 27 Club Coffee owned by MGK; and FutureLand, his annual two-day innovation conference.

He’s also made investments in Cleveland Kitchen, one of the fastest-growing Customer Premises Equipment brands based in Cleveland and V/O Med Spa, which positions itself as the largest med spa franchise in the country, according to Arora. 

“V/O Med Spa happened to be in Cleveland, so I backed them, as well,” he said. “Whether it’s an investment, a civic endeavor or a business that I run, the foundation is always about Cleveland.”

Transformative Arts Fund Project 

Another significant project for Arora this summer was the completion of his For Arts Sake project that he helmed for the Transformative Arts Fund (TAF).

Arora directed the project with four lead artists: Glen Infante, Jordan Morales, Chelsea Pastel and Vajda. Each of the projects had a social impact cause, from Black maternal health to mental and physical health and arts and music culture. The guiding mission was to transform Cleveland’s neighborhoods and artistic community through the TAF funding for the eight projects.

During this past year, For Art’s Sake projects included the “Artists Run the Streets” activation highlighting six Black artists from Cleveland whose works were displayed in Cleveland City Hall between February and May, and “The World is Yours: Art and Advocacy for Black Maternal Health” activation in April to renovate a public basketball court at the Otter Playground on East 82^nd Street in Cleveland. Supported by the Cleveland Cavaliers and University Hospitals, the project featured a permanent mural by lead artist Infante.  

In May, the project’s activation featured the creation of a modular moveable mural during the Cleveland Marathon to promote art and physical health. The June activation shifted the focus to mental health when For Art’s Sake held a chess and art event hosted by Cleveland Guardians player Steven Kwan at the Baseball Heritage Museum at League Park.

From August 8 through 10, For Art’s Sake held a Makers’ Market activation for MGK Day that included an Asphalt Art & Art Walk and Celebrity Charity Softball Game at the Baseball Heritage Museum. On Saturday, September 6, For Art’s Sake concluded its activations with the Finale Community event, the I’m From Cleveland Arts & Music Festival at Jacob’s Pavilion.

An entrepreneur in the making

Arora’s parents immigrated to Cleveland from India in the early 1980s when Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) recruited his father, Pramod, to work as a researcher and a professor in the Chemistry Department. He came to Cleveland with his wife Anuradha, an artist, and Kumar was born a few years later and his sister Neha six years after that.

To be close to CWRU, the family resided in Little Italy, where Arora attended Holy Rosary School.

“It was an amazing place to grow up,” recalled Arora. “My parents both gave me the gift of always learning, and I believe I have a strong right brain and left brain because I got a little bit of the analytical side from my father, the scientist, but at the same time, I’m just as much of a creative like my mom, the artist.”

Arora went on to a public high school in North Royalton where the family moved after his father founded and served as CEO of Innovation Chemical Technologies, Ltd., an eyeglass lens coating business, in 2000. His father had earned his Doctor of Philosophy at Central Drug Research Institute Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh, India) and Post Doctorate Fellow at CWRU. As an inventor, he owns more than 10 U.S. and worldwide patents and has published more than 40 scientific research papers. His parents are now retired and living in Florida.

Arora went on to attend The Ohio State University, where he earned his B.S. in Economics in 2008. He took several executive leadership courses at CWRU from 2011 to 2013, earning certificates in executive management, innovation and strategy. He then moved to Los Angeles to gain real-world business experience in a high-profile major city.

In 2016, while living in the City of Angels, he was cast on a show called “Cleveland Hustles” on CNBC. The Executive Producer? LeBron James, working from what later became The Springhill Company, the NBA great’s entertainment venture. Arora worked directly with James’ right hand man, Maverick Carter, co-founder and CEO, and Jamal Henderson, Springhill’s chief content officer. He remains in contact with both and occasionally does projects for Springhill.

“I helped build the show,” Arora said. “I was flying back and forth filming, and I got to be one of the investors on the show. There were four of us and there were a couple hundred businesses that came to us. I got to play myself on TV for a year. I was 29. Now, I’m 39. I didn’t have all the gray hair back then, but it was such a great milestone for my career, because it set the tone for where I wanted to go.” 

Arora achieved a couple of other “cool milestones” as the youngest investor on television at the time, and he was also the first Indian-American investor on television. 

Planting Seeds

After the project-packed past several months and years, Arora said he’s planning to step back a little bit to spend a little extra time with his wife and family. He also plans to spend some time contemplating a few investment and business opportunities he’s interested in exploring.

Thinking about his impact on the future, Arora paraphrases the adage, “plant a seed so that there will be a tree for someone else to enjoy in future generations.”

“The work that I get to do sets the tone for the next 20 years for Cleveland or the next 30 years, and I might not be here to see some of that. I’m aware of that, but that’s the beauty of the work that we do is that what we want to do is build in such a way that the job creation, the redevelopment plans, the awareness of the beauty of Cleveland, all of those things compound together. I’m just proud to be a part of that fabric or that ecosystem.”