Dacia Snider & Eric Avner

Soapbox Publisher Dacia Snider is unabashedly proud to call Cincinnati home.  This northeastern Ohio native's passion for the city was cultivated during her four years at Downtown Cincinnati Inc. Drawing on her background in economic development, she understood the important role media played in setting the narrative for a community, both internally and externally.  With that in mind, she seized the opportunity to launch a new online publication about the city she loved.  In February 2008, Soapbox was born (as was her daughter three days later). Named an Emanuel Community Center 2009 Woman of Over-the-Rhine honoree, Dacia is also proud to be recognized as a 2007 YWCA Rising Star and a member of the 2006 Forty Under 40 class by the Cincinnati Business Courier.  In her spare time, Dacia is active on the Cincinnati Parks Foundation Board, co-chairs the Agenda 360 Communications Team and is a member of the Holy Trinity-St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. On a never-ending quest to achieve that delicate work/life balance (what's that?!), Dacia and her husband are raising their two children to appreciate all this great city has to offer and can usually be found at Findlay Market on Saturday mornings enjoying waffles and coffee (usually at her son's early morning request).

Soapbox's Chief Instigator, Eric Avner, oversees economic development grantmaking for the Haile/U.S. Bank Foundation.  Prior to that, he was Associate Director of the Cincinnati Business Committee, that venerable group of CEOs representing Cincinnati's 30 largest employers.  And prior to that, while guiding Newport's downtown revitalization, he led the effort to create the Purple People Bridge.  Most importantly, Eric spent 16 months meeting, discussing, planning, and plotting to get Soapbox launched.  Now, when he's not occupying a barstool at JeanRo Bistro downtown, Eric keeps busy in board leadership roles for the Cincinnati Development Fund and Enjoy-the-Arts, and is co-chairing the Next Decade Capital Campaign for the Know Theatre.  A boomerang Cincinnatian (he lived here in the late '70s, left, and returned to town in 1996), Eric also takes pride in his dual US/Canadian citizenship, eh.  Eric and his wife now reside in bucolic Walnut Hills after several years in a downtown loft.