The Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship and Kelvin Smith Library will collaborate to host a Case Western Reserve University Entrepreneurship Speaker Series event featuring Steve Potash and Loree Potash (MSL ’75), co-founders of OverDrive Inc., a Certified B Corp company that uses its profit to promote reading and literacy to readers worldwide.
The Potashes will present “Leading a Commercially Successful Company with a Social Mission” Wednesday, April 26, at 4 p.m. in-person in Kelvin Smith Library’s Freedman Center Collaboration Commons and virtually via Zoom.
The event also will include opening and closing receptions and time for questions.
Learn about the speakers
Steve Potash is president and chief executive officer of OverDrive, a company he co-founded with Loree Potash in 1986. Under his leadership, OverDrive has become the leading digital reading platform for eBooks, audiobooks and other digital media for more than 80,000 libraries, schools, government agencies, corporate learning centers, colleges and universities worldwide. He is credited with pioneering many innovations for digital content use and applications. OverDrive has long-standing partnerships with thousands of publishers, authors and media companies across the book industry. As a mission-based company, OverDrive became a Certified B Corp in 2017 dedicated to a “World Enlightened by Reading.”
The Steve & Loree Potash Family Foundation funds literacy programs through believeinreading.org. Prior to starting OverDrive, Steve served as special counsel to the Ohio attorney general, as an acting municipal judge, and authored technology columns for the American Bar Association Journal. He was admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court in 2019. He serves on the Board of Directors for University Hospitals.
Steve has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The Ohio State University and earned his JD at the Cleveland State University College of Law.
Loree Potash is a co-founder of OverDrive and active in Northeast Ohio nonprofit organizations. She is a board member for the Cuyahoga County Law Library. Trained as a law librarian, she started her career at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, including serving as reference librarian, acting director and adjunct professor. She practiced law early in her career and then with Steve formed OverDrive and joined the company, serving in various leadership positions, including publisher relations, human resources and marketing. She serves as a board member of Park Synagogue, the Kol Israel Foundation and the Gross Schechter Jewish Day School. Loree is an advocate for readers and access to books and education and is key funder for Uniteagainstbookbans.org and FreedomtoLearnAdvocates.org.
Loree has a bachelor’s degree in English from The Ohio State University, a master’s in library and information Science from Case Western Reserve University and a JD from the Cleveland State University College of Law.