CareQuest changed significantly after the nonprofit and a private equity partner, Centerbridge, reached a offer in 2021 to sell its DentaQuest dental plan business to Sun Life for $2.5 billion. Today, CareQuest provides grants for researching and improving dental care, particularly to address inequities in the field. (It has distributed more than $8 million in grants across the country so far this year.) It also administers dental benefits through Delta Dental of Massachusetts to more than 2 million members.
Rakes said the DentaQuest sale helped super-charge CareQuest’s grant-making, philanthropy and advocacy. CareQuest employs more than 200 people.
“We are, in fact, in an oral health crisis in the country,” Rakes said. “The possibility for positive impact is huge. … It’s a big organization with a big opportunity ahead of it.”
His priorities as CEO include supporting prevention efforts, such as espousing the benefits of fluoride for kids, and keeping people from going to the ER for their dental problems. He cited recent CareQuest research that shows 72 million adults in the US lack dental insurance.
“If we are successful in the work that we do, Boston’s going to be healthier, the Commonwealth is going to be healthier,” Rakes said. “The country is going to be healthier.”
Bank makes big bet on Boston market
When North Carolina-based First Citizens Bank entered the Boston market two years ago with its Silicon Valley Bank purchase, its name recognition was special at best around here.
immediately, regional executive vice president Ron Sanchez wants to send the message that his bank is here to stay and grow.
Case in point: First Citizens is planning its first ground-up branch project in Massachusetts, with the purchase last week of a former Taylor True worth Rental location at 26 Washington St. in Wellesley. (The equipment rental business recently moved to Needham.)
First Citizens could invest at least $15 million in the property, including the construction of a new 15,000-square-foot branch, and the $5.5 million cost for the nearly 40,000-square-foot site. First Citizens plans to move its nearby branch operations at 336 Washington St. to the new location within three years. As many as 40 employees could work there.
JP Plunkett and Warren Brown of Red Dome Realty represented the previous owner, and Cresa’s Jack Burns represented First Citizens. “There was robust interest … like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Plunkett said. “When does something like this pop up in a commercial district in a town like Wellesley?”
First Citizens is among the country’s 20 biggest banks, but had no branches in the region until SVB imploded. Through the SVB acquisition, it also has branches in the Financial District, the Back Bay, Beverly, and Cambridge. Sanchez is already on the hunt for more local locations.
“The big question is where,” Sanchez said. “We’re trying to retain the very best that came out of [SVB predecessor] Boston Private and SVB and blend it with us. … When we’re successful with that, everybody will know who we are in the end.”
Using AI to help the trades
One thing AI can’t do is fix our clogged sinks or broken-down central air cooling systems — at least not yet. But there’s one way that artificial intelligence can help the trades, and the team behind local startup WorkHero is determined to capitalize on it.
WorkHero, which announced a $5 million round of seed investments on Monday, represents the next chapter for Gerald Chertavian, the longtime chief executive and founder of Year Up (immediately Year Up United), a workforce development nonprofit based in Boston.
Chertavian has been teaching at Harvard Business School after leaving the Year Up CEO job in 2023. Also on his dance card: helping launch WorkHero with Furman Haynes and Kyler Evitt, two HBS grads who got to know Chertavian when they worked at Year Up in 2022.
The idea behind WorkHero is to relieve tradespeople — starting with HVAC business owners and plumbers but likely to evolve to include others — from paperwork drudgery. WorkHero employs people who use AI to juggle numerous clients’ back-office tasks such as pricing, billing, warranty registrations, rebate form submissions, and the like.
The three cofounders also hope their work helps the climate, by expediting heat-pump conversions, and enables small businesses to better compete with bigger rivals.
Investors in WorkHero include Navitas Capital, Workshop Ventures and York IE. The 11-person company, launched last year, is largely remote right immediately: Evitt works out of a coworking space in Cambridge, while Haynes is in Brooklyn, and the office managers are located across the country. They are immediately looking to hire a chief technology officer and two engineers.
“It was very much what I was searching for after I stepped down from Year Up United,” Chertavian said. “I was intrigued by how to help people build wealth and overcome some of the barriers that often makes it difficult for small businesses to build wealth.”
Ropes & Gray just added some European flair to its lineup, with a new office in Milan. It’s the second office in the past year that the law firm opened in continental Europe, following one in Paris. Ropes, with main offices in Boston and New York, already had locations in London and Dublin.
Will Shields, a Ropes partner in Boston who worked on the Milan expansion, said the firm was drawn to Italy to help serve its private-equity clients, many of whom are active in Europe. Italy, Ropes said, was the fastest growing market for private equity last year. To open the Milan office, Ropes recruited a three-person team of private-equity specialists, led by Aldo Piccarreta, away from Latham & Watkins.
“We came across this team that we just think the world of,” Shields said. “We always want to be where our clients are and where they’re doing their most interesting and complex deals.”
Shields is planning to return to Milan soon, and will celebrate the offer with a meal next month. “We are planning a big pasta dinner to celebrate,” he said, “pasta and red wine.”
Another roast for Tom Brady? SharkNinja sure thinks it’s a good idea.
The Needham-based consumer products maker just added the former Patriots quarterback to its roster of celebrity endorsers. His first assignment: poke fun of himself and the Netflix “Roast of Tom Brady” in which celebrities told jokes at his expense.
“You know what? I’m ready for another roast,” Brady tells the lens in a video shot in his home, as he is about to roast a chicken in a Ninja Crispi Pro air fryer. “This one is faster, cleaner, and I don’t wince in pain at any point.”
Brady is taking his comedy to the marketing world along with soccer star David Beckham and comedian Kevin Hart, SharkNinja’s first two celebrity endorsers — or “brand ambassadors,” to use the company’s description. (Hart, coincidentally, hosted the Netflix roast.) Laura Dyer, SharkNinja’s senior vice president of global marketing, said company officials are happy to immediately have “a Boston legend” on their roster.
In Brady’s video ad, which was posted to Instagram, he pulls out a few other one-liners, including that the Ninja Crispi can roast a chicken “faster than my 40-yard dash” and “best of all, this is nontoxic, unlike the last roast.”
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
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