Long before Arianna Cruz became known as a connector, she was the girl in a Bluffton, Indiana, school cafeteria who refused to sit at the same lunch table every day.

Moving easily between groups came naturally to Cruz, perhaps because she understood what it felt like to arrive from somewhere else. Born in California and raised partly on a military base before moving to rural northeast Indiana, she entered a community where many families had known one another for generations. Rather than settle into a single circle, she learned to build relationships across them.

That instinct now runs through nearly everything she does. Cruz is Chief Strategy Officer at Fishers-based software company Counterpart, and founder of MORE Magazine, which stands for Making Opportunities Reachable for Everyone.

Since launching in 2020, MORE has produced 12 issues and expanded into podcasts, events, partnerships and early-career experiences for young creatives. But Cruz is candid about the difficulty of sustaining an independent creative business and the pressure of being the person who always shows up.

Today, she is learning to do something different: step back, let others lead and evolve from connector to facilitator. For Cruz, leadership is becoming less about being the person with the microphone and more about making sure someone else gets the chance to use it.

Special thank you to the Eiteljorg for letting us use their beautiful campus as the backdrop for Arianna’s shoot.

Polina Osherov: You grew up in Bluffton, Indiana, but you were born in the Bay Area and also spent time on a military base. What did creativity look like where you grew up?

Arianna Cruz: Being on a military base with so many people from different places opened the door to life outside my own parameters very early. When we moved to a more rural area, creativity looked a little different.

I went to Norwell High School, which was very competitive in sports and show choir. I did competitive dance for about nine years: tap, jazz, ballet, clogging, and eventually hip-hop. After dance, I started modeling, and I’ve always been interested in fashion. My original dream was to go to NYU for design.

The community wasn’t necessarily known for being invested in the arts, but I still had a lot of exposure to them. Now, when I go back to Bluffton, they’ve done so much to bring art and culture downtown. There are murals, new businesses and more attention being paid to green spaces. I’ve loved seeing what Indianapolis has done and then watching those ideas expand into rural communities where the budgets and perspectives are different.

PO: You’ve described yourself as a connector. Is that something you have always been?

AC: I think so. Our high school was like a 2000s movie where the groups were very clear: farmer kids, show choir, different sports and academics. A lot of the kids had known one another since before kindergarten, and their families were intertwined. I started there in first grade, but I hadn’t been born in that county. I didn’t really make friends until the end of second grade.

I was comfortable being on my own, but I also never wanted to be placed into one group. I was smart, athletic, friendly and outgoing. At lunch, I intentionally tried to sit with a different group almost every day. It became a joke: “Where is Arianna sitting today?” I just liked moving between groups.

PO: Your friend’s memory of meeting you in fourth grade suggests you were also remarkably sure of yourself.

AC: It cracks me up every time she tells it. On the first day of school, we were introducing ourselves, and apparently I said, “My name is Arianna Aurora Cruz. Aurora, like the princess. But you can call me Ari if you wish.”

She told me, “You were so firm in who you were and how you wanted to be addressed. I’ve never known you not to be that comfortable with who you are.”

Looking back, that is something I’m very proud of. I’ve always been comfortable being me.

PO: MORE has now been around for six years and produced 12 issues. What do you understand about the business today that you could not have understood in 2020?

AC: When I started, I relied heavily on collaboration and partnerships. I’ve been on sets, done creative direction and modeled. I know creative work is a job and can be a beautiful career. If money came into a project, it was shared.

The first issue was entirely collaborative and digital. When people started asking us to distribute it, I realized I needed help bringing the print magazine to life.

My thinking has shifted over the last few years. It is less about asking, “What can we feature to pay the bills?” and more about, “How can we be a platform?” We don’t curate as much content as we hold space for it.

People come to us and say, “I have this thought I want to put into words,” or, “I’m building my portfolio and have an out-of-the-box idea. Is there space for that?” Our job is to help shape it so that it provokes thought, includes people and shares a new perspective.

PO: What does the business model behind MORE look like today?

AC: Today, our business model looks less like a magazine and more like a strategic content agency. We help businesses tell their stories and explain their purpose in ways that create a deeper connection with consumers—not simply educate them about a brand. We do that through live-event partnerships and by helping organizations create video and audio content.

Most of our revenue comes from those partnerships and from advertising packages featured alongside our editorial content.

The magazine itself remains collaborative. Sometimes someone pitches us a visual story and we pair it with a written piece, or vice versa. We preserve the magazine as a place where people can share a story or perspective and start a dialogue.

PO: Is finding the thread between all those different ideas part of the creative work for you?

AC: Absolutely. All our themes are incredibly broad, but I like that because it reinforces connectedness across different perspectives and different facets of life.

In our love issue, for example, Starla and Lateva (co-founders of Create.Connect.Collab.) talked about business ownership and partnership, and the empathy and realness required when you go into business with somebody. I love finding those broad but intricate threads that weave stories together around an idea that might not otherwise have connected them.

PO: What is the hardest part of building MORE?

AC: Probably making money. It is a business, and a business has to sustain itself. There was a point when I didn’t want to do MORE anymore because maintaining revenue had become so difficult.

A complicated part of running a creative business is figuring out how to position it. How do I position us for consumers? How do I position us for business partnerships? We are multifaceted, and I think many creative businesses are.

Our internship is also a workforce-development program, which I hadn’t really thought about in those terms before a long, challenging, and helpful conversation with Courtney Zaugg (Co-Founder, VentureVets). The impact is seen in many different ways, so how do I help people understand what they are investing in and supporting?

PO: Pattern wrestles with that same problem. Creative organizations can produce workforce development, storytelling, community connections and business opportunities simultaneously, but those varied benefits can make them harder to explain and fund.

AC: Exactly. That adds to the complexity. When you are both a creative business and creating these other economic benefits, it can be difficult to communicate where you fit. But those different forms of impact are also what make the work valuable.

PO: Tell me a bit more about the impact of your internship program.

AC: More than 35 interns have come through the Seek MORE Internship Program. We prioritize first-year college students because we have an opportunity to build them up as they begin their careers (and landing your first internship/job is the hardest).

We offer résumé reviews, portfolio preparation and professional introductions, along with MORE With workshops where experts lead TED Talk-style conversations and Q&As. We also practice things like how to hold space and make an ask.

Seventeen of our former interns had their next internship lined up after working with us. Fourteen stepped into leadership positions on campus, and five who joined us the summer after graduation went on to start their own creative businesses.

PO: Is there a danger in becoming known as the person who will always show up?

AC: Yes. I had a really hard time with that.

One of my goals this year is to spend time with the people I love and prioritize in my life. I love a lot of people, but I have to determine who I’m prioritizing.

I’m on boards where I have been very transparent: I will come to the board and committee meetings and help us figure our shit out and plan strategically, but I cannot attend every event. Does that work?

It has been helpful to define what showing up looks like (ie. being at meetings to plan vs. being at events, strategy support vs. execution support, etc.). I have to be discerning when I take on more responsibility because, while I like to do a lot, I want to do what I do well. I’m figuring out how to go deeper rather than further out.

PO: Has that changed the way you understand leadership?

AC: Over the last year, I have thought less about being a connector and more about being a facilitator. When I think of a connector, I think of talking. When you are a facilitator, you are cultivating.

Leadership is rarely about you and what you have to say. It is more about the doors you open for other people to speak and step through.

I’m a yapper, so I have been practicing not saying anything, letting things sit and allowing someone else to speak. Someone recently shared the idea that ideas are living things. If you don’t say something, it may still surface through someone else.

I don’t always have to be the person who says it. I can create the space for someone else to step into it, own it and champion it. Leadership is rarely about the leader. It is about what you are helping other people do.

PO: What do you want to leave people with?

AC: If you are a business or a person and you want to get involved because you care about something, literally just do it.

If you think of something nice to do for someone, do it. If it requires money and that makes sense for you, great. If it requires your time or energy, try it. There is no reason not to when you are spreading a little bit of good.

Every year, I ask people for something intangible for my birthday. This year, my birthday wish is that everyone would simply do the nice things they think of doing for other people.

This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our friends at Life in Indy.