Peter Ward
Peter Ward co-founded Making The City Smaller on one belief — that connection is the true currency.
He invests real time with people and organizations, leading with curiosity and value before anything else. No pitch. No agenda. Just a genuine desire to understand what someone is building, what lights them up, and who else in his world they need to meet. He shows up to every relationship asking what he can give first. Value before everything else.
He creates space for people to come together in ways they wouldn’t on their own — experiences, conversations, and connections that open doors neither person saw coming.
Sometimes at an event he’ll stop and just listen. Not to any one conversation — to the buzz of the whole room. The sound of people connecting, investing in each other, discovering what they have in common. That sound gives him goosebumps. He believes goosebumps are real — a spiritual confirmation that something meaningful is happening. He gets them all the time doing this work, and that tells him he’s on his purpose.
For years he chased money and everything society said success looked like. It never made him happy. When this work found him six years ago, he didn’t see it clearly right away. But he felt it. And it has continued to show him — through every story shared, every connection made, every person who trusted him enough to let him in — exactly who he’s supposed to be.
The work continues to transform him. Hearing other people’s perspectives has allowed him to reprocess his own life, find balance, and understand what was worth loving about himself — so he can show up more fully for others.
The threshold between his personal life and his professional life has disappeared. It’s not a strategy. It’s just what happens when you show up this way long enough.
Mike Durkin
Mike Durkin has spent thirty years opening doors for people.
As Vice President of Client and Investor Relations at VIP Structures, he builds relationships for a living — connecting clients with the right resources, nurturing the long game, and showing up long after the handshake. That same instinct is what brought him to MTCS.
Before Making The City Smaller was anything, Mike and Peter were two guys in different industries quietly opening doors for each other. No scorekeeping. No immediate payoff. Just a shared belief that when you pour into people, it comes back — and that trust built slowly is worth more than anything built fast.
Six years later, that’s still how Mike operates. He leverages one of the deepest networks in Central New York to fill rooms, make introductions, and connect the right people at the right moment. The work nobody sees in the weeks before an event — that’s Mike.
What lights him up is simple: making the direct connection. Giving more than receiving. Being a person of influence in a region he genuinely loves.
On a Saturday with nothing on the calendar, you’ll find him on the deck with his wife Kate, coffee in hand, taking in the water before the chores kick in.
That’s Mike.