Hospitality guru Rob Blood doubles the size of his boutique hotel empire

Blood likes to say he never went to hospitality school, so he never learned the conventional wisdom that it’s hard to turn a profit running hotels with fewer than 150 rooms — the Lark model. (He said Lark has been profitable for years.) Adding Life House to Lark brings some technology know-how. More importantly, it doubles the hotels from which its 100,000 loyalty program members can choose. Members often book rooms directly, avoiding the need for hotels to pay commissions to online travel agencies.

The Lark management business had been concentrated in the Northeast. Now, it spans 27 states, as far west as California. Blood also offers design services through Elder & Ash, a firm he runs with his wife, Megan Kennedy. And he hopes to attract co-developers of hotels in need of an experienced manager.

“The scope and scale of what we’re doing is greater than what we were doing on our own,” said Blood, Lark’s chairman.

While Blood and Kennedy live in Newburyport, Lark is headquartered in Portsmouth, N.H.; Blood hired Peter Twachtman of Maine to be chief executive five years ago.

“Hiring Peter allowed me to [focus] on the creative direction of the company,” Blood said. “I’m average in most things but one of my best talents is putting the right people in the room together to create the right outcome. . . . Looks like the foundation of my English major got me somewhere, right?”

Cybersecurity tech company CyberArk just reached an important milestone: $1 billion in annual revenue. And being one of the sector’s most prolific dealmakers played a key role.

Since its initial public offering in 2014, CyberArk has made around 10 acquisitions. And the list keeps growing. This month, CyberArk announced it acquired Zilla Security for up to $175 million, on the same day CyberArk reported $1 billion in revenue for 2024, and predicted $1.3 billion for 2025. CyberArk was also just named by the Jerusalem Post as the second-most valuable Israeli company on Wall Street, with a market value of around $20 billion.

Chief executive Matt Cohen, who is based at CyberArk’s US headquarters in Newton, said executives at his firm have known Zilla founder Deepak Taneja for a while. Taneja, Cohen said, is considered a guru in identity governance and administration, a form of cybersecurity known as “IGA” that involves regulating the access rights of employees to various internal computer tools, systems, and apps. Zilla has about 30 employees.

The deal follows a much bigger acquisition in October, when CyberArk completed its $1.5 billion purchase of Utah-based Venafi, a deal that will help CyberArk clients ward off harmful bots powered by artificial intelligence. That deal brought around 400 employees into the fold. Today, CyberArk employs about 3,800, including around 350 in Newton.

Cohen, who took over as chief executive from founder Udi Mokady in 2023, hinted more acquisitions could be coming as the company builds an even bigger arsenal to fight cyber attacks. (Mokady remains on board as executive chairman.)

“We’ve always been able to innovate internally,” Cohen said. “But when we see a technology that we think is heads and shoulders above everybody else, we’re not shy about pulling the trigger.”

Massachusetts faces stiff competition for climate-tech jobs and companies. But leaders here have some new tools in the form of state subsidies to fight back.

And now, they have a strategic plan, too.

On Friday, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center unveiled its plan for strengthening the state’s climate-tech leadership. MassCEC chief executive Emily Reichert held the launch event in Worcester — a nod to a key tenet of this new strategy calling for involvement from all corners of the state, not just Greater Boston. The online version of the plan, developed with Boston Consulting Group and state economic Secretary Yvonne Hao’s office, features an interactive map showing climate-tech resources across the state, from startups and schools to sites and substations.

The event at Worcester Polytechnic Institute featured Reichert, Hao, state climate chief Melissa Hoffer, WPI president Grace Wang, and Leslie Greis, co-owner of Kinefac Corp., a Worcester manufacturer. Reichert said it will be the first of several summits the MassCEC staff will organize in the coming months.

As part of a broad-reaching economic bill that Governor Maura Healey signed in November, the state allocated up to $30 million a year for tax incentives for climate-tech companies, and another $40 million a year to provide grants for equipment and other infrastructure needs.

MassCEC’s push comes at a time when federal funding for scientific research and climate-related projects is under threat. Reichert said the Trump administration’s cutbacks underscore MassCEC’s importance.

“When there’s less support from the public sector at the federal level,” Reichert said, “then the public sector at the state level really needs to lead.”

A well-known prominent Trump supporter joining the board of the institute that bears Ted Kennedy’s name?

Sounds strange. Maybe a little awkward or controversial. But bringing David Urban to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute fits right in with the Boston organization’s push for bipartisanship. The institute announced last week that Urban joined the board.

Under board chair Bruce Percelay, a Boston-based developer, the EMK Institute is trying to go beyond accommodating tourists and school field trips at its signature Dorchester building, which features a full-sized replica of the US Senate chamber, to focus on a broader policy mission: encouraging bipartisan politics. It’s a mission that the institute’s namesake, Ted Kennedy, understood and practiced during his several decades in the Senate.

“This, to me, is emblematic of how Ted Kennedy would have functioned,” Percelay said. “You can’t make progress or make change by talking in an echo chamber.”

The EMK Institute has held televised debates between prominent Democrats and Republicans, and encouraged leaders from both parties to attend confabs at its Hyannis homestead. Its board already includes several Republicans such as former US senators Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, John Sununu of New Hampshire, and Mel Martinez of Florida. But it was important to Percelay to bring someone on board with ties to Donald Trump, particularly now that Trump is back in the White House.

Enter Urban, a lawyer, lobbyist, and CNN commentator. He was once chief of staff for then-senator Arlen Specter, working on Capitol Hill for five years during Ted Kennedy’s tenure. Urban helped Trump win over Pennsylvania voters in 2016.

Urban owns a house on Nantucket, which is how he came to know Percelay, who publishes N Magazine on the island. Percelay, Urban recalled, invited him to Hyannisport to learn more about the institute.

“The Institute really serves an important role in maintaining that bipartisan flame of the Senate,” Urban said. “I’m happy to put my shoulder to the wheel and get some more folks up here who are Republicans, and help expand the mission.”

Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.