BRIAN ANDERSON

Perceptive Software liked what it saw so much in Brian Anderson that it hired him—twice. A decade ago, he joined the Shawnee-based company as a software engineer and quickly rose to development manager and principal architect of Perceptive’s enterprise content management products. He left in 2009 for Tradebot Systems, but less than three years later, Perceptive CEO Scott Coons came knocking on Anderson’s door again.

Today, the 35-year-old Anderson is chief technology officer for a global tech firm with a broad range of business process management offerings. In that role, he oversees a global network of R&D initiatives, technologies and diverse workers to yield a seamless suite of business offerings. “With a global team of over 500 software professionals on four continents, I measure my success in the value our customers get from the solutions and platforms we deliver,” Anderson says.

He and his wife, Becci, have four children ages 2–11 in a blended family, and he also volunteers at schools in the Gardner and Blue Valley districts. That work is important to him, he says, because “Kansas City is a place where I grew up, and where I plan for my children to grow up.” He also sits on the board of KC Next, the technology council of greater Kansas City and frequently returns to his alma mater, KU, to assist in student orientation and as a guest lecturer in computer science courses.

ROBYN ANDERSON

Robyn Anderson has two tough jobs. She’s not quite sure which is tougher: “I remember telling my sister it was easier to negotiate a $40 million insurance claim than to get my 2-year-old to nap!” says the 39-year-old lawyer for Lathrop & Gage.

Charles, Henry and Oliver, the young ones she has with husband Matthew Roberts, are now well beyond the Terrible Twos at 8, 6 and 4, but Anderson is still knocking out high-value deals, and at a high level: She’s been recognized by Benchmark Litigation as one of the Top 250 female litigators in the nation.

She’s been part of a legal team negotiating complex insurance claims worth hundreds of millions of dollars, served as lead counsel for a Fortune 500 company’s national employee benefits litigation, and co-authored a treatise on environmental insurance litigation. She also has chaired the firm’s insurance department, and—no surprise here—worked with the executive committee to implement one of the legal industry’s most progressive maternity policies.

“Many young professionals strive to have it all, and I’m no exception,” Anderson says, “For me, that meant being brave enough to reduce my work schedule while having the confidence and ability to keep the respect, trust and recognition of my clients and peers. Less can be more, and finding that balance was a significant accomplishment in its own right.”

RYAN ANDERSON

“I have always been an entrepreneur,” says Ryan Anderson, co-president and head of acquisitions for Mariner Real Estate Management. That was evident as early as age 18, when, as a Rockhurst University student, he formed Anderson Realty and began buying rental properties around the college, juggling those duties with his studies and baseball schedule. Three years later, he and brother Terry Anderson formed Anderson Property Development Co., expanding into condo redevelopment, land development, construction management and real-estate brokerage.

Anderson is still only 31, but nearly six years into the affiliation that he and his brother forged with Marty Bicknell’s Mariner family of investment companies. Since founding MREM in 2008, “we have raised three opportunity funds that focus on debt investments,” Anderson says, and “we have bought over 1,500 loans and assets totaling over $1.3 billion of real estate debt in over 30 states.” In the process, he’s helped take a small firm of four employees up to a staff of 115. And in 2010, MREM acquired a majority interest in Cohen Financial, a national commercial real-estate mortgage banking and loan-servicing firm.

Away from the office, Anderson is a prolific fund-raiser (at least $580,000 to date) for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, a cause he embraced after one of his grandfathers was diagnosed with lymphoma. He and his wife, Annie, have two children, Sienna and Brent.

CHRIS BIX

Whether it was with management consultant Accenture, at tax-preparation giant H&R Block, or in his current role overseeing information technology functions for Beauty Brands, Chris Bix has been about one thing: performance. He flat-out solves complex problems with a healthy application of people skills, an innate sense of leadership, a gift for communicating, and integrity.

You see those values over and over again in performance evaluations for the 38-year-old Bix. But it all starts with integrity. “My word is my bond,” says Bix. “If I say I will do something, I’ll do it.” As the head of the IT operation for Beauty Brands, he has access to all systems and sensitive data, and as treasurer of Give Hope Back, a charitable organization he co-founded, he prizes that integrity above all. His list of achievements at Beauty Brands is impressive: he led a nationwide upgrade in computer systems for the retail chain, his team developed a fully automated backup and recovery system for the most critical systems, and his efforts led to a 50 percent reduction in contacts from store locations to the company’s call center, and he was responsible for launching the chain’s e-commerce center.

A graduate of the University of Missouri–Rolla with a degree in engineering management, Bix has three children with his wife, Beth—Gabe, 12; Katie, 9; and Kassidy, 6. Bix also serves as an executive board adviser to the Boy Scouts of America’s Pony Express Council.