Ingram’s 250: A Salute to the Most Powerful

We’re seeing it more and more each year: The impact of Baby Boomer retirements within the C-suite. It’s quite literally changing the face of Kansas City business leadership. In this, our sixth year of producing a roster of the 250 most influential executives in the market, we see nearly three dozen new faces in the crowd.

As in years past, we sounded out newcomers with some get-to-know-you questions, so you’ll hear about what guidance they’d give young entrepreneurs, their significant achievements, hobbies, favorite books or movies, their beverage of choice, alma mater and degree field—you know: potential points of shared interest should you ever bump into them.

Why is that important? They help jump-start conversations. And we think conversations among executives across business sectors—with people to whom they’d normally not connect during the course of daily events—help strengthen the business ecosystem here. Without them, sometimes deals that could be done never even get into the discussion. 

As for the repeats, after a check on major COVID-19 updates and financial performance, we settled on some questions that get a little closer to what makes them tick and how they became who they are. 

You’ll see responses about the most influential mentors in their early lives and careers, whether they’re a pet person (hint: almost all are), childhood heroes, how they (and friends) might describe themselves in a word, sources of pride, the best and least-favorite aspects of their work, and sometimes more poignantly that we’d anticipated, experiences that first confirmed for them that life isn’t fair.

Some of it is touching, some of it will provide laugh-out-loud responses, but in the aggregate, all of it helps make for a better-informed, better-connected community of business leaders. 

To one and all: Welcome, or welcome back, to the Ingram’s 250.