Accomplished, yes, but so much more

BIRTHING A STAR: When Max Winograd and his Brown classmates entered Betaspring’s 10-week “boot camp” after graduation, they were just three smart kids with a good idea. Today, thanks in part to that experience, they have attracted $3 million in capital and are well on their way to transforming the multibillion-dollar label marketplace. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
BIRTHING A STAR: When Max Winograd and his Brown classmates entered Betaspring’s 10-week “boot camp” after graduation, they were just three smart kids with a good idea. Today, thanks in part to that experience, they have attracted $3 million in capital and are well on their way to transforming the multibillion-dollar label marketplace. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

Running a successful business today is an extremely difficult proposition.
The treadmarks of the Great Recession are still fresh across nearly every sector of the region’s economy, and thanks to the extra-slow pace of recovery in these parts, break-out growth is not likely to happen for a long time.
But even if the economic downturn had not hurt Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts so significantly, the task of a business leader today is just plain hard. The competitive marketplace is becoming more daunting every day. Thanks to more free-trade treaties being signed all the time, and strong growth happening throughout the developing world, there are almost no pieces of our economy that are not under attack from places that could not have been imagined a generation ago.
Advancing technology is blowing up business models that have been successful for generations – I edit a newspaper, so I know that issue from firsthand experience. The dizzying pace of information exchange makes the changing tastes of customers not something to be considered once or twice a year but in real time. It’s becoming a bespoke world.
And yet, as Providence Business News’ coverage every week shows, there are success stories happening all the time. From startups devising the latest vaccines to combat global scourges to old-line manufacturers reinventing themselves and finding new markets for their products, the women and men who lead the region’s businesses are excelling at their jobs, and as a result, building stronger enterprises and employing more people.
We already identify many of these leaders in the pages of PBN as well as in our recognition programs. In fact, all of the 2011 winners in PBN’s programs are listed on Pages 27 to 31, in the section following this one.
But for this year’s Book of Lists, we wanted to start a new conversation, one that recognizes not only people doing great things in their own businesses, but those who have a presence well beyond their “day jobs.” And thus, the first 10 Most Influential People list sprang into being.
PBN’s editors met on numerous occasions, talked formally and informally, debated people and definitions before settling on the 10 honorees of this inaugural list. It is not a scientific list. Of course there could be no such thing in this type of venture. We recognize that another group of people, with the same goal, might come up with a completely different list.
But most importantly, we wanted you to see a list of people whose influence is not just broad but deep. If any of these women or men were to walk away from the region tomorrow, they would leave a real and significant hole in the community, one not easily, if ever, replaced.
We undertake this new feature in the spirit with which PBN always enters into new projects – as the opening of an ongoing conversation with the business community.
For example, is it logical for the three men who run an organization that helps often-raw entrepreneurs turn ideas into business plans and is backed by less than $5 million in capital to be on the same list as the CEO of a company that generates $100 billion in sales per year? Well, read the profiles in the following pages of Betaspring and Larry Merlo and decide for yourself. But it makes sense to us. If you don’t agree, you know how to get in touch – editor@pbn.com. Let’s keep the conversation going. &#8226

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