By Vandana Sinha

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For years, around this time, we’ve offered you our annual Power 100, the list of 100 most influential business leaders whose numbers you wish you had on speed-dial.

This year, we thought, what if we didn’t do that? What if we took a few steps back and looked at our younger leaders, the ones paving their own paths to power?

Now before you say anything, yes, some of the people in this gallery could easily grace a Power 100 — and some already have in prior lists.

But in our minds, this is the next wave of leaders who have the grit and achievement to become tomorrow’s top Washington business establishment, alongside a Marillyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin or Arne Sorenson of Marriott International. These are the executives and entrepreneurs who are building and growing a new class of companies or reshaping older ones. They’re helping redefine our business community.

Kate Goodall
CEO, Halcyon
• About the nonprofit: It spun out of the S&R Foundation in February 2017 to serve as a nonprofit engine for social entrepreneurship, offering incubator space and advisers for startups focusing on arts and social impact.
• Why she makes this list: Many of the region’s most promising startups start within Halcyon’s walls, though it’s looking beyond its traditional incubator fellowship program as well. It’s launched its first By the People arts and dialogue festival in June and is now pushing to expand globally in a few years, recently wrapping up its first residencies for international entrepreneurs from Korea and Saudi Arabia. Ultimately, it hopes to help other countries develop social enterprise ecosystems with its first outpost abroad within a couple years.

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