After riding the waterbed wave in the 1980s, brothers Wayne and Rod Johansen changed tack in the next decade and struck pay dirt in their astute observation that the Twin…

Being in charge of the Minneapolis schools has never been easy. The job carries very high turnover and your primary constituent groups are often at odds with one another. One…

Joly, who left the Carson travel conglomerate for Best Buy in August 2012, has taken the company from code blue to Renew Blue, a five-part intiative designed to resuscitate the…

Doug Baker is rewarding Ecolab shareholders with higher-than-expected earnings for 2014, thanks mainly to last year’s strategic acquisition of Champion Technologies, which is tapping the booming energy market. He is…

The Mortenson name casts a long shadow in the Twin Cities business community. In 1960 “Mort” Mortenson Jr. joined the company founded by his father in 1954, and became president…

Eric Kaler has broken new ground in working with corporate partners to land funding for the U of M, such as September’s announcement that Land O’Lakes Inc. would donate $25…

Who says there’s no money in amateur sports? Sport Ngin has created a software platform providing websites, mobile applications and technology tailored to youth and amateur sports leagues. Founded in…

The classic overachiever, Amy Klobuchar became the valedictorian of her Wayzata High School class and has never stopped working. From her law-and-order platform as Hennepin County attorney, she outmaneuvered other…

It seemed kind of a crazy idea at the time: an online-only “newspaper” in a town that already had two full-service ones. But former Star Tribune publisher Kramer and his…

Langley, a former Westinghouse exec and U.S. Navy pilot, succeeded in raising $15 million from dozens of private-sector investors and partner organizations to fund the regional economic development and marketing…

This local candy company traces its history to 1907, when its namesake started a business making homemade chocolates. Over the years, there have been several owners. Now in its second…

Big things have been brewing for Kelly Larson. After navigating the financing for an addition that enabled Summit to double beer production, she dug right back in to facilitate the…

Despite the revelation that Leitz was on probation following a drunken driving conviction, his probationary period as the leader of the MNsure health insurance exchange ended in May when the…

Working for the nation’s largest privately held company, Sarena Lin is constantly on the lookout for new business opportunities. It’s a big job, because Cargill has 75 lines of business…

One of the legacies of the late Margaret A. Cargill was creation of one of the largest foundations in the country. Lindberg’s job is to find effective ways to use…

Scott Litman knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship. Alongside longtime business partner Dan Mallin, Litman co-founded Imaginet in the early 1990s and St. Louis Park-based Magnet 360 in 2008.…

Do you think Minnesota should have the world’s most interesting and beautiful billboards? Susan Adams Loyd does. In her role at Clear Channel Outdoor, the region’s dominant out-of-home advertising provider,…

Chuck Lutz knows his way around City Hall. Lutz first joined the Minneapolis Community Development Agency (now CPED) in 1986. During the 1990s he worked for the Minneapolis Public Housing…