A Look Back: How the Mainebiz ‘40 Under 40’ took root

The Mainebiz 40 Under 40 evolved out of the Next List awards, which featured nine people the first year.

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This issue features the third annual “40 Under 40” awards. The program’s origins actually go back further, to the Mainebiz Next List. For more than a decade, Mainebiz honored up-and-coming business leaders. The idea was to feature those “next” in line to take a major role in a business, nonprofit, professional services firm or health care institution.

Our sister publications, the Worcester Business Journal and Hartford Business Journal, both had a long history of presenting a broader list of up-and-comers, the 40 Under 40. And of course other publications beyond those had been doing such honors for decades.

There was a groundswell of interest in taking on a 40 Under 40 program at Mainebiz, but there were naysayers who worried that, with such a small state population, Maine would have a tougher time sustaining that kind of award.

That hasn’t been an issue, and we’ve been surprised by the interest the program has had among the business community, which has provided a steady stream of nominees.

From the start, our inaugural class of 40 Under 40s offered some surprises.

As I reported in the editor’s note in the Oct. 3, 2022, issue, despite their youth, the original crew paid tribute to authors like Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson and Bertrand Russell, while quoting from Teddy Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr.

Even their TV and movie favorites had a classic feel. They cited shows like “Friends,” whose original run was 1994–2004, “The Sopranos” (1999–2007) and “The West Wing” (1999–2006) — shows only picked up in syndication today or on platforms like Amazon Prime.

We found, too, that the group of 40 was an ideal networking group, and even the group photo shoot was an opportunity to interact.

It was a fast-paced, ever-changing group; even in the course of putting together the print edition, at least two of the honorees had changed jobs.

Fun fact: What's a BHAG?

The profiles of the “40 Under 40” honorees, then as now, were based on a questionnaire they filled out. In the first year of the honors, 2022, one of the questions was, “Do you have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal?”

Many of you will recognize the reference to Jim Collins’ classic business book, “Built to Last.” But we soon realized that the “BHAG,” as it was known, might have been more common in the 1990s. When “Built to Last” was published in 1994, even the oldest 40 Under 40 honoree would have been in 5th grade.

Since then we’ve modified the question to ask about an “audacious goal” and have left it at that.

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