We’re happy to introduce the 2026 Business Leaders of the Year in this issue.
This year’s lineup has a combination of relatively unknown leaders, but also some people who have been known in the business community for years. In fact, one of the leaders named in these pages was featured in the very first issue of Mainebiz in 1994.
We’ll be hosting a reception for the honorees on Tuesday, April 14, at the Ocean Gateway in Portland. We hope you’ll join us.
Meantime, the profiles start on Page 12.
And in other awards…
Not to bring the focus back to Mainebiz, but I do want to call attention to some awards won by our editorial team and photographers.
Mainebiz took home five awards in the 2025 New England Better Newspaper Competition, including first place honors for longtime contributing photographer Tim Greenway.
Winners were announced in early March at a Portsmouth, N.H., event hosted by the trade group.
Greenway, a Portland-area freelance photographer who has worked with Mainebiz for more than two decades, won first place in the niche publications category for “Beyond Vacationland,” a photo story about manufacturing in Maine published in the 2025 Mainebiz Fact Book. The cover features a selection of photos from the series.
Contributing photographer Jim Neuger won second place in the same category for his oyster-themed “Slurpin’ USA” photo cover story published in June 2025.
“Portland at a crossroads,” a cover story published in July 2025, was recognized with awards in two categories.
Mainebiz Deputy Editor Renee Cordes won second-place honors in “Business/Economics Reporting — Specialty Publications” for the article, while Mainebiz Art Director Matt Selva won second place for “Best Front Page — Specialty Publications.”
Selva also earned second place in the combined category of “Overall Design and Presentation of a Print Newspaper,” for the Dec. 16, 2024, edition of Mainebiz focused on manufacturing.
Congrats to my colleagues and to our contributors.
