WBJ Staff

Cliff Rucker has invested so heavily in Worcester’s entertainment industry, he is single-handedly bringing more than a million people to the city each year.

In an age when sustainable farms are struggling to maintain relevance, Grace Lam has cracked the code to the modern-day customer.

If there’s one person who took Central Massachusetts’ real estate world by storm this year, it’s Weidong Wang.

Larry Lucchino will hold tremendous sway over the Greater Worcester business and cultural communities until he and the rest of the WooSox ownership group decide to sell the team, which may be sooner rather than later.

New housing, commercial developments, infrastructure, and public facilities are all great at economic development, but it takes a vibrant cultural scene to truly create a place where people want to be. In the past year, perhaps no one has personified Worcester’s cultural growth more than Olivia Scanlon.

Although Denis Dowdle’s developments in Worcester are still more on paper than in steel, his proposed six-building project across from the Polar Park baseball stadium remains one of the most influential developments in the city.

Charles Norton has already had a tremendous impact on the region’s development trajectory and shows no signs of slowing.

Under Anthony Consigli’s leadership starting in the 1990s, Consigli Building Group has grown from $1 million to $2.25 billion in annual volume.

For 16 years, Kaska Yawo has been building African Community Education from the ground up, starting as a one-on-one tutoring service for young Liberian refugees.

Chacharone Properties has been developing projects in Central Massachusetts for nearly 40 years and owns more than a million square feet of commercial, medical, industrial, and lab space in the region.