Becoming the best business leader in your field is an aspiration for many and learning about how others have achieved prominence is a great way to make advances. Forbes is the authority on finding and listing these inspirational business people, so let’s have a look at who they’ve rated as their top business owners of 2018, and what we can learn from them.
Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk has achieved so much at such a young age. He was an engineering student who later became an investor and entrepreneur. After completing his degree, he enrolled for a PhD program at Stanford University but dropped out and opened his own software company with the name of Zip2. He then founded an online bank which was later bought by eBay for $1.4 billion. In 2002, Musk started an aerospace manufacturing company, SpaceX, after acquiring a business cash advance which also helped with the development of Tesla which he started with the intention of producing electrical and solar products.
Elon Musk was also the co-founder of the famous online payment system PayPal and was ranked 21st in the list of Forbes’ World’s Most Powerful People. He is considered one of the most successful, well-known business people in the world.
Delane Parnell
Delane Parnell is the founder of PlayVS, an online platform that is used in the United States to create sports team information online and allows them to participate in various E-sport competitions throughout the country. He is just 26 years old and included in the Forbes list of ‘30 Under 30’. He was also a college dropout like many others and always had an innovative mind.
He recently signed a deal with National Federation of State High School Associations to provide software for all the state-sponsored game competitions. The application has several options such as scheduling of matches, performance statistics, auto report generation, a record of wins and losses and keeps track of the performances. Recently, it was able to earn $16 million just through one round of Series A NFL competition.
Jen Gotch
Jen Gotch is the founder and CEO of Ban.do which is an upcoming but already famous online retailer that is well known for providing people with innovative options and wide-ranging products. The theme of the website is fun and colour which is visible in both in her vibrant personality and the products she has displayed. Some of the main categories from which people can shop include outdoor fun, clothing, shoes, bags, beauty, home, garden, living, and wellness.
Jen gained further prominence when she started discussing her mental health issues and now uses her brand to promote awareness amongst people. She also won the Shorty Social Good Award for Best in Retail and E-Commerce and was also included in the top 50 rich American self-made women.
Franco Brockelman
It all started when his mother was suffering from arthritic pain. Because not many people had any idea about the uses of medical marijuana for the relief of arthritic pain back then and the government had applied several restrictions on researches, Brockelman developed an app called Releaf that collects information from users who enter real-time data based on their patterns of use and their symptomatic relief. People share their experiences and report back on which strain of marijuana they are using and how it compares to others. As a result, it’s become easy to classify which medical marijuana strains are the most useful for a particular type of illness. If not quite yet, it will soon be the most significant cannabis study and research data resource available, and that’s what Franco Brockelman is aiming for.
Last but not least…
Mary T. Barra
Unlike other entrepreneurs included in the list, Mary T. Barra did not start an innovative business of her own. She is the CEO of General Motors, one of America’s most famous automobile companies. Mary T. Barra had strong roots with the company as she graduated from GM Institute as an electrical engineer and later completed her MBA from Stanford University. She is the only female be CEO of a Top 10 – Fortune 500 company and has rejuvenated GM with a particular focus on autonomous driving and car sharing. It looks more like a new start up under her leadership, which aims to bring down emissions and crashes to a bare minimum. Under her leadership, General Motors is competing with Tesla and Alphabet. Only recently it was able to secure a massive $2.5 billion investment from Japan with a focus on research and experimentation.
There’s plenty to be inspired by from reading about these successful business leaders!