A new breed of CEOs

by Robert C. Powell III
Virginia Business
August 2007

Roanoke native Cameron Johnson started his first business when he was 9 and had made his first million by the time he graduated from high school. Now 22, he is the CEO of three Web-based companies and consults for Fortune 500 firms.

Johnson represents a new breed of young Virginia entrepreneurs for whom the pattern of going to college and paying your dues doesn't apply. In our cover story, writer Christina Couch takes a close look at group of twenty-something CEOs who used their Web savvy to build businesses and fortunes.

If they want to protect those fortunes, these young CEOs should take a peek here. For the third straight year, author R.J. Shook has selected the top financial advisers in Virginia. This year, the list has grown from 30 to 50 names, and writer Richard Foster gleans investment strategy ideas from many of the newcomers.

Some entrepreneurs eventually become community business leaders. Few, however, will be able to match the rags-to-riches story of Julien Patterson, the first African-American to become chairman of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. As writer Lisa Linnell relates in our Business Diversity report, Patterson slept on a warehouse floor and skipped meals in the late 1980s as he tried to get his security firm off the ground. Now his Chantilly company, OMNIPLEX World Services, employs 3,500 people who do background checks and provide security training for customers around the world.

The diversity report also examines the increasing number of diversity supplier managers at many major companies around the state. These executives say that partnering with small, women- and minority-owned companies is good business.

Finally, our Options section on executive lifestyles takes you to the D-Day Memorial in Bedford. The site honors the sacrifice made by all soldiers who landed in Normandy 63 years ago, but takes special note of the losses endured by Bedford. The city lost 19 of its sons in the first wave of the invasion. Like our young CEOs, many of them were under 25, but they had little chance to reach for their dreams.