Use a supply-chain model to identify and develop potential successors to your current CEO. They’re probably already working for you

Our second annual look at the people, products, trends and ideas that are transforming the world of business.

Beauty is more than skin-deep. The winners of our annual design competition are also versatile, elegant, eco-friendly, and–most important–successful.

Meet the contrarians, 11 business leaders who succeeded by zigging while the rest of the world zagged.

These insiders all own $10 million or more in stock and options in America’s fastest-growing small public companies.

Full-length interview with Laura Crawford, 35, who created the RNC’s 11-minute John Kerry “Flip-Flop” video in 2004. Now she’s producing all of the RNC’s viral and TV campaigns and running campaignads.org.

Full-length interview with Laura Crawford, 35, who created the RNC’s 11-minute John Kerry “Flip-Flop” video in 2004. Now she’s producing all of the RNC’s viral and TV campaigns and running campaignads.org.

Full-length interview with Matt DeBaergalis, 29, who created ActBlue to be the “PayPal of political giving.”

Full-length interview with Matt DeBaergalis, 29, who created ActBlue to be the “PayPal of political giving.”

What does it take to catapult your company onto the FSB 100? Innovation and persistence, of course. But this year it also helped if you worked in industrial manufacturing. Although conventional wisdom holds that U.S. factories are trapped in a death spiral thanks to cheap overseas labor, a quarter of our fast-growth all-stars are finding creative ways to thrive in the bent-metal sector, up from 3 percent in 2003.