Who are New Jersey's real business leaders?

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email


I was looking over NJBIZ.com's "The NJBIZ Power 100: The most powerful people in New Jersey business" for 2015. I wonder if this is an actual reflection of the state of business in The Garden State, and if so perhaps its a reason why its not in the greatest shape.

The majority of people named are various public officials, attorneys, and lobbyists. Most of the business executives run regulated utilities or other organizations with state ties. Besides a sprinkling of major Pharma execs and a few Jersey mainstays such as Campbells, I see little evidence of business leadership being represented. I only count perhaps four tech execs and two who I would call successful tech entrepreneurs. Nobody directly from the VC or PE communities I can spot.

There is no Marc Lore (ex-Quidsi, now Jet.com), Chris Sugden (Edison Partners), Jim Preuninger (Amber Road), Stephen Waldis (Synchronoss), N. Robert Hammer (CommVault) and Thai Lee (SHI), just to name a few. Nor are any of the brilliant researchers at the universities and research labs working on breakthroughs in areas such as photonics and quantum computing represented.

Follow up: NJ ranks at bottom of job growth list (The Daily Journal)