Ingram's April 2023

ALUMNI OF THE YEAR PROFILE 40 UNDER FORTY

40 Under Forty: Batting 1,000 A stellar 2023 class, a milestone for KC leadership

BUCKY BROOKS (Class of 2001) to form Copaken Brooks in 2010. The real estate development and brokerage firm, though rebranded, can trace its roots back nearly a century to its founding in 1922. ANNE ST. PETER was a vice president at Fleishman Hillard when she answered the 40 Under Forty roll call in 2001.

If we’ve told you once, we’ve told you a thousand times: Kansas City is brimming with energetic, motivated, and suc cessful young business figures who represent this region’s next tier of commercial and civic vibrancy. Matter of fact, Ingram’s has demonstrated that precisely 1,000 times—the 2023 Class of 40 Under Forty, our 25th, brings us to that number of honorees since the program debuted in April of 1998. This is a cohort that matters: They will be and have already proven to be, the future of this region’s business and civic leadership. You’d have to look long and far to find a better contemporary assessment of what the fourth decade of life means that author Scott Mayer of medium.com pro duced recently with this spot-on assessment of one’s 30s: “Too old for TikTok, too young for Life Alert.” It’s that age range at which entrepreneurs and those on the executive track are able to wield 10, 12, 15 years of expe rience—or more—and separate themselves from the pack in terms of career performance. It’s also the range where many are marrying if they didn’t get that box ticked in their 20s, buying homes, and starting families. And it’s a range where the expectations of the business community call for high achievers to become more engaged with the civic pillars that sustain those businesses, primarily with non-profit boards but also with neighborhood, church, and school functions. Not everyone is capable of threading that needle, of running the gauntlet that includes workplace, home life, and civic engagement. This year, we again introduce you to 40 people who have done just that. And while we’re assessing milestones, we’ll pause here to review some of the historical successes of 40 Under Forty. Start with that first class, a group packed with potential across multiple sectors—and, looking back, a group that largely lived up to that potential. In the very first 40 Under Forty, KEVIN BARTH was Commerce Bank’s executive vice president for commercial lending. That was 1998. Today, he’s Chairman and CEO of the Kansas City region. He’s not just moved up the ladder; he’s been involved in growth that has taken the bank from roughly $8.5 billion in assets that year to $24.2 billion in assets at last count. Family combinations are exceedingly rare among 40 Under Forty honorees, but brothers KEITH COPAKEN (Class of 1998) and JON COPAKEN (Class of 2000) have turned the trick. Rarer still are ventures formed by 40 Under Forty alumni, but the Copakens teamed up with

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She scratched her own entrepreneurial itch by co-founding Global Prairie, an integrated marketing communications firm based in Kansas City’s Crossroads District. It’s a rare creature indeed as a B-Corp., or benefit corporation, with specific social-betterment goals as well as bottom-line concerns. For more than 12 years, MIKE VALENTINE (Class of 2002) rose through the ranks of Cerner Corp., blending his love for innovation and technology and eventually becom ing chief operating officer. In 2010, he made the move to New York-based NetSmart Technologies, where he became chief executive. He then relocated it to Overland Park, and it’s been a fixture of big-time sales volume and growth percentages since. Five years after founding Intouch Solutions, the phar maceutical marketing company, FARUK CAPAN made the 2004 Class. His company had 25 employees back then. By the start of 2011, the employee ranks at Intouch had swelled by a factor of nine—demonstrating that job growth doesn’t come merely from being small; it comes from inno vation and rapid growth. 2021 sale for $960 million as it morphed into Intouch/Eversana. Also hailing from 2004 is MIKE MADDOX , the only 40 Under Forty honoree we know of who has an NCAA basketball championship on his resume. He was com munity-banking president for INTRUST Bank when he made the list, and he was a forward on the 1988 KU Nat- ional Championship title team. These days, he’s CEO of CrossFirst Bank in Overland Park and has led a charge from

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April 2023