CNN Business Presents ‘Risk Takers’

Digital Series Profiles New Generation of Trailblazers on December 23

CNN Business will launch its seventh year of its fully digital series, ‘Risk Takers,’ featuring an inspirational business leader every day for a week beginning on Monday, December 23, 2024.

With an affordability crisis, renewed implications in health and wellness and innovations in the food and beverage industries, this series will spotlight varied business leaders and their initiatives to present new groundbreaking products and resources to improve our daily lives.

To illuminate the impact and importance of ingenuity in business, ‘Risk Takers’ will highlight entrepreneurs, CEOs and business leaders who are leveraging savvy, research, and experience to create opportunities and solutions that will entice and uplift an entirely new generation of consumers right now.

The CNN Business 2024 ‘Risk Takers’ are:

Jerome Powell

Chair, Federal Reserve 

He steered the Federal Reserve through a pandemic-induced crisis and the highest inflation in decades. But did Chair Jerome Powell wait too long to lower interest rates, putting the world’s biggest economy at risk of a recession?

Naomi Watts 

Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Stripes Beauty
She was scared talking about menopause in Hollywood, known for a culture where women start aging out of roles years before men. But Naomi Watts started a menopause beauty brand anyway, catering to a real need that no one wants to talk about.

Jenny Nguyen 

Owner, The Sports Bra

When The Sports Bra opened in 2022, naysayers sniffed at the concept of a women’s sports bar and its lack of traditional capital. But the Portland bar found success – and now Jenny Nguyen wants to expand into a business empire.

Bill Shufelt and John Walker

Founders, Athletic Brewing Co. 

Back in 2018, Bill Shufelt and John Walker bet everything on a then-new trend: People wanted the taste of beer, but not necessarily alcohol. Six years on, the non-alcoholic craft brewing industry has blown up, and Athletic Brewing Co.’s non-alcoholic beers are a supermarket staple.

Shawn Fain 

President, United Auto Workers 

In 2024 United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain was perhaps Kamala Harris’s most outspoken labor supporter — and the harshest critic of Donald Trump. Now he could pay a price for that support.

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