To Do: Get B&W Head Shot, Make a Jillion Dollars...

By Margaret Lyons in News on Sep 7, 2004 7:23PM

Crain's released its Who's Who of Chicago business today, and it's going to take us a long time to plow through all those names and come up with jokes/information.

The list does actually appear to be a who's who, so it's mostly obvious people, at least in the categories we're remotely familiar with. For example, the education category has the presidents/head honchos of most Chicago colleges and universities, plus Arne Duncan and David J. Vitale of CPS and a handful of others. We were kind of jazzed to see Charlie Trotter and Rick Bayless, the chef and owner of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, on the food list in addition to the more major players. Yes, Bayless's $15 million business might sound hefty, but compared to $31 billion managed by Roger K. Deromedi, CEO of Kraft, Bayless is small (Mexican-fusion) potatoes.

The Who's Who is a pretty enjoyable face book because you not only get to see how much moolah big wigs throw around, but you also get to see the "civic" organizations they contribute to or participate in. We like that Christie Hefner, the chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises Inc., is fond of the American Civil Liberties Union.