My annual critique of the “200 Most Influential Leaders in West Michigan” or as I like to refer to the most powerful of them as…..Cartels

Over the past several years the business press in Grand Rapids has been celebrating the 200 Most Influential Leaders in West Michigan. The 2025 list was published on October 14th. I began dissecting the banality of these claims, beginning in 2021, but again in 2022 and 2023.

In each of these years I wanted to center on the power that this small group of people had over the majority of those living in West MI, talking about how they normalize structural racism and economic disparities, and why we need to challenge the power and influence that Crain’s Grand Rapids celebrates.

The 2025 list of the most influential people isn’t much different, apart from a few new names. Here are a few better ways to talk about most of the people on the 2025 list:

• How they influence the ways in which public money is spent in the service of the private sector
• How the Capitalist Class proposes projects in GR, gets the public to pay for most of it, keeps all the profits for themselves, then takes credit for making GR the best place to live.
• How the wealthiest families use their money to influence public policy that perpetuates racial capitalism.
• How most of the 200 influencers destroy neighborhoods through gentrification and displace poor and working class people from the city.
• How the wealthiest families and their minions want to control the economic, social and cultural realities of Grand Rapids and marginalize or silence any critics.

In many ways the annual “200 Most Influential Leaders in West Michigan” is really just a reflection of what I have been calling the Grand Rapids Power Structure. One could easily do a power analysis of the 200 people listed, where those with the most money have the most power to influence what happens in this city, with a second tier that either works for the most powerful or is associated with them through organizational connection such as the GR Chamber of Commerce, the Right Place Inc. the Acton Institute, the West Michigan Policy Forum, the DDA or Grand Action 2.0.

Then there are those listed as Civic Leaders and Non-Profits Leaders, who either receive funding from the GR Power Structure, bend to their will, and will never publicly challenge their power out of fear of losing funding or being blacklisted in Grand Rapids. Welcome to West Michigan Nice!