Crain’s Grand Rapids Business finally calls the 200 most influential leaders in West MI – Those with Power

For years the Grand Rapids Business Journal, which is now called Crain’s Grand Rapids Business, would produce a list of the 200 most influential leaders in West Michigan. They have finally taken the gloves off and are calling this list of 200, The authoritative guide to power in West Michigan.

This shift in how they name this group is important. It is important since it now properly frames those in the list as people with power and moves away from the West Michigan Nice language of influential leaders. As a matter of clarification, this is a list pf people who have power over the rest of us, whether it is economic power, political power or social/cultural power.

The 2026 list is not much different than the 2025 list, where families like the Van Andel, Meijer and DeVos dominate the list, all as part of the billionaire class. However, as I have noted in numerous other posts, the DeVos family stands alone in the power over category, since they also have lots of people on this list that work for them in one capacity or another. Some of those people run their companies and others are a part of certain associations, sit on certain boards or are the recipients of campaign contributions.

Here are some ways we can talk about those with the most power on this list of 200:

• How those on this list are silent about state violence that is perpetrated by the GRPD, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office and disproportionately affects BIPOC communities.
• How those on this list are silent about what ICE is doing in West Michigan, terrorizing immigrant families, along with using the GRPD and the Kent County Jail as tools to support the terror and violence that ICE perpetrates on immigrants families.
• 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 authoritative guide to power 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!