TODD JONES

CHAIRMAN, PUBLIX SUPER MARKETS, LAKELAND

On Jan. 1, Jones stepped down as CEO of Publix to become executive chairman of its board of directors. He was replaced by Kevin Murphy, who was Publix’s president. Jones started working at Publix as a bagger while in high school to help support his family. When he became CEO in 2016, he was the first person to lead the company who wasn’t a relative of George Jenkins, who founded Publix in 1930. Jenkins once told Jones to prepare himself because life is a smorgasbord of opportunity. Publix is the largest employee-owned company in the U.S., with more than a quarter-million workers and 1,366 grocery stores in eight Southeastern states. Since 2009, it has donated 800 million pounds of food to food banks.