“You need to work through risk to get to the reward, but the shiny prize is never guaranteed. Every person on this list has had their moments of failure and doubt, of being tempted to quit—but they didn’t.”

Each year’s Top 50 CEO awards have a theme—a central message or statement that unites the magazine content with the awards gala and lessons learned from the winners themselves. This year’s theme was inspired by the gala location: St. John’s, N.L.

Canada’s most easterly city sits, quite literally, on the edge of the Atlantic; its land mass is a critical, physical buffer between the great, wide ocean and the rest of the country. Turbulent tides and brisk nor-easters are the annual norm, offset by an oft optimistic prayer for six to eight weeks of summer sun. Life here may not be for the faint of heart, but for many who inhabit these shores, there’s no place like it.

Could there be a more apt analogy for entrepreneurial leadership?

Before you point out that the Top 50 aren’t all business owners, I mean ‘entrepreneurial’ in the adjectival sense of innovative or pioneering—someone who battles through risk as an unavoidable obstacle on the path to reward. Kind of like eating your least likeable vegetables in the hope that your favorite dessert is on the way. It’s that appetite for risk… that edge… which this year’s winners have in abundance.

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