There’s a lot of truth in old adages. One of my favorites is “what goes around, comes around.” I see it in action all the time here at Atlantic Business Magazine, and particularly for this issue.

Every year, we celebrate Atlantic Business Magazine’s Top 50 CEOs in Atlantic Canada, and every year there are new faces to acknowledge. There’s no shortage of leaders here despite our relatively small population, and you know why? Because great leaders nurture — some of their greatest satisfaction and personal accomplishment comes from mentoring succeeding generations.

To all of our Top 50 CEO award winners, past and present, I’d like to offer a sincere thank you for doing such an amazing job of fostering new business leaders. Not only does this serve the region well by providing us with a renewable source of positive energy, but you also give us here at Atlantic Business Magazine a fresh stream of stories to write about on a regular basis.

I’d also like to recognize the valuable contributions of our corporate sponsors and advertisers. Yes, we have an awardwinning magazine with top quality editorial content provided by the foremost writers in the region. And yes, we have the largest audience of business readers in Atlantic Canada (expanded this issue by another 5,000 copies to subscribers in downtown Toronto, for a total circulation of 42,000 magazines). We are a great magazine, but we are also a business, and businesses need revenue to survive. We would not be the thriving enterprise we are today without your support. Thank you for believing in us.

I’m also immeasurably grateful to the award judges. Each of these busy, accomplished executives (all members of the Top 50 CEO Hall of Fame), generously donates dozens of hours of their time to select the Top 50 CEO award winners. A large measure of the success of these awards is owed to your careful scrutiny and assessment. Your efforts are a measure of the depth and quality of leadership in the region, as well as encouragement to emerging leaders to follow in your footsteps. Thank you for a job very well done.

Finally, I’d like to show my appreciation to the amazing team who work so diligently each year to put this awards program together. You’d never guess from the size of our magazine, or the complexity of the Top 50 CEO awards program, but we are a very small, very tight organization. This edition is the culmination of months of planning, weeks of overtime and immeasurable amounts of determined effort. And even though you pour your heart and soul into making each Top 50 CEO issue the best one we’ve ever produced, you somehow use that success to raise the bar even higher the following year.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 26 years of publishing Atlantic Business Magazine, it’s that good begets better, and better begets excellence. Thanks to all for taking me along for the ride.