Most Influential People
Most Influential, Equity: Vivian Phillips
Founder and Board President, Arte Noir
“It is very personal,” Phillips says of living and advocating for diversity in the Central District. “My parents migrated to Seattle from the South, like the story of so many Black people in Seattle. They came here in the early ‘50s. They lived in the Central District, which was the only place where they could live. Family and friends, we all lived within blocks of each other; 23rd and Union was my stomping ground. It is literally where I grew up.”
Most Influential, Fashion: Dan McLean
Fashion designer
“I have such a connection to this city,” McLean says. “There’s so much happening and so many people doing cool things. I feel like once people get famous here, they move away to New York or LA, and they say, ‘Oh, there’s not enough here.’ I disagree. I don’t need to take my shows to New York. I want Seattle to be a stop during Fashion Week.”
Most Influential, Hospitality: Brady Williams
Chef, entrepreneur
For all of its culinary reputation, no Seattle restaurant has ever earned a Michelin star, regarded as the highest praise in the culinary world.
Brady Williams is changing that. In the last year he has brought notable and accomplished chefs and restaurateurs from out of town that have earned Michelin stars.
Most Influential, Hospitality: J. Kenji López-Alt
Chef, author
López-Alt is a two-time James Beard Award-winner, with all three of his books making it onto The New York Times bestseller list. His latest book, The Wok, currently in bookstores, won him his second James Beard Award this year.
Photo by J. Kenji López-Alt
Most Influential, Arts: Christina Scheppelmann
General director, Seattle Opera
On November 22, 1981, a teenage Christina Scheppelmann saw Don Carlo in Hamburg, Germany. The five-act opera, which Scheppelmann called an “incredibly monumental, relevant piece of music,” displayed the life and conflicts of a fictional 16th-century European prince. From then on, she was in love. “(Opera) is incredibly emotional. It’s exciting,” she says. “If you…
Most Influential, Business: Marques Warren
Entrepreneur
The solution-minded Warren founded Cougar Mountain Financial, a lender specializing in loans to women and minority-owned businesses at airports. So far, he has financed restaurants at a food court at Los Angeles International Airport, and several retailers at San Francisco International Airport…
Photo by Danielle Barnum
Most Influential, Equity: Cynthia Brothers
Preservationist, activist
“I had been back in Seattle for a while,” says Brothers, who grew up in Seattle and went to graduate school at New York University. “There were a lot of changes happening fast. The tech boom, people getting pushed out, gentrification. It was something I didn’t like witnessing.”
Photo by Tom Butcher
Most Influential, Hospitality: Keiji Tsukasaki
Chef, restaurateur
Volume in music is like seasoning food. Raise the volume too high and it warps the sound. Overseason the perfect bowl of crispy, warm, golden french fries with too much salt and you might as well be choking down a full salt shaker. The right balance of rhythm and harmony is akin to the balance of salt, fat, and acid in food.
Photo by Jesse Rivera
Most Influential, Arts: Anthony White
Artist, curator
White helped in the development and creation of the Lillian Miller Foundation Fellowship for Trans* and Indigiqueer Artists — a $10,000 unrestricted cash award offered for Washington state artists of all disciplines who self-identify as trans. “There was a lack of grants focused on trans and Indigiqueer artists,” White notes. “Offering this grant welcomes in more people.”
Photo by James Harnois
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