NC trend: 10 North Carolinians who scored big in 2021

Lamelo Ball

Charlotte Hornets

He became the state’s most electrifying athlete.

The 20-year-old point guard is a rising superstar in his second NBA season. The 6-foot-7-inch Ball was recognized as the NBA Rookie of the Year in June. His exciting style attracts bigger crowds for the Michael Jordan-owned franchise, which hasn’t made the NBA playoffs since 2016. In 2020, he signed a four-year contract that guarantees more than $35.5 million, a bargain price by league standards. His brothers, Lonzo and LiAngelo, play for the Chicago Bulls and Greensboro Swarm, respectively.

Lynn Good

Duke Energy CEO, Charlotte

She championed a reform law that solidifies Duke Energy’s leadership in N.C. energy markets.

Long one of the state’s most powerful companies, Duke showed its clout this year. Good and her team of lobbyists threaded the needle through a complex political dynamic to help pass a sweeping energy bill that includes Duke’s longtime objective of multi year rate hikes. The company made concessions along the way, but Gov. Roy Cooper and a major manufacturing group dropped their opposition to an earlier version and backed the final bipartisan compromise. Good personally supported key lawmakers with financial donations.

Ed McMahan

Falfurrias Capital Partners managing partner,
Charlotte

A big new fund fuels one of the state’s hottest PE execs.

An $850 million capital raise last summer bolstered McMahan’s Falfurrias Capital Partners private-equity group. It was the fifth fund by the group that retired Bank of America leaders Hugh McColl  Jr. and Marc Oken founded with McMahan in 2006. Falfurrias, which named four new partners this year, typically puts $25 million to $200 million in midmarket companies ranging from financial technology, media and information services. It also gets attention for its food holdings, such as Duke’s mayonnaise and Duchess honey buns. McMahan, 47, earned a bachelor’s degree at UNC Chapel Hill in 1997, then an MBA from Northwestern University in 2003. His father was a longtime Charlotte business executive who served in the N.C. General Assembly for 12 years.  

Laura Niklason

Humacyte CEO, Durham

A pioneering biotech researcher took her company public.

Niklason is a world-renowned biomedical engineer who has been a professor at Yale University since 2006. Now her main focus is creating regenerative tissues to treat diseases on behalf of Humacyte, which she founded in 2004. In August, the company raised $242 million and started trading publicly after combining with Alpha Healthcare Acquisition, a special-purpose acquisition company. The 139-employee business has scant revenue so far and recorded a net loss of about $425 million since its inception. Backers include German medical products giant Fresenius Medical Care. Niklason, 58, and her husband, former Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan, own 22% of the company’s shares, which were valued at more than $200 million in mid-November.  

Mike Praeger

AvidXchange CEO, Charlotte

A much anticipated IPO valued his business at $5 billion.

Long celebrated as a leading N.C. tech executive, Praeger led an initial public offering in October that raised $660 million and valued the company at about $5 billion. Founded in 2000, AvidXchange helps about 7,000 companies automate their billing processes. Praeger and his wife, Cindy, chose Charlotte to build a company after he had achieved success at other tech ventures in the Northeast. AvidXchange has attracted capital from Mastercard, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Bain Capital Ventures. The Wisconsin native retains a 7.4% stake in the business worth more than $300 million.

Billy Pyatt

Catawba Brewing founder, Morganton

Veteran N.C. craft brewer sells to a PE group.

Founded in Glen Alpine near Morganton in 1999, CEO Pyatt’s Catawba Brewing is an institution in the N.C. craft beer scene and perhaps best known for its White Zombie brand. With an
annual volume of about 30,000 barrels, Catawba was acquired by Montgomery, Ala.-based private-equity firm Wiregrass Equity Partners in October. Catawba brews its beers at five locations with six taprooms. Its beer is distributed in five states. Pyatt cites his age as a reason to sell. “One day you wake up and you’re 60-years-old. You realize it’s time we knock some things off our bucket list.” Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

Michael Regan

Environmental Protection Agency administrator,
Washington, D.C.

State environment quality chief gets bumped to key federal post.

Goldsboro native Michael Regan got a promotion this year when President Joe Biden picked him to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. He had been secretary of the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality in Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration. He’s the first Black man to serve as EPA administrator. Regan was back home this fall to announce the EPA’s plan to regulate PFAS “forever chemicals,” such as the GenX leak into the Cape Fear River from a Chemours plant near Fayetteville.

Eddie Smith

Owner of Grady-White Boats, Greenville

Boat manufacturers benefit from soaring demand.

Grady-White Boats has been building watercraft in Greenville since 1958. Owner and CEO Eddie Smith purchased the business about nine years after founders Glenn Grady and Don White started the company. Since the start of COVID-19, Grady-White saw a peak in sales thanks to increased interest in outdoor recreation but had to navigate the challenges of labor shortages, supply-chain issues and strong demand.

Tim Sweeney

Epic Games CEO, Cary

He gained international acclaim for challenging Apple.

Only a supremely confident person would challenge computing kingpin Apple. Meet Sweeney, who in 2020 sued the Goliath, hoping to enable Epic’s Fortnite game to bypass Apple’s App Store or require Apple to take a lesser cut of revenue. A three-week trial led to a September ruling that mostly favored Apple, prompting Epic to appeal. Meanwhile, Sweeney, 50, keeps expanding his company and buying land in North Carolina for nature preserves. Epic paid $95 million for the Cary Towne Center for use as the company’s headquarters. In April, he donated 7,500 acres in western North Carolina to a nonprofit conservancy, a record land contribution in the state. His net worth keeps soaring with estimates now topping $7 billion. 

Susan Wente

Wake Forest University president, Winston-Salem

She instantly became the Triad’s newest powerbroker.

Wake Forest University’s first female president took one of the state’s most prestigious education jobs on July 1, succeeding Nathan Hatch, who had led the 8,800-student Winston-Salem university for 16 years. Wente (pronounced Wen-TEE) spent the previous 19 years at Vanderbilt University, including nearly a year as interim chancellor and five years as provost. During her tenure in Nashville, Vandy’s ranking among top U.S. universities rose to 14th from 16th. (Wake ranks 28th.) At Wake, she leads one of the Triad’s largest employers with nearly 6,300 employees, including the Wake Forest Baptist Health medical center that is now controlled by Charlotte-based Atrium Health. The cell biologist has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California and previously worked at Washington University in St. Louis.