Retail | Wholesale | Food | Beverage 2023: WARREN THOMPSON

Thompson’s start as an entrepreneur came as a teen, when he purchased and ran his family’s hog farm in Windsor. He now heads the largest minority-owned food and facilities management corporation in the nation, a company he founded in 1992 with the purchase of 31 Bob’s Big Boy restaurants.

Thompson Hospitality provides dining services for more than 200 companies, universities and hospitals, representing more than $2 billion in business. The company also owns several restaurant chains, including Milk & Honey, Matchbox and Wiseguy Pizza, running about 70 restaurants, mostly in the Washington, D.C., area but expanding into Ohio and Florida.

Thompson graduated from Hampden-Sydney College and University of Virginia’s business school. Attending U.Va. was particularly meaningful, considering that racial segregation prevented his father, Fred Thompson Sr., from attending the school decades earlier. Thompson is a member of the American Heart Association CEO Roundtable and sits on Performance Food Group’s board of directors.

IF I HAD A TIME MACHINE, I’D MEET: Martin Luther King Jr. “The time is always right to do what is right” is a quote I live by.

HOBBY/PASSION: Boating