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The 2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: The Achievers
Black business leaders have played a pivotal role in shaping modern Virginia’s economic and cultural landscapes and driving progress across industries and communities. From the entrepreneurial spirit of pioneers who built thriving enterprises during times of immense adversity amid segregation and civil rights battles to today’s leaders breaking boardroom barriers, their stories are a t[...]
2025 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: Benita Thompson-Byas
Thompson-Byas joined the company started by her brother Warren Thompson right at its launch in 1992. Over the past three decades, Thompson Hospitality has grown from a group of 31 Big Boy restaurants to become the nation’s largest minority-owned hospitality business. Thompson-Byas is in charge of the company’s partnership with Compass Group, including more than […]
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 […]
Leadership lessons
Warren Thompson got his start as an entrepreneur at age 16, buying out his family’s hog business. It was a sideline enterprise his father had started at their home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to supplement his income as a teacher. Today, Thompson is the president and chairman of Reston-based Thompson Hospitality Corp., the nation’s […]
