This year’s list features innovators, disruptors and creators who are invigorating our cities and challenging the status quo. The impact they’ll make in our local communities and beyond will help define our future.

There’s a lot of credit given to those who are fearless. And it’s a worthy attribute, but it’s important that we acknowledge exactly what we mean when we laud fearlessness.

The best mentees need projects over which they can take ownership. They need space to try new ideas and provide feedback that is valued by leadership. If you’ve selected a brilliant team full of potential, you needn’t be afraid of doling out projects that require a more complex execution. 

In last March’s young professional issue, we featured 10 of the top players leading the charge of change in our region (“The Next Wave,” Laurie Lauletta-Boshart). Take a look at what some of them have been up to over the last year.

I am an exempt employee and have been working at my company for just under three years. I recently had a serious medical issue that required me to terminate a pregnancy for my own health. I’ve now had three doctor visits in comparatively short succession, and my supervisor is asking why. Since this is an incredibly personal matter, I’m wondering how much I am required to disclose?

The millennial generation’s sheer numbers, unprecedented spending power, and knack for radically influencing progressive trends and cultural shifts has made them a highly sought after target market. While millennials are currently the single largest generation to date, making up an entire quarter of the population, they’re also the most diverse generation this country has ever seen, making them far more difficult to target as a collective whole.

Working hard to achieve something new should not be fodder for punitive action; it’s the maintenance of a poorly functioning status quo that should be looked at with a sideways glance. Perfection lives on the same continuum as failure. In life, as in work, we learn painfully but fully from our failures — that is when we grow.

We sat down recently with Erica Taylor, Golden 1 Vice President of Communications & Community Relations and last year’s Young Professional of the Year, to talk about the credit union’s efforts to attract and retain younger employees and customers.

Chefs continue to be among the hottest stars in Sacramento, and American, culture. That’s thanks to the Food Network’s image-building power, our exploding love of food and all things culinary, and a new societal reverence for hands-on authenticity. The consensus is that chefs with some level of recognition can help draw customers — most of the time. But restaurateurs and chefs say the cultural pizzazz around chefs can be a double-edged sword, and it’s a force they need to use wisely.

Ann Thompson, a regional sales executive for Bank of America, knows that the surest route into the hearts and minds of millennials is through their hands — not hand-holding, but talking to them through technology. “They want to be self-served and want things convenient,” Thompson says. “So, we have to reach them through that thing they hold in their hands, a smartphone.”

Thanks to a growing pool of financial apps, we can now review our budgets, tweak our investments and work toward retirement — all while waiting in line for a coffee.

Placemaking. You might have heard the word — maybe at a redevelopment conference or tossed around at a marketing mixer. You might have seen it in a neighborhood newsletter about new housing downtown, or read about it in an article shared by that cool architect friend who was just inspired with a vision for how to make Sacramento “the place to be.” But no matter what you’ve heard or how you feel about placemaking, the concept likely won’t be disappearing in the near future.

Greta Gerwig, a Sacramento native and award-winning filmmaker and actress, won’t share many details about her upcoming project, a full-length independent film called “Lady Bird.” Except for one — where it’s being shot.

Sacramento RT employs approximately 941 people locally, 77 percent of whom are dedicated to operations and maintenance of the bus and light rail systems. John Haswell has been a light rail vehicle technician at Sac RT for the past seven years and says he is “genuinely and thoroughly thrilled to be working on the light rail vehicles.

Millennials are the cusp of their prime spending years. But will they spend those dollars on home ownership?