Dennis Murphy, 37

In 2008, Dennis Murphy was presented with a rare opportunity in the banking sector: to help launch a bank, as a loan officer and founding shareholder, before he turned 30.

That was with Sarasota-based Gateway Bank of Southwest Florida. Murphy’s mentor, Shaun Merriman, wanted to woo Murphy away from AmSouth Bank, where they both had worked. “It was a real risk,” says Murphy, “to go from the certainty at AmSouth, where I had an established career path” to a new and unproven bank.