The industry conscience.  Some innovators create new things. Some innovators fashion the business models that bring those new things to your door. Often these events can't take place without someone who is willing to cut a big check, which is why we have VCs and risk capital-types in this list; innovation demands patronage. And then sometimes it just requires a bit of prodding. It isn't fair to limit the role Peter Lee plays to this -- although he does run one of healthcare's biggest purchasers. But of the many catalytic things Mr. Lee does for the industry, one is to remind members of the moral imperative of their occupation.

Lee drafted a letter a few years ago excoriating healthcare's chiefs over what he termed a  "poverty of ambition." It was meaningful coming from him, more so than if it had come someone else, Lee being one of the largest purchasers, and all. Successful businesspeople will often borrow the saying: 'Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.'  This brings up the uniqueness of healthcare:  it's big in workers. It's big in customers. it's big in dollars. It's just big. But unlike every other trillion-dollar industry, this is the only one that in peacetime and at peak-performance, must still measure its success in lives, and in deaths. It matters more how hard we try, Lee was telling them in his missive and compromise is not a virtue. So we add Peter Lee to our list, because somebody has to be the one to move the goal post.