STEVE AMMONS is president and CEO of the Birmingham Business Alliance, which serves as the city’s chamber of commerce. Earlier, Ammons represented District 5 on the Jefferson County Commission and chaired the Economic Development and the Information Technology committees. He also is a former mayor pro-tempore on the Vestavia Hills City Council, and he is the founder of the Vestavia Hills Police and Fire Department foundations that support first responders and their families. Ammons is a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
ANUPAM AGARWAL is the senior vice president for medicine and dean of the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine. Agarwal also is a professor of medicine, biochemistry and molecular genetics in the School of Medicine’s Division of Nephrology and program director of the NIH-funded UAB-UC San Diego Center for Acute Kidney Injury Research, and he holds the James C. Lee Jr. Endowed Chair. Agarwal earned his medical degree from Kasturba Medical College of Mangalore in India and completed his internal medicine residency and a nephrology fellowship at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, India, plus additional fellowships in the U.S.
MIKE BOLIN is a member of the Jefferson County Commission, representing District 5. Earlier, Bolin served on the Alabama Supreme Court and as the probate judge for Jefferson County. He is credited with writing the Alabama Putative Father Registry law that protects the rights of unwed fathers by requiring that they be notified of adoption petitions involving their children. For his work, Bolin won the national “Angels of Adoption” prize in 2000. Bolin earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Samford University. He remains an active member of the Alabama Probate Judges Association.
GREGORY CURRAN is chairman of the board at the Birmingham-based law firm Maynard Nexsen. Over his career, Best Lawyers has tapped Curran as “Lawyer of the Year” in numerous practice areas, including venture capital law, corporate governance law, corporate law and mergers and acquisitions law. Curran earned his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University and his law degree from the University of Alabama School of Law. He is past chairman of the Birmingham Business Alliance board and served on the boards of the United Way of Central Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Research Foundation.
JUSTIN DRUMMOND is president of Stone Building Co., a commercial general contractor headquartered in Birmingham. Drummond has led Stone Building in many high-profile projects around the state of Alabama, including the Coca-Cola Amphitheater in Birmingham, the new air cargo facility at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport and the new scoreboard at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn. Drummond is a licensed engineer who holds a bachelor’s degree from Furman University, a second bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Auburn University and an MBA from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
WAYMOND JACKSON is president of Birmingham-based Ed Farm, a digital education partner for K-12 educators, students and the workforce founded through a partnership with Apple and the Alabama Power Foundation. Jackson has overseen initiatives such as Ed Farm Learn, an online learning platform for educators, and the annual Ed Farm Innovation Challenge that brings ed tech startups to school districts to solve problems. Jackson has appeared on the Development Counsellors International Top 40 Under 40 in economic development list, and he is a former Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives board member. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
RACHEL LARY, an attorney at Lightfoot, Franklin & White in Birmingham, serves as national litigation counsel for several Fortune 500 corporations. She has been recognized by Benchmark Litigation and by Best Lawyers in America and has been named a “Lawyer of the Year” for Birmingham in the Best Lawyers 2026 edition. Lary is a University of Alabama graduate with a law degree from Samford University. She chairs the Girls Inc. of Central Alabama board and helped launch the group’s new annual event, the Bold Futures Breakfast, which raises funds for the organization’s new college and career readiness initiative, Project Accelerate.
RACHEL MOOREHEAD is executive director of the IT infrastructure and operations team at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, overseeing virtual and physical IT infrastructure, servers, databases, data centers and cloud services. Her accomplishments include building a $26.5 million IT data center and personnel space. In addition, she is a part-time instructor in the UAB Department of Computer Science. This spring, Business Alabama magazine named her as one of 25 Top Women in Tech in the state. Moorehead is a graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology and has a master’s from the University of Georgia.
NICOLE TUREAUD NEWELL is operations director for J.M. Smucker’s new Uncrustables plant in McCalla. She has more than 25 years of experience in the chemical industry and serves on the boards of the Birmingham Business Alliance and the Bessemer Area Chamber of Commerce. She also is the assistant secretary for the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. Jefferson County alumnae chapter. A graduate of Xavier University with a master’s degree from Purdue University, she also holds a certificate from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania’s Executive Development Program.
JEFF PEOPLES is chairman, president and CEO of Alabama Power Co. He has more than 40 years of experience with Alabama Power and its parent, Southern Co. A native of Alabama, Peoples earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biological science from Lee University in Tennessee. He is chairman of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama and serves on the boards of the Alabama Power Foundation, Business Council of Alabama, the Center for Construction Research and Training and TradesFutures.
JASON PHILLIPPE is state president of United Community Bank. United Community Bank has multiple branches in Jefferson County and across the state. He began his banking career with Wells Fargo, moved to AmSouth, then Regions, where he worked 19 years. He is active in community affairs in North Alabama, including the boards of Huntsville Hospital Foundation and Downtown Huntsville Inc.; active in Downtown Huntsville Rotary Club and former board chair of 305 8th Street and Downtown Huntsville Inc. He is a graduate of Auburn University with additional banking credentials from Vanderbilt University.
RAY WATTS is the longest serving president of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a position he was named to in 2013. A Birmingham native, Watts is a graduate of the UAB School of Engineering. He earned his medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine, completed his neurology residency, medical internship and clinical fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital; and completed a medical staff research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. In 2025, he was named CEO of the Year by Business Alabama and has been inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame. He also currently is interim CEO at Southern Research. He serves on numerous boards, including Prosper Birmingham, Innovation Depot, Birmingham Business Alliance and others.
DAN WILLIAMS is the new president and CEO of the Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau. Before moving to Birmingham, Williams was the senior director of convention sales and the vice president of sales for Experience Columbus, the destination marketing firm for the Columbus, Ohio, area. He has been an active member of a number of professional organizations, including the American Society of Association Executives, the Destination Marketing Association International, the Professional Convention Management Association and the National Coalition of Black Meeting Planners.
JOHN M. WILLIAMS is an investment counselor at Leavell Investments in Birmingham. He joined Leavell in 2007 after serving as managing director in the institutional fixed income division of Morgan Keegan’s Birmingham office and as vice president in the institutional investment banking division of Compass Bank. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he has worked in investment management since 1980. Williams has served on the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Board and is currently on The University of Alabama President’s Cabinet. He is past captain and treasurer of the Monday Morning Quarterback Club.
NICHOLAS WILLIS is the regional president of PNC Bank North and Central Alabama, where he is charged with leading growth across the state, overseeing areas such as wealth management, community development banking, public finance and institutional banking. He is active in Rotary Club of Birmingham and has served as vice chair of the Birmingham Business Alliance board and on the boards of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Business Council of Alabama and the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama. Willis is a University of Alabama graduate.
RANDALL WOODFIN is mayor of Birmingham, recently elected to his third term. His accomplishments include a focus on affordable housing, including a partnership with GROWTH Homes to build 52 affordable single-family homes in the Pratt City community. Also, the city and other partners broke ground this summer on The Cottages on Georgia Road, another affordable housing initiative. The city also launched Embrace Mothers, a program to provide 110 single mothers in Birmingham with a monthly income for one year. Woodfin also is a past president of the Birmingham Board of Education. He is a graduate of Morehouse College, and Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law.
This article appears in the October 2025 issue of Business Alabama.
