Myles Hamby, 34

Senior Development Manager, The Platform, Detroit Employees: 11 • Revenue: NA College: Northwood University

At some point in the next 10 to 15 years, Matt Hylant expects to take over the family business, the Hylant insurance brokerage, from his cousin and current CEO, Bubba Berenzweig. “I think that’s definitely a goal of mine,” Hylant says. “Having the opportunity to operate the whole business at some point would be awesome.”

In the meantime, Hylant has his hands full managing Hylant’s Great Lakes Region. He’s tasked with molding six Midwest offices used to working on their own — Detroit, Grand Rapids, Elkhart and Fort Wayne, Ind., Indianapolis, and Chicago — into a cohesive unit.

“These days I’m focused on bringing consistency across that group of offices, which all operated fairly independently and differently from one another until about a year and a half ago,” Hylant says. “We’re making sure we’re working better together and making sure the teams have everything they need to support and grow the business.”

His second short-term goal is to expand the company into new markets around the country. Hylant, who grew up in Akron, Ohio, has his eye on northern Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

If Hylant makes a move into Wisconsin, it won’t be his first foray into the Badger State. After graduating from the University of Michigan, Hylant worked for Epic Software in Madison, where he managed the implementation of an electronic medical records system at eight national health care organizations and oversaw customer service.

Ultimately, he knew he would eventually join the company that his great-grandfather, Edward, started in 1935. “That was something I always planned to do,” he says. Hylant hired in at the Grand Rapids office in 2014 as a client executive, responsible for the development and establishment of long-term customer relationships.

In 2020, he became president of the Ann Arbor office, managing the day-to-day operations of the Domino’s Farms-based branch along with setting the vision for strategic growth, client retention, and team development.

In January of last year, he was appointed regional COO of the Great Lakes Region. If he does eventually become CEO of Hylant, he will be at the helm of one of the largest privately owned insurance brokerages in the nation.

— Tim Keenan

Bridget Joseph, 34

Design Manager

LIFTbuild, Detroit

Employees: 4

Revenue: NA

College: University of Detroit Mercy

LIFTbuild, a subsidiary of Barton Malow, a large contractor in Southfield, is using its unique top-down construction technology on the Exchange residential tower in downtown Detroit to prove its concept. Bridget Joseph is help ing to lead the way.

An architect by education and a designer by pre vious experience, Joseph was presented with an opportunity to get in on the literal ground floor with LIFTbuild, a company that constructs individ ual floors at the ground level and lifts them into position from top to bottom via pre-constructed elevator shafts.

“I had an interest in Barton Malow all along,” Joseph says. “They’re just a great company. When I interviewed, I interviewed with their virtual design and construction department. They thought I was a better fit for LIFTbuild and asked if I was inter ested. I was instantly intrigued and wanted to be part of it. I was really excited when I heard about it.”

In addition to being a design manager, Joseph is acting as a project engineer on the Exchange proj ect, which is being erected on Gratiot Avenue near Greektown. As work is completed on the building’s interior, Joseph is responsible for managing cabi net, flooring, countertop, and custom millwork suppliers’ deliveries and work on-site.

“I wanted to be intimately involved with what was going on on-site,” says Joseph, who started her career working in Asia Pacific dealership design at Ford Motor Co. From there, she became a designer at Gittleman Construction in Farmington Hills.

Prior to joining Barton Malow in 2019 as a design specialist, then LIFTbuild in late 2022, she was a designer and project coordinator at LaSant Building Inc. in Northville, followed by a position as an architectural and design rep resentative at Ciot Stone & Tile in Troy.

The former high school and college cheer leader and Detroit Tigers Energy Squad member says she wasn’t quite sure how her career would evolve. “Before joining LIFT build, I felt unsettled,” she says. “When I joined LIFTbuild, it gave me a really clear future. As the company grows, the opportu nities grow. The construction industry has so many facets. I never stop learning, and that’s important to me.”

— Tim Keenan

After growing up in east Dearborn, where as a teenager he helped his father run an auto parts distribution business, Hass Khalife was part of a startup called Helium. The enterprise, which was acquired by Klick, helped clients design and develop digital products and services.

“At Helium, we loved building products, but not so much the business side, and we were fortunate to be acquired,” Khalife says. “It was a great experience because it provided a fast-paced approach to developing new products.”

Following work at two other online businesses, in 2021 Khalife joined Apple in Seattle, where he became global product lead of the company’s worldwide digital channel. There, Khalife and his team designed, built, and rolled out Apple’s content-as-a-service platform that delivered product and marketing content to the company’s global retail partners within minutes of new product introductions.

“As soon as Tim Cook (Apple CEO) announced a new product on stage, we would deliver all the product and marketing content to stores like Best Buy or Walmart almost instantly. It was a great job, and I was considering moving to Cupertino (Apple’s global headquarters in