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CEO
JDA Worldwide
Chance Benbow and JDA Worldwide are on a roll. The full-service marketing, public relations and media company (or its now-parent company Prolific) has been named among Inc.’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies for eight consecutive years. Benbow was hired as executive vice president for JDA Worldwide in 2017 and named CEO in March 2023. JDA doubled its revenue and gross income that year and bumped them up again last year. A cynic might complain about nepotism. Chance’s father, Brad, co-founded JDA and is now Prolific’s CEO. But such complaints would be ignoring the entrepreneurial leader in the room. Chance co-founded award-winning Muncie marketing agency Intersection at age 23 and later sold it. He helped drive health care real estate developer Mainstreet Property Group to new heights. At JDA, he is leading the company’s growth into new service offerings and a national roster of clients, including for-profit and nonprofit organizations. “Being able to shine a light on the very best things our partners do in the world is a tremendous honor,” he said.
Getting here: He and a pair of friends started an agency shortly after college, working with furniture galleries and coffee shops and the like. “But we knew we were onto something when the car dealership we represented sold the most trucks in the entire state during a monthly promotion we ran for them.” He worked for another marketing agency before launching Intersection in 2011.
First job: Little League Baseball umpire
Givebacks: board member at Anderson University, TreeFort Indiana, Agape Therapeutic Riding; volunteer at The Villages of Indiana, Shepherd Community Center
Influential people: Zeke Turner and Adlai Chester at Mainstreet. “They hired me to run marketing for a $300 million, very fast-growing company when I was probably underqualified for the role. But they saw something in me that I didn’t yet see in myself.”
Meaningful moment: Starting his own agency at age 23. “Three guys from Muncie, Indiana, barely out of college, founding a profitable agency from scratch was something I’ll never forget. Most importantly, it taught me how to act and think like an owner, not an employee, and take real ownership and responsibility.”•
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