David Thomson

CHAIRMAN, THE WOODBRIDGE COMPANY

press shy, socially awkward and unfathomably loaded, the 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet proved again in 2018 that billionaires needn’t be loud to be effective. Through the family’s Woodbridge Company and his personal enterprise, Osmington, Canada’s richest man controls financial information (Thomson Reuters), media (the Globe and Mail), sports (the Winnipeg Jets), real estate (proposed megamall sites in Brampton and Barrie) and art (the world’s largest collection of works by John Constable). Thomson is also dropping roughly $125 million on a 10-storey technology centre in the Entertainment District that will employ 1,500. up next: When the long-running facelift of Union Station wraps up, it will become as much a tourist destination as a waypoint, with open, airy and modern architecture and swishy shops and restaurants.