Edmon Rakipi, 32

Edmon Rakipi might have the most unusual early-life story of all the 40 Under 40 winners in 2020. Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to parents who fled the part of the former Yugoslavia that’s now the nation of Macedonia, he moved to the U.S. at 8 years old, winding up in tiny Woodstock, Ill., where some of his mother’s family members had settled after leaving war-torn Yugoslavia. 

“It’s a massive town,” Rakipi jokes. “I think there were, like, 2,000 people living there at the time.” 

Rakipi and his parents eventually made their way south, winding up in Largo, where they opened a family restaurant called Aunt Maria’s Kitchen. “Roughly 70% of my family up north is still in the restaurant business or the bar industry,” he says.