The chef executive

In December 2008, just as the crisis on Wall Street was raging, Sam Klepfish was staring at another financial disaster.

The firm in which he was a leading investor, Naples-based Innovative Food Holdings, had run out of cash in September of that year. “We had to put up money to make payroll,” Klepfish recalls.

After scrambling for cash over the holidays in 2008, Klepfish found an investor who on Dec. 31 agreed to give the company a $200,000 loan. Without it, Klepfish says the company likely wouldn't have survived the New Year.