Inducted 2025
Cindy Goodaker
executive editor, Crain’s Detroit Business
Cindy Goodaker took two generations of “good” writers and shaped them into “great” business reporters during her three decades at Crain’s Detroit Business. She joined the weekly business title first as special sections editor, then assistant managing editor, and then spent more than 20 years as executive editor of Crain’s Detroit Business.
Cindy changed business coverage in Detroit with an onslaught of enterprise stories that continually challenged the writers to find one more source and ask that last provocative question to make every story better. Her “blue font of death” was her way of training the reporters to write for what Crain’s readers “needed to know.”
Crain’s began in 1985 when Publisher Keith Crain challenged the editorial team to cover regional Detroit businesses, without the “Big 3.” Cindy made the stories pop off the page with interesting sidebar pieces, infographics and lots of experts. Reporters worked their beats and were challenged to break stories faster than the other news sources in town and win national awards.
The Association of Area Business Publishers (AABP), an international trade association for business publications, honored Crain’s Detroit Business with more than 35 gold, silver and bronze awards for reporting during Cindy’s tenure.
She also supervised the trade magazine’s early list coverage and compiled the first “Book of Lists” in 1986. She also helped move the book into the digital age with the first websites, online breaking news and newsroom content management systems.
A Purdue University grad, Cindy began her career with seven years at The Oakland Press as an assistant editorial page editor and then reporter. In college, she did internships at the Associated Press General Desk, Evansville Sunday Courier & Press and Purdue Exponent, the daily independent student newspaper.
She currently serves as a director and Board Secretary at the Center for Michigan Board of Directors, publisher of the nonpartisan, nonprofit online Bridge Michigan and Bridge Detroit. Her past aQiliations include the University of Michigan Board of Student Publications, SPJ Detroit, Alliance of Area Business Publishers, and Michigan Coalition for Open Government.
Since 2016, Cindy has served as the vice president of Inforum, a Michigan nonprofit that works to advance women in the workplace and assist companies in developing robust, diverse talent pipelines.