Jon Coleman joined CoStar Group as Deputy General Counsel in 2000 from the DOJ to cultivate his inner entrepreneur. He became the 2,500-employee company's General Counsel in 2005, leading legal work on transactions such as the $880M acquisition of LoopNet in 2012 (CoStar's largest transaction to date), which included a year-long FTC review. The purchase of CoStar's DC HQ and its sale and leaseback a year later resulted in a $60M profit and the accolade "Best Real Estate Deal" in the urban office sale category from the Washington Business Journal two years running. CoStar acquired Apartments.com for $585M in 2014, and Jon says with its relaunch last month is working on becoming the leading website for renters searching online for apartments, condos and rental homes.

What you didn't know about Jon:

• He deferred GW Law School for a year, spending it skiing in Vail and traveling Europe.

• As an associate at Fried Frank, he helped win a pro bono case that resulted in an inmate being released from jail who'd been improperly sentenced under federal sentencing guidelines.

• He and his wife, Jennifer, are in a book club. (Now reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.)

• Every year he does a 150-mile bike ride to raise money for MS research.