1 a person who is able to bring large amounts of money into a company, for example by attracting rich clients (= customers for a service):
He is a senior partner and top rainmaker at a famous Manhattan law firm.
The university hired high-salaried, experienced professors who were considered research-money rainmakers.
2 someone who makes a lot of money for a company or who helps someone or something to succeed:
With water increasingly scarce in its parched and heavily populated northeastern plain, China has become the world's leading rainmaker, using aircraft, rockets and even antiaircraft guns to seed the clouds for precious moisture.
Some recent evidence affirms that the city is an important rainmaker for its neighbours. The heat stored and emitted by all those buildings, streets and sidewalks evidently adds a charge to thunderstorms and summer showers.
The story was about a Nigerian rainmaker who was trying to prevent rain spoiling a burial ceremony.
He was paid as much as $1 million as a "rainmaker" for the law firm.
For the last decade he has been one of Wall Street's most successful lawyers as a senior partner and top rainmaker at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver Jacobson.
Their rival firm had a handful of rainmakers able to woo elite clients from Europe and Asia.
He is described as a major fund-raiser - among the top 10 percent of party rainmakers.
Is there still such a thing as a rainmaker who by his very name and association can get you business?
