Wenn Du sie alle vorstellen sollst, warum nicht einfach als Aufzählung (mir fiel das englische Wort dafür nicht ein, daher deutsch...;-)), etwa so:
"This is Jim from Texas, Mary from Idaho, Karl from Germany..."

Wär das o.k.?

Not being a native speaker of English, I am not sure about the use of "hails from". I have certainly heard it being used but had rather the native speakers judge on that one!

Other expressions you could use:

Barbarella was born in Germany.
Barbarella's native country is Germany.
Barbarella lives in Germany.
Barbarella is German.

These are four that spring to mind, and I know for a fact that as soon as I hit the 'send' button, another three or four will appear on my brain! ;-)

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have to introduce each person individually at the beginning of a paragraph that goes on to describe the company they founded. Since each person grew up or was born in another country from the one in which they founded a business, I must say where they are from

Joe grew up in Texas before moving to France to found the Lone Star Bakery...

Mary is a Detroit native who works with underpriviledged childen in Paris France...

and so on and so forth.

I'd say "hails from" is perfectly fine:

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=%22*+hail...

Auch, wenn du diese Varianten vermutlich schon verwendet hast:

was born and raised in
originally a Texan

I come from England, I have heard "hails from", but only in a very familiar sense. I wouldn't tell someone I didn't know that I "hail from" england, but I might tell people I know quite well that my husband's family "hails from" Scottland. I wouldn't use it in any other case.

Und noch ein paar Varianten, für den unwahrscheinlichen Fall, dass Du sie noch nicht verwendet hast:

Texas-born John Doe has been living in Somalia for ten years now.

Jane Doe spent the first ten years of her life in (her birthplace of) Dallas, Texas before moving to England, where she later attended Cambridge University before founding her first enterprise in Tunbridge Wells.

The Paris-based XYZ company was founded in 1989 by Joe Bloggs, who emigrated to France after graduating in his home town of Boston.

Ach, und zur eigentlichen Frage: "hails from" kenne ich auch, hätte ich aber normalerweise nicht gewählt, ich mochte diesen Ausdruck noch nie. Aber bei 40 Leuten...

Mmm, yes, I am grasping at desperate measures on person 37 with hails from...it is all getting a bit tiresome, and add to the mix that the cities of Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich come up quite often and I can't use Hamburger and Frankfurt, for obvious reasons, and don't think a form for Munich even exists. Municher?

We just love to be refered to as hanseatic :) GOes for Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck and Rostock. For Munich, why not Bavarian?

Not specific enough I'm afraid, oh hanseatic one. But thanks for the tip.

Difficult, that. If your readers know a bit about Germany and its geography, you might get away with something like "the Bavarian capital" or "the big city on the river Elbe", "Germany's banking capital", "the city popularly known as 'Mainhattan'" etc., but that's a bit like those tedious sports news in German, talking about "der Kerpener" to avoid writing "Michael Schumacher" two sentences in a row etc.

@Selkie - Happy New Year! Recently had a similiar translation, but had only about 10 different people to deal with. Used "hailed from" for the one, and got no negative feedback from our mutual friend. Can only think of one variation not yet mentioned, but you've probably already used it: Originally from X, ....oh - just had another thought: Joe's roots were in X until he blah blah blah

Meine Freunde und ich haben uns auf Englisch früher gelegentlich mit der Wortneuschöpfung "Munichians" bezeichnet, gesprochen wie "musicians". Aber das dürfte hier wenig helfen ...

This probably came up already, too, but how about something like...
Before making the move to Paris, Albert called Detroit home.
(or something to that effect?)

@Selkie (Happy New Year):

'Hail from' doesn't bother me at all in the context you mention, even though it would be relatively low on my list under other circumstances.


@Jalapeño (ditto!):

Sure you weren't thinking of 'munitions'? (-;

That is,

(Happy New Year!)

(not wanting to deprive Selkie of her exclamation point)