kingpin vs personage

kingpin and personage both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
kingpin	Yes	No	No	No
personage	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, personage is a hypernym of kingpin; that is, personage is a word with a broader meaning than kingpin:

kingpin: the most important person in a group or undertaking
personage: a person whose actions and opinions strongly influence the course of events

Other hypernyms of kingpin include important person, influential person.

kingpin (noun)	personage (noun)
bolt that provides a steering joint in a motor vehicle	another word for person; a person not meriting identification
the front bowling pin in the triangular arrangement of ten pins	a person whose actions and opinions strongly influence the course of events
the most important person in a group or undertaking