Benefits to participating in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® program
Recognized as one of the most prestigious business award programs in the country, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year awards celebrate the country’s most innovative business leaders.
Participation in the awards process elevates your company’s brand awareness through exposure to entrepreneurs, sponsors, judges and guests, many of whom may be seeking customers, alliances, M&A or other growth opportunities. The program credentializes you to investors, employees, customers and gives you the opportunity to celebrate achievements and publically recognize the contributions of the team who made it possible.
Entrepreneur Of The Year finalists and winners receive great publicity in and beyond their communities, which contributes to valuable network-building. It is not just an award, it is an ongoing community of leadership through the Winners Network online, alumni events, Legacy, the Junior Academy program, access to advisors, speaking engagements and media profiles and interviews.
Awards criteria
It is more than just numbers. Based on a balanced scorecard awards are given to entrepreneurs who have demonstrated excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance, risk and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.
Entrepreneur Of The Year candidates include traditional entrepreneurs who are the founders/leaders of high-growth companies. They also are transformational CEOs who may not have started their company but have been essential to its success. Nominees can be CEOs of public or privately held companies, multi-generational family business leaders or divisional CEOs. The nominee's company must be at least three years old.
An accreditation by an independent panel of your peers, the award winners are selected in a number of industry categories by a panel of independent judges, including previous winners of the award, leading CEOs and private capital investors and other regional business leaders. Entrepreneurs may nominate themselves or be nominated by peers and other business leaders.
Continuing education opportunities
There are several ways to enhance your experience with the program:
- One-on-one advisory meetings with Ernst & Young professionals to help guide your business strategy.
- Attending the Strategic Growth Forum, the largest and most prestigious gathering of high-growth entrepreneurs in America, now also in 8 countries including Africa, Brazil, India and China.
- Through mentoring you have the ability to tap into guidance from those who have been there before you.
Program calendar
The Entrepreneur Of The Year Program honors entrepreneurs regionally in June. All regional honorees are then invited to the Strategic Growth Forum in Palm Springs, California. The gala is the culminating event of the Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum®, the nation’s most prestigious gathering of high-growth, market-leading companies. For more information on the Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum, please visit www.ey.com/us/sgf
The overall national US winner will compete for the World Entrepreneur Of The Year title in Monaco in June.
The program has honored the inspirational leadership of such entrepreneurs as Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Michael Dell of Dell Inc., Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, Fred Smith of FedEx, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Richard Schulze of Best Buy, Andrew Mason of Groupon, Mindy Grossman of HSN, Inc., Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Howard Schultz of Starbucks Coffee Company, Arthur M. Blank of AMB Group, LLC (Home Depot, Atlanta Falcons), Pierre Omidyar of eBay, Inc., Ruth Fertel of Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Maxine Clark of Build-a-Bear, Tom Adams of Rosetta Stone, Matt Szulik of Red Hat and the 2012 national winner, Hamdi Ulukaya of Chobani and many more.
