Spain award goes to humanitarian entrepreneur
An American who helps entrepreneurs to tackle the world's social problems, Bill Drayton, won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturius Award on Wednesday.
Drayton, the 67-year-old founder and head of Ashoka, a global group that acts like a venture fund investing in entrepreneurs who have projects to help society, won the 2011 award for international cooperation.
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Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2011® Northern California Semifinalists Demonstrate Increased Confidence in Economy
Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2011® Northern California Semifinalists Demonstrate Increased Confidence in Economy
25th Anniversary of Prestigious Award Program Showcases the "Best of the Best" Northern California Businesses
SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwire - Jun 8, 2011) - Ernst & Young LLP, a leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services, is pleased to announce that aggregated statistics collected from the Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2011 Northern California semifinalists demonstrate encouraging economic data. Entrepreneurs provided data that included statistics on geography, industry, revenues, employees and growth rates. Entrepreneurs who did not supply revenue and/or employee data for the companies they lead were not included in the analysis.
Key Statistics
167 entrepreneurs were nominated in 2011, compared to 101 entrepreneurs in 2010, representing a 66 percent growth rate in the number of nominations.
Average revenue growth of the semifinalist group doubled from 2009 to 2010. The average revenue growth rate for the 2011 semifinalists from 2009 to 2010 was 31 percent. The same group had a 16 percent revenue increase from 2008 to 2009.
The average number of employees in companies led by semifinalists was 729 in 2010, compared with 608 for the same companies in 2008.
"The media is reporting that the Northern California economy is coming back. In our conversations with our semifinalists, we're definitely seeing a level of excitement that supports this assertion," said Ernie Cortes, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Program Director for Northern California. "Revenues are on the rise and so is confidence. The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year semifinalists' data demonstrates that once again, Northern California is really making a difference in our global economy."
Last week, an independent judging panel comprised of local business, academic and community leaders in each region selected the following finalists for Northern California:
Tom Bedecarre, CEO, AKQA - San Francisco
Zohar Levkovitz, CEO, Amobee - Redwood City
John Melo, CEO, Amyris, Inc. - Emeryville
Eileen Gittins, Founder & CEO, Blurb, Inc. - San Francisco
John Bishop, CEO, Cepheid - Sunnyvale
Steven Boal, CEO, Coupons.com Incorporated - MountainView
Charles Sweat, President & CEO, Earthbound Farm - San Juan Bautista
Bryce Williams, Co-Founder, President & CEO, Extend Health, Inc. - Walnut creek
Jeffrey Maggioncalda, President & CEO, Financial Engines, Inc. - Palo Alto
Amit Chatterjee, Founder & CEO, Hara - San Mateo
David Lazovsky, Founder, CEO & President, Intermolecular - San Jose
Jeff Weiner, CEO & Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, LinkedIn - Mountain View
Jim Marggraff, Founder & CEO, Livescribe Inc. - Oakland
Tasso Roumeliotis, Founder & CEO, Location Labs - Emeryville
Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan, Co-Founders, method products - San Francisco
Juvenal Chavez, CEO & Founder, Mi Pueblo Food Center - San Jose
Neil Grimmer & Sheryl OLoughlin, Co-founders, Nest Collective - Emeryville
Dr. A.K. Pradeep, CEO, NeuroFocus, Inc - Berkeley
N. Anthony Coles, M.D., President & CEO, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. - San Francisco
Scott Thompson, President, PayPal - San Jose
Keith Belling, Co-Founder & CEO, Popchips, Inc. - San Francisco
Vlad Shmunis, CEO, RingCentral - San Mateo
John Amster, CEO & Co-Founder, RPX Corporation - San Francisco
Kevin Surace, President & CEO, Serious Materials - Sunnyvale
Ross Bott, President & CEO, SEVEN Networks - RedwoodCity
Dave Habiger, President & CEO, Sonic Solutions - Novato
Jessica Herrin, CEO & Founder, Stella & Dot - SanBruno
Joshua Pickus, President & CEO, Support.com - RedwoodCity
Peter Gassner, President & CEO, Veeva Systems - Pleasanton
Bob Zollars, Chairman & CEO, Vocera, Inc. - SanJose
About Ernst & Young's EntrepreneurOf The Year®
The E&Y Entrepreneur Of The Year program honors entrepreneurs regionally in June, leading up to the national awards in November. The Northern California gala will take place on June 25 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. Additionally, venture-backed companies that win an Entrepreneur Of The Year award regionally are eligible for the Venture Capital Award of Excellence on a national level. The overall national US recipient then moves on to compete for the World Entrepreneur of the Year title in June, 2011. This year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year awards program celebrates its 25th anniversary. The program has expanded to recognize business leaders in more than 135 cities in 50 countries throughout the world. Awards are given to entrepreneurs who demonstrate extraordinary success in the areas of innovation, financial performance, and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Entrepreneurs are nominated and evaluated by an independent panel of judges comprised of local business, academic and community leaders in each region. Notable past winners from Northern California include Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Jerry Yang of Yahoo, and Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures.