The world of entrepreneurship-like the rest of the world-seems to be comprised of haves and have nots.
While every entrepreneur looks to bring a product or service to the marketplace, some just seem to make it happen better than others.
In the next several pages, Small Business News profiles the leaders of 25 of the best area businesses, including the 14 men and women representing the 10 top run companies in Northeast Ohio.
SBN is proud to recognize the winners and finalists of the 11th annual Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year awards.
The winners were announced at a June 23 banquet in Cleveland. The event was founded and presented by Ernst & Young LLP.
The winners are selected through a process that began early this year with informational nominations to Ernst & Young. An application process followed that required submission of financial data (which is held confidential by Ernst & Young and has not been shared with SBN) and a series of written statements designed to learn more about each nominee’s skills in such areas as innovation and creativity, financial management, strategic planning and operations.
Based on those applications the field of nominees was narrowed to a group of finalists who were interviewed by a panel of outside judges.
These winners will move on to a national competition with those winners announced later this year.
The judges
Ralph Della Ratta Jr., Senior Managing Director, McDonald & Co.
Michael J. Horvitz, Partner, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue
James LaMantia, President, General Steel
William E. MacDonald III, President and CEO, National City Bank
Harold S. Minoff, Chairman, Kichler Lighting Group
Michael R. Shaughnessy, President, Colormatrix Corp.
