Honoring the best of the best

For more than 25 years, Ernst & Young has celebrated the entrepreneurial spirit of men and women pursuing innovation and entrepreneurial excellence in their businesses, their teams and their communities.
The blood, sweat and passion they’ve poured into their businesses and the triumphs they’ve achieved stand as a testament to the role they play as visionaries, leaders and innovators. Ernst & Young founded the Entrepreneur Of The Year Program to recognize this passion for excellence and to build an influential and innovative community of peers.
We have gathered here and in 25 other cities in the U.S. to welcome the men and women who are regional finalists into our entrepreneurial Hall of Fame and to toast their commitment to succeed. We applaud them for launching start-up companies, opening new markets and fueling job growth.
So let’s celebrate their achievements, their perseverance and their tireless pursuit of business excellence.
Ernie Cortes is the Entrepreneur Of The Year program director. He can be reached at (408) 947-5462.
2012 Finalists and Honorees
Emerging
• Geoffrey Barker, RPX Corp. (Winner)
• John Woolard, BrightSource Energy Inc. (Finalist)
• Hubert Thieblot, Curse Inc. (Finalist)
Life Sciences
• Lawrence Blatt, Alios BioPharma (Winner)
• Guo-Liang Yu, Epitomics Inc. (Finalist)
• Robert W. Duggan, Pharmacyclics Inc. (Finalist)
Marketing Services
• Tom Bedecarre, AKQA (Winner)
• David B. Goldberg, SurveyMonkey (Finalist)
• Bill Demas, Turn Inc. (Finalist)
Media and Entertainment
• Nicholas Woodman, Woodman Labs Inc. d.b.a GoPro (Winner)
• Matt Mullenweg, Automatic (Finalist)
• Lars Buttler, Trion Worlds Inc. (Finalist)
Retail and Consumer Products
• Dale Carlesen, Sleep Train (Winner)
• John Foraker, Annie’s Inc. (Finalist)
• Neil Grimmer, Plum Organics (Finalist)
Services
• Lisa Im, Performant Financial Corp. (Winner)
John Boncher, Cupertino Electric Inc. (Finalist)
• Mike Sechrist, Elana Whorton, ProTransport-1 (Finalist)
Technology
• Tarkan Maner, Wyse Technology (Winner)
• Lee Chen, A10 Networks (Finalist)
• Tasso Roumeliotis, Location Labs (Finalist)
Technology Services
• Matthew Monahan, Brian Monahan, Inflection (Winner)
• Larry Augustin, SugarCRM (Finalist)
• Bruton Goldfield, TriNet (Finalist)