2004 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Awards
Finalists Announced for Northern California's 2004 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Awards
Silicon Valley Biz Ink
Award Recipients To Be Selected At Awards Banquet On June 18
SAN JOSE, Calif., May 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Ernst & Young LLP today announced the 24 finalists for the Northern California 2004 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year(R) (EOY) awards program. Award recipients will be announced on Friday evening, June 18th at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.
"These 24 finalists, and the outstanding group of 21 companies they represent, reflect the true entrepreneurial spirit of Northern California," stated Rick Fezell, Ernst & Young's San Jose Office Managing Partner and leader of its Emerging & Growth Markets practice. "These finalists are continuing a long tradition of innovation, growth and community focus that we have been privileged to recognize and honor for 18 years.” The Northern California Awards Banquet on June 18th is open to the public. Reservations may be made by calling Laura Gordon of Ernst & Young at (408) 947-5638 by June 14, 2004. The banquet ticket price is $200 per person. Information about the awards program can also be found on the Ernst & Young web site at http://www.ey.com/us/eoy .
Northern California finalists were selected by an independent panel of judges: Kailash Joshi of TiE Silicon Valley, William Pendergast of Orfalea College of Business at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Harry Kellogg of Silicon Valley Bank, Vani Kola of NthOrbit, Alan Kalin of Bingham McCutchen, Karen Bernstein, Ph.D. of BioCentury Publications, & David Aslin of 3i Corporation.
Last year's Northern California award recipients included: Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, John Martin, Ph.D. of Gilead Sciences, Sergio Magistri, Ph.D. of InVision Technologies, Amnon Landan of Mercury Interactive Corporation, Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com, Thomas Siebel of Siebel Systems, and Levy Gerzberg, Ph.D. of Zoran Corporation.
The finalists for the 2004 Northern California's EOY awards are:
- Brian Hinman, 2Wire, Inc.
- Henrik Slipsager, ABM Industries, Inc.
- Enrique Salem, Brightmail, Inc.
- H. Raymond Bingham, Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
- James Davis, Chevron Energy Solutions Company
- Willis Johnson, Copart, Inc.
- Guy Gecht, EFI
- Ken Xie, Fortinet, Inc.
- Mike Faith, Headsets.com, Inc.
- Mark Angel, Kanisa, Inc.
- Weili Dai, Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.
- Pantas Sutardja, Ph.D, Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.
- Sehat Sutardja, Ph.D, Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.
- Patrick Lo, Netgear, Inc.
- B.V. Jagadeesh, NetScaler, Inc.
- Eliyahou Harari, SanDisk Corporation
- Jure Sola, Sanmina-SCI Corporation
- Vikram Verma, Savi Technology, Inc.
- Radha Basu, SupportSoft, Inc.
- Aart de Geus, Ph.D, Synopsys, Inc.
- Randy Wheeler, Valley Oak Systems, Inc.
- Subrah Iyar, WebEx Communications, Inc.
- Min Zhu, WebEx Communications, Inc.
- Steven King, Zantaz, Inc.
Award recipients who are selected from this group of finalists will be eligible for the overall Ernst & Young National Entrepreneur Of The Year award, as well as several national EOY category awards. All of the national award finalists and recipients will be honored at the National Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in Palm Springs, Calif., on November 18, 2004.
About Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young, a global leader in professional services, is committed to restoring the public's trust in professional services firms and in the quality of financial reporting. Its 103,000 people in more than 140 countries around the globe pursue the highest levels of integrity, quality, and professionalism to provide clients with solutions based on financial, transactional, and risk- management knowledge in Ernst & Young's core services of audit, tax, and transaction advisory services. Ernst & Young refers to all the members of the global Ernst & Young organization. Entrepreneur Of The Year(R) is a registered service mark of Ernst & Young LLP.
About EOY and Sponsorship
Founded and produced by Ernst & Young, the Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading dynamic and growing businesses. The program honors entrepreneurs through regional, national and global award programs in over 100 cities and 35 countries.
The Northern California EOY Awards program is Nationally sponsored by Microsoft and Kauffman Foundation, and locally sponsored by Marsh, Inc., Preston Wynne Spa, Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, San Francisco Business Times, Scherzer International, Summit Partners, The Big Picture Video Arts & Films, Union Bank of California and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Recipients of the Entrepreneur Of The Year award become lifetime members of the Entrepreneur Of The Year Hall of Fame.