Tampa Bay's got talent — and some of them are in contention for being tapped as the top entrepreneur in the nation.
Ernst & Young LLP announced the finalists for its annual Entrepreneur of the Year awards, which is broken into statewide awards before heading to the national main stage. Several Tampa companies were standouts in the Florida competition:
- Trevor Baldwin, CEO of Baldwin Risk Partners: Baldwin joined the company in 2009 to work his way up. Baldwin Risk Partners offers insurance and risk management solutions, headed up by entrepreneurs and insurance professionals.
- Carrie Charles, CEO of Broadstaff: The company, which was founded in 2015, is a tech staffing firm with a focus on the telecom industry.
- Omar Azrag, president and CEO of RT²: The company, which stands for Real Time Technologies, started in 2001 as a point of sale solution. It now offers a retail management platform for more than 8,000 wireless retailer locations across the country.
- Dax Brady-Sheehan, CEO of Spectrio: Brady-Sheehan joined in 2018 and acquired nine companies in two years under Spectrio. The company specializes in location-based marketing solutions, including digital signage, interactive kiosks and scent marketing.
Tony Braswell, CEO of Gale Healthcare Solutions: Braswell launched the company in 2016 to address the nursing shortage crisis. It had $100 million in annualized revenue at the end of 2020, and Braswell previously told Tampa Bay Inno the company was on track to hit $500 million in revenue by 2023.
The other Florida semifinalists are:
- Andrew Allen, Aerodyne Industries — Orlando
- Christopher Hurn, Fountainhead — Orlando
- AJ Patel, HighKey — Orlando
- Helda Rodriguez and J. Oscar Rodriguez, NovaCharge — Orlando
- Alcyr Araujo, Mosyle — Winter Park
- Dimitri Sirota, BigID — Miami
- Hovhannes Avoyan, Picsart — Miami
- Harry Hurst, Pipe Technologies — Miami
- Jan Bednar, ShipMonk — Fort Lauderdale
- Ian Aaron, Ubicquia — Fort Lauderdale
- Greg Van Horn and Christine Yaged, Launch Potato — Delray Beach
- David Aninowsky and J.J. Kardwell, The Constant Company — West Palm Beach
- Craig Mandeville, Forcura — Jacksonville
- Michael Brannigan, The Suddath Companies — Jacksonville
- Gregg Cohen and Alex Sifakis, JWB Real Estate Capital LLC — Jacksonville
Regional award winners will be announced on June 23, and the awards will be presented in November. Get the entire list of finalists across the nation here.
