Entrepreneur of the Year Gala Held over the Weekend

Ernst & Young held its multi-million dollar, invitation-only, annual Entrepreneur of the Year Award gala last Saturday in California, recognizing exceptional owners or managers running  American high-growth companies. The national winner was Tom Adams, president and CEO of Rosetta Stone Inc., a language learning company. He will go on to compete internationally against other national winners in Monte Carlo, where the French speaker, who is also fluent in Swedish, Spanish and, of course, English, should have no linguistic problems.

Tariq Farid, president and CEO of franchisor Edible Arrangements International Inc.. was a finalist in the retail and consumer products category. He came in behind the category winner, Menderes Akdaq of PetMed Express Inc. Edible Arrangements was in the number one position in Blue MauMau’s January story of “14 Best Franchises to Buy.” Farid was also named Entrepreneur of 2009 at the annual convention of the IFA back in February.

Past U.S. national or regional winners over the 23-year-old program have included Michael Dell of Dell Computers, Mary Ellen Sheets of franchisor Two Men and a Truck, and Howard Schultz of Starbucks.

Read the story and see the slide show at Business Week.

Related reading:

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Magazine (pdf, 4M)