Three Scottsdale founders have been named by Ernst & Young (EY US) as winners of the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 Mountain Desert Region Award. Chris Ronzio, founder and CEO of Trainual, and Andrew Leto & Michael Leto, Emerge founder and CEO (respectively), were the only Arizona founders on the list of winners. The rest of the winners are based in Colorado.
The award recognizes innovative entrepreneurs who have led their companies to success, transformed their industries and made a positive impact on their communities. The program has honored a number of entrepreneurs over the past 35 years, including Carvana founder Ernie Garcia, another Arizona entrepreneur.
This isn’t the first recognition for Chris Ronzio and Trainual. The company was named as one of Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces 2021 and AZ Central’s 2021 Top Workplaces.
Trainual, which was launched in 2018, helps small businesses create and build company policies and processes for their internal operations. The company has helped more than 5,500 businesses in 177 countries establish playbooks to enable those companies to scale effectively.
In June, the company announced a $27 million series B raise. And in fact, Trainual has doubled its year-over-year revenue and tripled in size with new hires across all departments.
“It’s humbling to see the tremendous growth our business and team have achieved over the past year,” Ronzio said in a statement. “We live and breathe our product, and success during uncertain times further demonstrates the value of having a playbook in place to align teams and business goals. We know building a company is a privilege and we’re proud to be helping thousands of good entrepreneurs and small businesses across the world to be great.”
Emerge has also seen recent success. Founded in 2017, the logistics technology startup was named #23 on Forbes list of “America’s Top Startup Employees,” and the company is planning to double headcount this year.
“As we are being recognized by prestigious publications for our growth and culture, we have goals to become one of the fastest growing companies in the country,” said Michael Leto, CEO of Emerge.
The three entrepreneurs will now eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 National Awards, which will be announced in November.