IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) today announced that Todd Watts, CEO and Co-Founder of PatientFi, was named an Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2024 Pacific Southwest Award winner. Entrepreneur Of The Year is the preeminent competitive awards program for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies.
Todd Watts was selected by an independent judging panel made up of previous award winners, leading CEOs and other business leaders. Candidates were evaluated based on their ability to create long-term value through entrepreneurial spirit, commitment to their purpose and the demonstration of growth and substantial impact, among other key indicators.
Co-founded by Todd in 2017, PatientFi is a leading payments platform used by medical practices to seamlessly offer their patients more affordable alternatives for out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. Bringing flexible, monthly payment plans and memberships to the forefront of healthcare practices, PatientFi makes life-changing procedures and treatments more accessible and attainable for patients. Today, PatientFi serves a national network of healthcare providers and their patients. PatientFi was recently ranked the 54th fastest-growing company in North America on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 list and was named to Inc. 5000’s annual list of fastest-growing private companies in America.
As a Pacific Southwest award winner, Todd is now eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2024 National Awards. The National Award winners, including the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner, will be announced in November at the Strategic Growth Forum®, one of the nation’s most prestigious gatherings of high-growth, market-leading companies. The Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner will then move on to compete for the World Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award in June 2025.
Entrepreneur Of The Year recognizes many different types of business leaders for their ingenuity, courage and entrepreneurial spirit. The program celebrates original founders who bootstrapped their business from inception or who raised outside capital to grow their company; transformational CEOs who infused innovation into an existing organization to catapult its trajectory; and multigenerational family business leaders who reimagined a legacy business model to fortify it for the future.
The Entrepreneur Of The Year program has recognized the leadership of entrepreneurs such as:
- Hamdi Ulukaya of Chobani, Inc.
- Holly Thaggard and Amanda Baldwin of Supergoop!
- Howard Schultz of Starbucks Coffee Company
- James Park of Fitbit
- Joe Kudla of Vuori
- Kendra Scott of Kendra Scott LLC
- Dr. Quyen Nguyen of Alume Bioscience
- Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn Corporation
- Shahab Elmi of Cymbiotika
- Sheila Mikhail of AskBio
Entrepreneur Of The Year Award winners become lifetime members of a global, multi-industry community of entrepreneurs. They receive exclusive, ongoing access to the experience, insight and wisdom of program alumni and other ecosystem members in more than 60 countries — all supported by vast EY resources.
In addition to Entrepreneur Of The Year, EY US supports other entrepreneurs through the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™(Winning Women) program and the EY Entrepreneurs Access Network (EAN) to help connect women founders and Black and Hispanic/Latino entrepreneurs, respectively, with the resources, network and access needed to unlock their full potential.
Sponsors
Founded and produced by Ernst & Young LLP, the Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards include presenting sponsors PNC Bank, Cresa, Marsh USA, SAP and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. In the Pacific Southwest, sponsors also include platinum sponsors: Marsh McLennan Agency and Vaco; gold sponsors: Cooley (San Diego market) and Stradling (Orange County market) and silver sponsors: Big Picture and DLA Piper (Arizona market).
About Entrepreneur Of The Year®
Founded in 1986, Entrepreneur Of The Year® has celebrated more than 11,000 ambitious visionaries who are leading successful, dynamic businesses in the US, and it has since expanded to nearly 80 countries and territories globally.
The US program consists of 17 regional programs whose panels of independent judges select the regional award winners every June. Those winners compete for national recognition at the Strategic Growth Forum® in November where National finalists and award winners are announced. The overall National winner represents the US at the World Entrepreneur Of The Year® competition. Visit ey.com/us/eoy.
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