This year’s 89 nominees for the Business Journal’s 17th annual CFO of the Year Awards gathered with Orange County’s local business community at the Irvine Marriott hotel on the evening of Thursday, May 9 to honor five outstanding financial professionals and their work from the preceding fiscal year.
Murray Rudin, managing director of Irvine-based RLH Equity Partners, returned as the event’s master of ceremonies. Founded in 1982, RLH’s client portfolio includes mostly technology-based service firms such as Keystone Strategy and Red Clay Consulting.
Rudin has spent more than 20 years in private equity, and has served as master of ceremonies at the Business Journal’s CFO awards ceremony for the past several years.
“The real stars in the U.S. are the people who build businesses, that create employment opportunities … and help communities. It’s tonight’s nominees that deserve recognition as much or more as the people you will see on TV,” Rudin said to cap off the evening.
The event last week drew a crowd of about 600 people.
5 Honorees
The event’s five honorees were:
• Sandra Beaver, of Newport Beach-based medical aesthetics firm Evolus Inc. (Nasdaq: EOLS), in the Public Company category.
• Joyce Pae, of Verus Aerospace, formerly known as Cadence Aerospace, in the Private Company category.
• John Ing, of the housing-focused Illumination Foundation based in Santa Ana, in the Not-for-Profit Organization category.
• Tim Hoffmann, from prosthetics manufacturer Össur headquartered in Irvine, in the Rising Star category.
• Guita Sharifi, of educational nonprofit Lifelong Learning Administration Corp., earned the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Upcoming Events
The next event for the Business Journal is the Family-Owned Business Awards on May 30 with Ron Salisbury, owner of El Cholo restaurants, The Cannery and Louie’s by the Bay, as the main speaker.
The 10th annual Innovator of the Year Awards will return on Sept. 12 featuring Robert Brunswick, co-founder and chairman of Buchanan Street Partners, as the keynote speaker.
