Nearly 700 members of the Orange County business community attended the 15th annual CFO of the Year Awards ceremony on May 5.
It was the first of six in-person Business Journal events scheduled for 2022.
The ceremony, held at the Irvine Marriott, honors area financial professionals for outstanding performance as corporate stewards for the preceding fiscal year.
The event’s master of ceremonies was Murray Rudin, managing director of private equity firm RLH Equity Partners.
The evening event drew the second-highest attendance of the CFO Awards in its history.
5 Honorees
The event’s five honorees, selected from over 70 nominees, were:
• John Meloun, of Irvine boutique fitness franchiser Xponential Fitness Inc. (NYSE: XPOF), in the Public Company category;
• Ned Algeo, of Cypress-based Xperience Restaurant Group, which owns and operates nine branded restaurant concepts, in the Private Company category;
• Ashley Harris, of Irvine-based Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Orange Coast, which serves over 9,500 youth annually, in the Not-for-Profit Organization category;
• Maria Pitol, who works out of the Irvine office of environmental solutions provider Montrose Environmental Group Inc. (NYSE: MEG), in the Rising Star category; and
• Jamie Arnold, from the Irvine office of healthcare record software company, NextGen Healthcare (Nasdaq: NXGN), earned the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Upcoming Events
The five CFO Award winners will be profiled in the May 16 print edition of the Business Journal.
The Business Journal’s next event is the Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards, which will run May 26.
FivePoint Holdings LLC (NYSE: FPH) founder and Chairman Emeritus Emile Haddad is that event’s keynote speaker.
On June 2, the Business Journal hosts the Family-Owned Business Awards; the keynote speaker is Kelly Vlahakis-Hanks, president and CEO of Cypress-based ECOS.
