SFBW announces 2016 Apogee Awards honorees

LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN AND CEO

Celebrating the Pinnacle

Welcome to the third annual Apogee Awards, a tribute to the success of 25 C-level executives throughout South Florida.

The region has many business awards programs, but this one is unique. Rather than having an awards program for each position, such as a CEO awards program one month and a CFO awards another month, we bring in the entire C-suite for our awards program.

For example, this will allow a chairman of one company to meet and network with a chief marketing officer from another company or the top HR executive of one company to meet the CEO of another company.

We think there is a huge benefit to allow these savvy, driven achievers to be able to share important experiences, challenges and lessons learned. South Florida has a broad geographic sweep, so it is rare to have this group all in one place at one time.

To get our nominations, we sent emails and did outreach throughout the South Florida business community. Our editorial staff did substantial research to help vet the quality and achievements of our honorees.

One of the things we like about the Apogee Awards is that it gives widespread public recognition to positions that often play key behind-the-scenes roles in the success of a business. Chief operating officers and chief marketing officers, for example, can be incredible drivers in the success of a business, but don’t often appears as a highly visible public face.

All of this would not be possible without our sponsors. Special thanks goes to presenting sponsor Mitch Kramer and his Octagon Family of Recruiting Companies (including its divisons of Octagon Technology Staffing and Octagon Professional Recruiting).

We would also like to thank our additional sponsors: Our Gold Sponsors Dale Carnegie Training South Florida, the Miami Dolphins and YTECH International and our Silver Sponsors Brown & Brown Insurance, Comcast Business, INDEX Datafiles, McAleer Gray and NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale.

Sincerely,

Gary Press

Chairman and CEO, South Florida Business & Wealth

THE HONOREES

Senior Human Resources Executive

• Broward – Denese Edsall, Broward College

• Miami-Dade – Viviana Santisteban, AmeriKooler

• Broward – Ellen Finnerty, Vitacost

Chief Marketing Officer

• Broward – Marc Cannon, AutoNation

• Miami-Dade – Paula Renaldo, The Keyes Company

• Palm Beach – Margie Kupfer, 3Cinteractive