Ernst & Young Names Simple Modern’s Mike Beckham as an Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2024 Southwest Award Winner

Ernst & Young LLP named Simple Modern founder and CEO Mike Beckham an Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2024 Southwest Award winner.

Entrepreneur Of The Year is the preeminent competitive awards program for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies. An independent judging panel made up of previous award winners, leading CEOs and other business leaders selected Beckham out of almost 50 finalists.

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.

“I am humbled and honored to have been recognized by the prestigious EY Entrepreneur of the Year program for the team effort behind the growth and success of Simple Modern,” Beckham said. “This recognition shows that we are continuing progress towards our goal of creating a company committed to growth so it can continue its mission to exist to give generously.”

As a Southwest award winner, Beckham 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.

Other Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2024 Southwest award winners include: Jodi and Tom Parker, All American Tire Recyclers owners; Sam Scoten, CheckSammy CEO; John Zutter, Employer Direct Healthcare CEO; Robin Alex, Shaun Clark and Varun Vairavan, HighLevel co-founders; Cole Gahagan, Learfield CEO; Dave Marcinkowski, Madera co-founder; Jean and Kenneth Baik, Miss A Stores co-founders; Brandon Schwertner, Priority Power Management CEO; Ashli Blumenfeld and Ben Rosenthal, Standard Meat company co-presidents, Jaryd Stein and Ben Weinstein, Stride Healthcare Management co-founder; Jeff Jones, Vira Insight CEO, and John Steinmetz, Vista Bank vice chairman.

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.