Indian American entrepreneurs among Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of The Year 2020

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International consulting firm Ernst & Young recently announced its Entrepreneur of The Year US National Award winners.

The executive team of Toast, Inc. from Boston, MA led by Indian-American President and Co-founder Aman Narang was declared overall winner of the award.

Entrepreneurs Steve Fredette, president and co-founder, Toast, Inc.; Jon Grimm, CTO and co-founder, Toast, Inc.; and Chris Comparato, CEO, Toast, Inc. were the three other winners of the award.

According to the press release from Ernst & Young, Toast, Inc. founders Narang, Grimm and Fredette, in 2011, had set out with a vision to create a cloud-based mobile payments application for restaurants.

When it failed due to lack of support from dated, point-of-sale systems, the trio shifted gears and began developing a software platform that could perform a wide range of tasks for restaurateurs, from accepting payments and online orders to managing inventory and staff, all from a cell phone.

When Comparato signed on as CEO, Toast’s fortunes really started to heat up. Since then, Toast has become one of the fastest-growing companies in New England, employing 1,500 people and serving restaurants across the country.

Prior to Toast, Narang worked on innovation initiatives at Endeca, now Oracle. He spearheaded the development of Endeca’s business intelligence platform as well as their mobile commerce platform, each of which became major business units. He holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from MIT and currently leads innovation and business development initiatives at Toast, according to the company website.

Founder and Executive Chairman at Altimetrik Raj Vattikuti from Southfield, MI was also named Entrepreneur of the year by Ernst & Young.

The Indian-American entrepreneur and three-time Entrepreneur Of The Year Award regional winner, Vattikuti is also a strong believer in giving back. After taking one of the companies he founded public in 2001, he established the Vattikuti Foundation with his wife, Padma. The foundation has donated more than $40 million for cancer research, according to the press release.

Previously, he was Founder and CEO of Covansys Corp., an IT services company, which was acquired by Computer Sciences Corporation.

Entrepreneur Of The Year US is a year-round program that celebrates “unstoppable” entrepreneurs, the company said.