EY Announces Brian NeSmith of Arctic Wolf as an Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2021 Heartland Award Winner

Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) today announced that Brian NeSmith, chief executive officer and co-founder of Arctic Wolf, was named an Entrepreneur Of The Year^® 2021 Heartland Award winner. The Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards program is one of the preeminent competitive awards for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies. The award recognizes those who are “unstoppable entrepreneurial leaders, excelling in talent management; degree of difficulty; financial performance; societal impact and building a values-based company; and originality, innovation and future plans.” NeSmith was selected by an independent panel of judges, and the award was announced during the program’s virtual awards gala on Tuesday, July 27, 2021.

Brian NeSmith has more than 30 years of IT leadership experience, most recently as former chief executive officer of Blue Coat Systems, where he increased company revenues from $5M/year to over $500M/year as the industry’s leading web proxy platform. Prior to Blue Coat, Brian was the chief executive officer of Ipsilon Networks (acquired by Nokia), which became the leading appliance platform for Check Point firewalls. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.

"It is an honor for both myself and Arctic Wolf to be recognized as an Entrepreneur Of The Year winner by EY," said NeSmith. "The growth and success of Arctic Wolf is driven by our mission to end cyber risk and, with the help of our employees, customers, and partners, the Arctic Wolf approach to security operations will continue to disrupt the security industry for years to come.”

Arctic Wolf is taking the security industry by storm and has risen to the top of the field as the go-to company to end cyber risk. The company recently achieved a valuation of $4.3 billion as part of its Series F round of funding. The company's success is driven by explosive market demand for effective security operations at organizations of every size. Under NeSmith’s leadership, the company has doubled in size and revenue in the past year as the Security Operations market is ripe for disruption.

Arctic Wolf solves the biggest pain points that plague the security industry today and keep breached companies in the headlines. Security companies have built solutions that are often disparate, ineffective, add noise to the system, and thus leave organizations vulnerable to attacks. Instead of asking customers to buy more tools, Arctic Wolf’s Concierge Security^® Team, leveraging Arctic Wolf’s cloud-native platform, provides a holistic protection framework for all customers that strengthens their cyber defenses across the board.

For 35 years, EY US has honored entrepreneurs whose ambition, courage, and ingenuity have driven their companies’ success, transformed their industries, and made a positive impact on their communities. NeSmith will go on to become a lifetime member of the esteemed multi-industry community of award winners, with exclusive, ongoing access to the experience, insight, and wisdom of fellow alumni and other ecosystem members in over 60 countries—all supported by vast EY resources.

As a Heartland Award winner, NeSmith is now eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 National Awards. Award winners in several national categories, as well as 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 program has honored the inspirational leadership of entrepreneurs such as:

• Shelly Ibach of Sleep Number
• Dave Mortensen & Chuck Runyon of Anytime Fitness, LLC
• Zach Quinn of Love Your Melon
• Joel Connor of Bellisio Foods 

Sponsors

Founded and produced by Ernst & Young LLP, the Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards are nationally sponsored by SAP America and the Kauffman Foundation. Heartland sponsors also include Colliers International, Padilla Co., PNC Bank, SALO LLC, Twin Cities Business, and Donnelley Financial Solutions.

About Arctic Wolf:

Arctic Wolf® is the market leader in security operations, pioneering the first cloud-native security operations platform to end cyber risk. Leading the industry with threat telemetry from endpoint, network, and cloud sources, the Arctic Wolf® Platform, supported by the original Concierge Security® team, is the last line of defense for thousands of organizations worldwide. The Arctic Wolf Platform and Concierge Security experts make it fast and easy for organizations of any size to stand up world-class security operations that continually guard against attacks in an efficient and sustainable way.

For more information about Arctic Wolf, visit arcticwolf.com or follow us at @AWNetworks, on LinkedIn or Facebook.

About Entrepreneur Of The Year^®

Entrepreneur Of The Year^® is the world’s most prestigious business awards program for unstoppable entrepreneurs. These visionary leaders deliver innovation, growth and prosperity that transform our world. The program engages entrepreneurs with insights and experiences that foster growth. It connects them with their peers to strengthen entrepreneurship around the world. Entrepreneur Of The Year is the first and only truly global awards program of its kind. It celebrates entrepreneurs through regional and national awards programs in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries. National overall winners go on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ title. ey.com/us/eoy

About EY Private

As Advisors to the ambitious™, EY Private professionals possess the experience and passion to support private businesses and their owners in unlocking the full potential of their ambitions. EY Private teams offer distinct insights born from the long EY history of working with business owners and entrepreneurs. These teams support the full spectrum of private enterprises including private capital managers and investors and the portfolio businesses they fund, business owners, family businesses, family offices and entrepreneurs. Visit ey.com/us/private

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