Easton Sports, Inc. CEO Tony Palma was named as one of the finalists for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award. The most prestigious honor in its class, the award is given annually to a leader of a public or private company who has displayed exceptional entrepreneurial spirit.

Further, the Entrepreneur Of The Year® award celebrates who’s who of the business world as evidenced by past winners such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Howard Schultz of Starbucks Corp., Pierre Omidyar of eBay, Inc., and Scott Kriens of Juniper. In his first year entering the competition, Palma was chosen to be a finalist among an applicant pool of over 170 top executives.

“I feel truly honored to be named among the elite of the entrepreneurial world,” said Palma. “I know that we’ve created something special at Easton; and I take great pride in captaining a great team that has helped to turn Easton into a world-class organization that not only continues to shine financially, but also continues to raise the bar in terms of innovation among the sporting goods industry.”

As President and CEO of Easton Sports for the past seven years, Palma has led the sporting goods manufacturer to unprecedented increases in sales, earnings, and brand stature. Further, under Palma’s direction, Easton has cornered the hockey industry and also established itself as the leader of the team sports industry by focusing on the development of innovative sporting goods.

In 2002 Palma was voted by Hockey News as one of the most influential people in the sport of hockey. He is responsible for providing leadership to Easton’s worldwide operations, including sales, marketing, research & development, finance & administration, and manufacturing.