West 49 Inc., the Toronto-based action sports retailer, announced that
its president and CEO, Sam Baio, has been selected to receive the Ernst
& Young Ontario Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 award in the
Business-to-Consumer category.
“It is an honour to be recognized as 'Entrepreneur of the Year' by Ernst
& Young from among the many highly qualified Canadian business
leaders,” said Baio. “Since becoming a publicly traded company in
December 2004, we have achieved substantial growth in a
relatively short period of time, more than doubling in size. We are a
much stronger company today and I credit that to our great team at West
49 Inc. successfully executing a well-defined growth strategy. More
than anything, I attribute our success to our strong and intimate
understanding of our target markets. We spend a lot of time getting to
know our customers.”
As a regional winner for Ontario, Baio will advance on to a national
competition in November. The Canadian winner then goes to a world competition next year.
As at September 15, West 49 operated 133 stores in nine provinces,
under the banners West 49, Billabong, Off The Wall, Amnesia/Arsenic,
D-Tox, and Duke's Northshore, and an online retailer www.boardzone.com.
