Announced today, President and COO Greg Ayres of large-scale industrial contractor Nox Group has won the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2025 Pacific Southwest Award. Under Ayres’ leadership, Nox Group has emerged as a national force in the construction of mission-critical infrastructure, including data centers, advanced manufacturing facilities and water/wastewater treatment plants. Nox Group’s four operating companies – Corbins, RMCI, Nox Innovations and Construction Labels – manage the full lifecycle of projects across the country.
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Entrepreneur Of The Year is the preeminent competitive awards program for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies. For 40 years, EY US has celebrated ambitious entrepreneurs who are transforming industries, impacting communities and creating long-term value.
Ayres was chosen by an independent panel of past winners, top CEOs and business leaders. Judges assessed candidates on long-term value creation, entrepreneurial spirit, purpose-driven commitment and significant growth and impact.
“I’m incredibly humbled to be recognized alongside some of our region’s most visionary business leaders, and this honor truly puts into perspective just how far we’ve come at Nox Group,” Ayres said. “In a short time, we’ve scaled nationwide and taken on some of the most complex, high-stakes projects in the country. Through it all, we’ve never lost sight of our culture that prioritizes people above all else. I’m proud of what we’ve built and even more excited for what comes next.”
As a Pacific Southwest award winner, Ayres is now eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2025 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 EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in June 2026.
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 strengthen it for the future.
The Entrepreneur Of The Year program has recognized the leadership of entrepreneurs such as:
- Sheila Mikhail of AskBio
- Caryn Seidman Becker and Ken Cornick of CLEAR
- James Park of Fitbit
- Arthur Blank of The Home Depot
- Kendra Scott of Kendra Scott LLC
- Reed Hoffman and Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn
- Saiju Jeong of Noom
- Howard Schultz of Starbucks Coffee Company
- Jodi Berg of Vitamix
- Michael Happe of Winnebago Industries
- Eric Yuan of Zoom
