Several thousand attendees including dignitaries, legislators, educators and businesspeople came to pay homage to the latest installment of business giants at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta:
Chief Executive Officer of the Year, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, is a lawyer and former state senator of Georgia.
Entrepreneur of the Year, Liquid Soul Media’s Tirrell Whittley, has been the multicultural marketing maestro for seven #1 box-office films, including The Princess and the Frog, The Town and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, and has executed strategic marketing for over 45 box-office films that have produced $700 million in revenue. He is the marketing architect for “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne,” “Meet the Browns,” “Are We There Yet” and “HawthoRNe.”
Catalyst Dr. John Eaves, the chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissions, also is an assistant professor of education at Argosy University. He also leads the largest county in Georgia, with an operating budget of almost a billion dollars.
Corporation of the Year is Mack Wilbourn, the president and CEO of Mack II, Inc. This superstar businessman of more than 40 years boasts a portfolio that includes Popeye’s Chicken & Biscuits, Checkers and Edy’s Ice Cream. Located at Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the world, his Popeye’s has ranked #1 and #2 in sales since 1996, while his Checkers franchise has been #1 in sales in the Checkers-Rally’s system since 2005.
“The people that you’ve met are not only leaders,” says Erica Quall, the general manager of the upscale Atlanta Marriott Marquis and co-chair of the event. “They are forming the foundation of history that has yet to be made, while some of them have already made monumental history.”
Their careers can be exemplified by the mantra that Tirrell D. Whittley, CEO of Liquid Soul Media, lives by: “A vision without action is just hallucination. Action without a vision is just random activity.”
And, fittingly, he offered up one of the most poignant speeches of the day. He even brought his business school teacher from his hometown high school to bask in the celebration with him.
“For many years, [I had] many trials and tribulations to cross to say that I was going to strike out on my own. One thing that I talk to people about and mentor a lot of people about is conquering fear. It was one of the things that I had to accomplish to start Liquid Soul Media,” he admonishes and testifies about. “And it’s one of the things that we have to constantly cross over to grow our company. In doing that, it’s allowed us to not only be able to have what it is that we do, but to do it with a level of expertise and a level of determination that is unmatched. As other companies come and go and as the economy takes its toll, we’ve been able to stand the test of time.”
Richard Holmes, senior VP at Georgia Power, was the co-chair of the 33rd Annual CEO Awards Luncheon. Leona Davenport is the president and CEO of the Atlanta Business League, which facilitated this mid-day gala.
–terry shropshire
