Annual Eddy Awards

The Eddy Awards annual dinner gala and awards ceremony celebrates exceptional public and private leadership in LA County economic development, with the Most Business-Friendly City Award and recognition of honorees that demonstrate outstanding contributions to economic development in the region.  It is an extraordinary opportunity to network with the leaders you want to meet, from all sectors in the region.

This is the only fundraiser for the LAEDC on an annual basis, and your ticket sales and sponsorship make our work possible — raising the standards of living for the residents of L.A. County by increasing economic opportunity and regional prosperity. Please consider sponsoring the Eddy Awards, and associate your organization’s name with the transformative progress of LA County.

2018 Eddy Award Honorees

CORPORATE HONOREE: American Airlines

American Airlines is the largest domestic and international carrier at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), among the world’s busiest airports. The hub serves as American’s west coast gateway to the Asia-Pacific and has recently added service to 24 new destinations including Sydney, Auckland, Hong Kong, Tokyo Haneda and Beijing. In 2017, the airline announced a more than $1.5 billion investment toward improvements at LAX Terminals 4 and 5 to create a world-class experience for its 16.5 million annual customers and nearly 7,000 team members who work there.

EDUCATIONAL HONOREE: Cal Poly Pomona

Cal Poly Pomona is among the best public universities in the West and is nationally ranked for helping students achieve economic success. As an inclusive polytechnic university, they cultivate success through experiential learning, discovery and innovation. Their graduates are ready to succeed in the professional world on Day 1.

Faculty in all disciplines put theory to practice, providing students with opportunities to apply their knowledge in hands-on projects, research collaborations, and valuable internship and service-learning programs. Their history and geography are unlike any other university in the region. Nowhere else can students ride an Arabian horse, practice on a Steinway piano, bring a new product to market, and build a liquid-fueled rocket.

INDIVIDUAL HONOREE: Beatriz Acevedo

Award winning media executive, entrepreneur and social impact advocate Beatriz Acevedo will be honored at the 2018 Eddy Awards as the 2018 Individual Honoree. Beatriz is a three-time Emmy Award winning producer and digital media pioneer with more than 20 years of experience creating content for major TV networks in the U.S and abroad in multiple languages. Beatriz has dedicated her life’s work to creating opportunities for diverse youth in an effort to empower their voices, and to influence culturally relevant depictions of Latinos in media.

As the former President and Co-Founder of mitú, Beatriz has had the privilege of leading the next generation of Latino storytellers and creators via her mentorship and accelerator program, which Beatriz described in Entrepreneur as a breeding ground for discovering “the next generation of [creatives] from animators to writers to directors.” She defined the mitú brand as one that “stands for a community that opens doors and provides opportunity.”

Beatriz has dedicated her life’s work to creating opportunities for diverse youth in an effort to empower their voices and influence culturally relevant depictions of Latinos in media. In Medium, Beatriz explained her goal of diversifying media “to help connect the broken bridge between content buyers and creators … to build a digital media brand for this generation of U.S.-born, English-dominant Latinos.”

FINALISTS for the Most Business-Friendly City Award :

LAEDC annually presents California’s only “business-friendly city” award, highlighting programs and services that foster job-creation.  The cities of Inglewood, Rosemead, and Whittier are finalists for the population 50,000 and over category, and the cities of Azusa, Duarte, Monrovia, San Gabriel, and Santa Fe Springs are finalists in the population under 50,000 category.  One winner from each category will be announced live at the 23^rd Annual Eddy Awards on Thursday, November 8th, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Downtown LA.

View a recap of the 2017 Eddy Awards here.

View photos from the 2017 Eddy Awards.

Read about the Winners of 2017 Most Business Friendly City (City of Downey and City of Arcadia)