Winners of the 2024 Entrepreneur of the Year Awards include, from left: Joseph Stieven (Lifetime Achievement Award), Rachel Burns (Social Entrepreneur Award), Brett Arndt (Entrepreneur Advocate Award) and Jesse Frey (Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award). Mark Tipton (not pictured) was named Entrepreneur of the Year. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)
Members of the University of Missouri–St. Louis community gathered Tuesday evening for the 2024 Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, which served as a celebration of the students, innovators and supporters of the vibrant ecosystem of creation nurtured by UMSL’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.
Under Director Scott Morris, the EIC is helping UMSL take a leadership role in the community by not only teaching local entrepreneurs how to create and grow their own businesses, but also giving many of these startups an opportunity to earn much-needed capital to grow their companies.
On Tuesday at the Lee Theater in the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center, Morris and Chancellor Kristin Sobolik presented awards for Student Entrepreneur of the Year, Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Entrepreneur Advocate of the Year and Entrepreneur of the Year, along with a Lifetime Achievement award.
Scott Morris, director of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, hosted the 2024 awards event.
“Small businesses transform communities, large and small,” Morris told the crowd. “By transforming communities, small businesses transform the lives of those in the community whether by the economic power or job growth these businesses generate. We are here tonight to celebrate these UMSL alumni – or soon-to-be alumni – who have created successful businesses and are transforming communities and the lives of those within the community.”
Here’s a quick look at the 2024 award winners:
Jesse Frey, Student Entrepreneur of the Year
Frey is a Coast Guard veteran turned student who is pursuing his BA in digital marketing at UMSL. Frey created HEADLOK, a motorcycle accessory business aimed at providing products that make riding more enjoyable. The genesis of his company was the quest to create a way to store his ballcap while riding his motorcycle, without cramming the hat in a backpack. Frey is also building a custom motorcycle for the brand – and to satisfy his need for speed. With six years of maritime law enforcement under his belt, he’s handled situations such as ice rescue, small boat operations and saving lives on the water.
Rachel Burns, Social Entrepreneur of the Year
Burns leads Bold Spoon Creamery’s strategic vision and growth, overseeing all operations and cultivating key partnerships to ensure long-term success. Burns, who has an MBA with an emphasis in finance, brings 20-plus years of institutional investment experience, client management and a lifelong love of ice cream to running Bold Spoon. Her prior role as director of investments at WTW honed her financial management and strategic planning skills and required meticulous attention to detail – crucial for business growth and stability. Her experience building and managing client relationships within the institutional investment arena translates to effective Bold Spoon client acquisition and client service. Balancing financial acumen with a strategic vision has been a consistent strength throughout her career, which Burns takes into charting Bold Spoon’s future.
Brett Arndt, Entrepreneur Advocate of the Year
Arndt has a deep passion for building brands and companies with a strong focus on digital marketing, which led him through multiple startups in his early career. After his tenure across early-stage companies, Arndt founded Experience Fresh in 2011 as a brand consulting agency. He relaunched Experience Fresh as a full-service, digital-forward agency in 2019. Today, Experience Fresh has been recognized as a top 500 company on the 2024 Inc. 5000 and the fastest-growing company in St. Louis – with industry-leading and award-winning creative and digital. Under Arndt’s leadership, Experience Fresh has seen triple-digit growth year-over-year for the past five years. Arndt focuses on strategic partnerships, brand strategy and agency growth. Arndt holds a degree in media studies from UMSL.
Mark Tipton, Entrepreneur of the Year
As founder and CEO of Aspire Software, Tipton leads the top cloud-based business management SaaS provider. Aspire Software has earned consistent recognition as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America with inclusion on the Inc. 5000, Deloitte Technology’s Fast 500 and the St. Louis Business Journal Fast 50 lists. Since co-founding Aspire in 2013, Tipton has assembled a best-in-class team of experts to develop, build and scale the Aspire platform into a truly end-to-end enterprise system that leverages software, services and education to transform the way lawn care and landscape companies manage their businesses.
In January 2021, Tipton led the acquisition of scheduling software application Crew Control, which extends the company’s reach to green-industry businesses of all sizes. Tipton is a service-oriented and open leader focused on driving rapid growth while cultivating a positive, engaged company culture that enables high-performing teams to develop key capabilities, execute value-driven solutions and deliver exceptional user experiences.
Prior to founding Aspire, Tipton led The Integra Group for 14 years as founder and managing partner, where he developed landscape business management software that grew to over $400 million in client revenue and is now recognized as one of the earliest SaaS platforms built specifically for the landscape industry. Tipton holds a BSBA from UMSL.
Joseph Stieven, Lifetime Achievement
Stieven has more than 35 years of experience in the financial industry and is the president, chairman and CEO of Stieven Capital Advisors, which he founded in 2005. The firm focuses on investments in financial institutions with $567 million in assets under management.
After graduating from UMSL’s College of Business Administration with a BSBA in finance in 1982, Stieven began his career as an analyst and examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. In 1985, he became senior vice president and director of the Financial Institutions Research Group at Stifel Nicolaus and graduated with an MBA from UMSL.
He has managed nine financial institution equity trusts, raising over $200 million and gaining national recognition. Stieven’s insight into the financial services industry and the economy has made him a frequent speaker and resource for financial industry events and publications. The American Banker recognized him as the top analyst in the country for the Midwest region.
The UMSL Alumni Association honored him in 2017 with the Distinguished Alumni Award, and in 2018 the university recognized Stieven and and his wife, Mary, with its highest philanthropic honor, the E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Medal for Philanthropy.
