2022 INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR AWARD NOMINEES

Rocksteady Audio, Irvine Jeff Leitman, CEO

Jeff Leitman first founded Killer Concepts in 2011, with its launch product the Rocksteady XS, an innovate Bluetooth speaker that helped fuel the company’s growth. Later, in 2015, he invented the Piggy cell phone stand, selling over 23 million units through North American retail, helping to finance the development of other product inventions, including the FlipStand, Sprockyt, and Rocksteady Stadium. In 2018, Killer Concepts was an Inc. 500 fastest growing company with sales in excess of $8MM that year; fully bootstrapped and with Leitman as the foudner, owner, President and CEO. In 2020, Leitman split the company into two, with Rocksteady Corp focused on the Rocksteady Stadium speakers and the 2022 launch of the Rocksteady Stadium subwoofer, the World’s first wireless portable subwoofer. Now with sales in several countries and the subwoofer about to launch, Leitman is excited to be positioned for enormous growth and is ready to start hiring again and building Rocksteady Corp. into a 10 figure company in the coming years.

San Feliepe Humanitarian Alliance, Capistrano Beach Dr. Micele Del Conte, CEO & President

Dr. Micele Del Conte has built two schools in Darfur for women and children, built a pipeline for running water in Ethiopia, painted and stocked several libraries in LA County and OC, furnished several home in OC for battered women and children, among many other things. In addition, Dr. Del Conte has been the President of the Southern California International Refugee Coalition, housed several refugees in her own home and started a group home for unwanted children an housed and fed them all for several years, 150 kids to be exact.

SetSchedule, Irvine Roy Dekel, Chief Executive Officer

Roy Dekel is CEO and co-founder of SetSchedule. Dekel’s accomplishments are vast in both the real estate and technology industries. After the military, Dekel moved to the United States to begin his sales career selling vacuums door-to-door, ultimately creating a team and becoming the #1 sales team of the company. From there, he began investing in real estate properties leading him to what would ultimately be the inception of SetSchedule. As the founding partner of SetSchedule, Dekel grew the company from a team of three to a medium-size business of 200+, from all around the world, and a user base of 35,000+ clients in five years. Under Dekel’s leadership, SetSchedule has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest-growing company since 2019, ranking 196th overall in the US. His vision has led the company to develop the highly successful SetSchedule 3.0 - For the Pro in You application recently launched. Thanks to Dekel’s leadership, SetSchedule has surpassed $3.5 billion of transactions between real estate agents and homeowners, and shoppers.

ShopGoodwill.com, Santa Ana Ryan Smith, Vice President of ShopGoodwill.com

ShopGoodwill.com is the first ecommerce auction platform created, owned and operated by a nonprofit organization. The site was designed here in Orange County by Goodwill of Orange County in 1999 to provide an engaging online shopping destination that would further the Goodwill mission of putting people to work. Today, more than 130 Goodwill organizations from across the country list and auction unique items on the site, including art, antiques, collectibles, apparel, jewelry, electronics, and more. All revenue from these auction sales fund Goodwill’s life-changing programs and services for people with disabilities and other barriers. More than $1 billion in online sales have been generated on shopgoodwill.com since its launch - and half of that, $500 million, came in just the last three years. ShopGoodwill.com is receiving more than 24 million unique page views each week, and currently has more than three million registered customers. Last year, the site saw nearly 43 percent growth in sales over the previous year with $244.3 million in sales.

Siege Pharmaceuticals, Irvine Aimee Edinger, Founder, Siege Pharmaceuticals; Professor and Chancellor’s Fellow, Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, UC Irvine; Associate Director, UCI Cancer Research Institute; UCI School of Biological Sciences Equity Advisor

Dr. Aimee Edinger’s passion for pushing the scientific envelope has made her a rising star at UCI. Her laboratory develops innovative therapies that target intracellular trafficking with the goal of treating cancer, obesity, and improving the delivery of oligonucleotide therapeutics. Her team identified small molecules that stop prostate cancer in its tracks and restore normal body weight in mice with obesity, technology licensed to Siege Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Edinger founded Siege in 2019 to translate her discoveries into life-saving drugs. Siege has garnered $2 million in venture support and won a prestigious $2 million Direct-to-Phase 2 SBIR award from the NCI. Dr. Edinger consulted for Ionis Pharmaceuticals for several years and received a highly competitive $1million Ono Pharma Foundation grant in 2019 to expand on this translational work; a paper with Ionis has just been submitted to a high-impact journal. Dr. Edinger is a serial innovator with seven patents in process. As a talented female entrepreneur and UCI Beall Applied Innovation Faculty Innovation Fellow focused on equity and inclusion, she also inspires other outsiders to champion their big ideas.