Linda Arnold, Andrew Paterno and Brad Smith will be inducted to the West Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2018
Commemorating deep West Virginia roots and extraordinary leadership in the world of business, three trailblazing individuals will be inducted into the West Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2018.
Inductees this year will include Linda Arnold, founder and former chairman and CEO of The Arnold Agency, Charleston, W.Va.; Andrew J. Paterno, CEO of Centurion Insurance Services, LLC, Charleston, W.Va.; and Brad Smith, chairman and CEO of Intuit, Mountain View, Calif. The Hall of Fame will honor the inductees at an evening ceremony and reception on August 28 at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs. The event will kick off the 2018 West Virginia Business Summit and Annual Meeting.
The West Virginia University College of Business and Economics launched the Business Hall of Fame in 2001 to recognize business leaders who have strong ties to West Virginia and have made a significant impact across the business landscape of their local communities, the state, the nation and around the globe. WVU’s business school established a partnership with the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce last year when the event was moved to The Greenbrier. To date, 65 individuals from a variety of business sectors and from various parts of the country and world have been inducted.
“Linda Arnold, Andy Paterno and Brad Smith have made substantial impacts on the business world in their own respective business sectors,” said W. Marston “Marty” Becker, chairman of the Hall of Fame Committee. “While each of the inductees into the West Virginia Business Hall of Fame this year are vastly different from one another, the one common thread that binds them together is their love for this state. Linda, Andy and Brad have made undeniable marks in business, and their successes have, most certainly, positively influenced West Virginia. These three individuals are wonderful and inspirational role models for the next generation of business leaders in our state.”
As a researcher, author, speaker and business owner, Arnold is a pioneer in the state’s mass communications industry. The businesswoman earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the WVU Reed College of Media, as well as a MBA and a Master of Arts in Psychological Counseling from Marshall University. In addition to founding The Arnold Agency, a multistate marketing company, Arnold served as the director of communications for John D. Rockefeller IV during his tenure as Governor of West Virginia. She has written two books and is the syndicated columnist of “Live Life Fully,” which has been in publication for 10 years and appears online and in newspapers across the country. She has received the EY “Entrepreneur of the Year” award, been recognized with several awards from the Public Relations Society of America and the American Advertising Association, and was also honored as “Woman of the Year” by the YWCA. Arnold has served on numerous boards throughout the years and is also a motivational speaker, with an upcoming TEDx Talk in the works. She often communicates that she is a proud, native West Virginian.
Paterno has lead a very successful career in the financial services and insurance industries. Prior to his current role as CEO of Centurion Insurance Service, he formerly served as president of the West Virginia Region of Huntington National Bank and vice chairman of the board of directors and past regional managing director of the Mid-Atlantic Region of Wells Fargo Insurance Services, USA. A civic leader, he also worked in the Governor’s Office of Economic and Community Development, as well as serving as assistant director of the West Virginia Civil Service System. Throughout his career, Paterno has served on several boards, including the West Virginia Chamber, The Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences and The Foundation for the Thomas Memorial and Saint Francis Hospitals. He was named to the State Journal Who’s Who in in West Virginia Business in 2014. Paterno is a graduate of the University of Charleston with a degree in business administration. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and geography from Concord College. He and his wife of 45 years, Mary Jo, are residents of South Charleston and have two children and four grandchildren.
Growing up in Kenova, W.Va., Smith earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Marshall in 1986 and a master’s degree in management from Aquinas College in 1991. Today, he is a global leader in the fintech industry, having joined Intuit in 2003. Smith held a series of executive positions during a five-year rise through the company and was named Intuit’s president and CEO in 2008, and became chairman of the board of directors in 2016. Under his leadership, Intuit has transformed from a North American desktop software company to a global, cloud-based product and platform company. During his time as CEO, Intuit, with its flagship products – QuickBooks, TurboTax and Mint – has consistently been recognized as one of the world’s best places to work, ranking #13 in the United States on the 2018 Fortune Best Companies to Work For list and #1 in India, Singapore and Canada on the 2017 list. Fortune also ranked Smith #6 among the top CEOs in the U.S. Today, he lives in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife. They have two daughters in college.
For complete information about the Hall of Fame and extensive biographies of the three inductees, visit http://business.wvu.edu/wv-business-hall-of-fame.
In addition to attendees of the West Virginia Business Summit and Annual meeting, the public is also welcome to attend this free event
-WVU-
bd/04/04/18
CONTACT: Blair
Dowler, WVU College of Business and Economics
blair.dowler@mail.wvu.edu or 304.293.7760
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