EY Awards Entrepreneur Of The Year 2026 to CUTISS's Daniela Marino and PHOENIQS's Thomas Taroni

Daniela Marino, co-founder of CUTISS, and Thomas Taroni, co-founder of PHOENIQS, received the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award 2026 at a Zurich ceremony on October 23, 2026, before more than 400 guests. startupticker.ch reported the awards, the 29th edition held in Switzerland by the audit and advisory firm EY.

Marino and Taroni Take the 2026 EY Awards

An independent eleven-member jury selected the winners from nine finalist companies, according to startupticker.ch. Marino, CEO and co-founder of CUTISS, won in the Scale-up Leaders category. CUTISS, founded in 2017 as a spin-off of the University of Zurich and the University Children's Hospital Zurich, develops biotechnological solutions for producing human skin tissue and is in late-stage clinical development. The company is working on denovoSkin, a personalized tissue therapy based on the patient's own skin cells, supported by a proprietary automation platform intended to enable needs-based, scalable production. The therapy targets patients who need skin grafts after severe burns or for reconstructive and aesthetic procedures.

Taroni, CEO and co-founder of PHOENIQS, won in the Visionary Entrepreneurs category. PHOENIQS, founded in 2018, is an AI and cloud services provider offering computing solutions for companies that depend on scalability, security and data sovereignty. Its fully integrated AI and cloud environments are designed to comply with strict data governance rules. finews.ch reported that Phoeniqs provides cloud and AI infrastructure for banks, processing data in Switzerland, and that the Swiss award drew 70 nominees. Pascal Bourquard Jr, CEO of BIWI, was also honored, in the Entrepreneurs in Family Business category.

EY's Scale Behind the Awards

EY operates through a federated network of approximately 400,000 professionals across more than 150 countries, including 121,000 consulting professionals, according to akta.pro company records. The same records list EY's global headcount range above 10,001 and its founding year as 1989, with headquarters in New York. EY US expanded a strategic alliance with SymphonyAI in July 2026 to bring manufacturing intelligence to enterprise operations, extending collaboration that had covered retail and financial services.

Earlier EY Award and Audit News

On October 26, 2026, the Financial Post reported that Ryan, CEO and owner of Canpac Marine, was named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2026 Pacific; he will compete for the national title at a November 24, 2026, Toronto event, with the winner advancing to the global stage in 2027. On October 23, 2026, manager magazin reported that EY will audit BMW's financial statements starting in 2029, a second major DAX mandate after Allianz. On the same date, Consultancy reported EY's fiscal 2026 global revenue of $57 billion, up 4.7% from the prior year, with AI services sales up 49%.

What Comes Next for the Winners

The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year program runs 60 programs in more than 94 countries and regions, connecting over 50,000 entrepreneurs worldwide, according to startupticker.ch. The Canadian national winner will be named at the November 24, 2026, event in Toronto.