Three Arizona companies on Inc.’s inaugural Best-Led Companies in America list
Three Arizona companies made Inc. magazine’s inaugural Best-Led Companies in America list.
The list highlights 250 companies throughout the U.S. with revenue between $50 million and $2 billion. Inc. and its editors used a proprietary algorithm to analyze each company’s management within four key areas: performance and value creation, market penetration and customer engagement, talent, and leadership team.
Inc. said it launched the list for midsized companies because they are “the unsung heroes of the U.S. economy,” delivering nearly 40% of the country’s economic vitality.
Leading the Arizona companies at No. 98 on the list is Viavi Solutions Inc. (Nasdaq: VIAV), an IT company that manufactures network and telecommunications equipment. Before this year, the company was based in San Jose, but it announced in February that it would be moving its headquarters to Chandler and then bought the final available building at the Chandler Airport Commerce Center.
Viavi had previously said it planned to employ about 100 people by 2022 and at the time of the building purchase had been working out of a temporary space in Scottsdale.
Next on the list for Arizona was 4Front Ventures Corp. (CSE: FFNT), a Phoenix-based, multistate cannabis operator and retailer, at No. 193. In the spring of 2020, 4Front received $4 million in private financing and announced it was selling off various assets to pay down debt. Since then the company expanded to Illinois this summer with a multiphase cannabis cultivation plant to produce its more than 20 in-house brands.
Mesa-based Verra Mobility (Nasdaq: VRRM) came in at No. 211 on the list. The company — which works in more than 15 countries — operates traffic enforcement cameras to catch speeding drivers and red light runners. It also works with commercial fleets and rental car companies to facilitate toll payments and track road violations.
Verra Mobility changed its name and went public in 2018. At the beginning of this year, it agreed to acquire Australian company Redflex Holdings Limited, which produces technology for speeding enforcement, bus lane enforcement and traffic management.
Combined, the 250 companies on the Inc. list employ 35 million people — or one in four U.S. workers.
Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), a software company based in Bozeman, Montana, took the No. 1 spot.
To see the whole list, click here.