The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce is proud to announce the finalists for the 2026 Excellence in Business Awards, the individuals and organizations whose work this past year shows exactly what makes San Francisco great.
Excellence in Business Award
Five Star Bank
Five Star Bank started in 1999 when a group of local entrepreneurs decided personalized banking meant more than a transaction, it meant a partnership. Nearly three decades later, the bank still measures success by the strength of the communities it serves, not just the balance sheet. From backing regional nonprofits to showing up fast when customers need them most, Five Star Bank proves community banking is still built by people who show up.
NBC Bay Area
NBC Bay Area sets out to do more than report the news, it aims to move the community forward with journalism that looks for solutions, not just problems. The station tackles the region’s toughest issues with respect and grit, using its platform to spotlight what’s working alongside what isn’t. It’s local news built to serve the people watching it.
SD Mayer
SD Mayer built its accounting and advisory practice on two words: we care. That shows up in a firm first culture where colleagues support each other, in an accounting and wealth management practice designed around long term client success, and in a genuine commitment to community and diversity. It’s a firm that grew fast without losing what it cares about.
Non-Profit of the Year Award, presented by Kaiser Permanente
Enterprise for Youth
Since 1969, Enterprise for Youth has helped more than 25,000 young people build the skills that open doors: interviewing, resume writing, money management, conflict resolution. Every year, over 400 teens go through the program’s workshops and land internships that let them test drive careers they’re curious about. Participants go on to enroll in college at higher rates than their peers, proof that a little guidance early on can set a life in motion.
Real Options for City Kids (R.O.C.K.)
R.O.C.K. is the largest source of academic and social support for at-risk youth in Visitacion Valley, and its approach treats kids as whole people, not just students. Through sports, outdoor adventures, and school based programming, the organization helps young people build positive relationships and learn to navigate hard circumstances in ways that actually stick. It’s youth development built on connection first.
Mariposa Kids
From two clubhouses in the Mission and Bernal Heights, Mariposa Kids gives San Francisco kids ages 1 to 11 something increasingly rare: unstructured time to just play. After school programs, summer camps, and early childhood programming all run on the same belief, that free play builds curiosity, independence, and social emotional growth better than any worksheet. For the families in these neighborhoods, that’s not a nice extra, it’s the foundation.
Sustainability of the Year Award, presented by Recology
ChargeWheel
ChargeWheel is tackling one of clean energy’s most stubborn bottlenecks, the grid itself. Its modular, megawatt scale energy storage systems can power AI infrastructure and electric vehicles without waiting years for utility upgrades, and they can be deployed in as little as three months. In an industry where projects often stall on infrastructure, that speed is the whole pitch.
Refuse Refuse SF
Refuse Refuse SF started from a simple idea: if the city can’t clean every street alone, its residents will help. The all-volunteer group organizes its own cleanups, partners with other local organizations, and works block-by-block to keep San Francisco’s neighborhoods trash-free. It is civic pride treated as a hands-on, weekend-by-weekend commitment.
Moscone Center
Moscone Center‘s mission is straightforward: give San Francisco’s best people and expertise a stage to help partners succeed, one event at a time. The venue aims to be the first call for meeting planners and exhibitors by pairing a world class facility with a team that handles events from first idea to final teardown.
Small Business of the Year Award, presented by DoorDash
Make It Mariko
Make It Mariko is a San Francisco events agency proudly led by women of color. Community sits at the center of the work: showcasing diverse voices, cultivating real connection, and creating joy through events designed with intention.
Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement
Fernay McPherson grew up watching her great aunt Minnie and grandmother Lillie Bell cook, and Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement is what came of it, soulful, home-style Southern food built on those family recipes. Fernay’s own family arrived in San Francisco as part of the Great Migration, when more than six million African Americans left the rural South for cities in the North and West, carrying their culinary traditions with them. Every dish on the menu carries that journey forward, one plate at a time.
Akari
Akari takes its name from the idea of Kakehashi, a bridge, and that’s exactly what the restaurant is trying to build: a bridge to Japanese culture through food, and to Japanese hospitality, omotenashi, through the way guests are treated. The team measures success in the small moments, a customer’s oishii, their arigato, their promise to come back. It’s a business built on smiles, inside the kitchen and out.
Community Champion of the Year Award
Stern Grove
Stern Grove Festival has been bringing free, world-class music to San Francisco since 1938, making it the longest-running free nonprofit music festival in the country. Every summer, generations of Bay Area residents gather in a natural amphitheater to hear legendary and emerging artists alike, at no cost to anyone in the crowd.
Bay Area Host Committee (BAHC)
Founded in 2022, the Bay Area Host Committee set out to unite the region through sports, and BAHC has rallied heavy hitters to do it: Bay FC, the Golden State Warriors, the Golden State Valkyries, the 49ers, the Giants, the Earthquakes, and the Sharks are all on board. The group brings legendary athletes, major sporting events, and global fan bases into the Bay’s most iconic venues, turning game day into a region wide moment.
Mission Loteria
Mission Lotería is a block-by-block movement keeping the Mission District’s Latino culture loud, colorful, and impossible to ignore. Since 2019, the community-run group has hosted more than 4,000 attendees across game nights, scavenger hunts, pop-ups, and bar crawls, all designed to strengthen community ties and send foot traffic to the neighborhood’s small businesses. It’s built and run by a small team and a network of Bay Area artists who shape everything they do.
These fifteen finalists are the reason the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce hosts this event every year, and the awards ceremony is your chance to meet them in-person, hear their stories, and celebrate what they’ve built alongside the rest of the community that made it possible. Tickets to the 2026 EBBIES are available now. Come meet the finalists, raise a glass, and see what a city built by people like this looks like up close.