WellnessIQ, also known as WIQ, captured the top rank among the fastest-growing companies in Northeast Ohio, honored Thursday night in the annual Weatherhead 100 ceremony of Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. Each year, the Weatherhead 100 recognizes companies across the region with the fastest growing revenue.
WellnessIQ President Dave Drap said the company’s success is the result of achieving its “core goals and objectives of bringing best-in-class wellness services and programs to the most vital resource a company has, which is the employees.”
The Weatherhead 100 rankings were revealed Thursday night at the Hilton Downtown Cleveland.
WIQ, based in Independence, is a distribution, implementation and management source for small and mid-size corporate wellness programs nationally. The firm applies health-management strategies to lower a company’s employee health-care costs. WIQ achieved the top rank in its first inclusion in the Weatherhead 100 after receiving the top rank last year in the separate Upstarts category, which features emerging smaller companies.
Weatherhead 100 companies are ranked by net sales growth percentage over the last five full years. Companies must have at least 16 full-time employees in the last year.
WIQ posted a sales increase of 3,133 percent over the five years from 2011 through 2015.
Some other qualifications for the 2016 Weatherhead 100:
- Headquartered in Ashland, Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Erie, Geauga, Huron, Lake, Lorain, Mahoning, Medina, Portage, Richland, Stark, Summit, Trumbull or Wayne counties.
- Not a franchise or subsidiary of another company between 2011–2015.
- Must be a for-profit organization.
Second place in the Weatherhead 100 ranking went to Westlake’s ECHO Health Inc., an innovator of health-care payment solutions. Third on the list is Laudan Properties, a residential property preservation and inspection company in Twinsburg.
Two other categories were also recognized:
- Upstarts are smaller companies with percentage of sales growth that qualifies for the Weatherhead 100, but with 15 or fewer employees. The Upstarts top rank went to The Refinery, a Rocky River software company. It reported five-year sales growth of 635 percent.
- Centurions are larger companies with net sales of $100 million or more in the last year. Top rank in the Centurions category is ExactCare Pharmacy LLC, a Valley View company that provides medication management solutions for patients with chronic conditions. Its sales growth was 795.6 percent.
“The Weatherhead 100 shows that there are many paths to creating a vibrant business,” said Tom King, professor or accountancy at Weatherhead School of Management. “Our winners come in different sizes, ages and industries. The diversity of Northeast Ohio’s business community is a source of our region’s economic success.”