2025 Small Businessperson of the Year

Ewelina Zajac-Holdrege
Founder & Creative Director, Idea Kraft

The Small Business Person of the Year shows evidence of growth in the number of employees; the business must have a minimum of 5 full-time employees and growth in sales with an emphasis of the past 3-5 years. They must show innovation of their products or services and contribute to their community.

Idea Kraft is a creative and marketing agency that specializes in branding and digital design.

Just days after her college graduation in 2004, Ewelina packed her backpack and moved across the ocean from her home village in Poland.

After working at other companies, she founded Holdrege Design in 2011, initially as a freelance business.  In 2015, Idea Kraft won the Binghamton Business Plan Competition, and the business took off from there, reporting two hundred thirteen percent net income growth in 2024 and securing their first five-year five-hundred-thousand-dollar contract with New York State!  Ewelina started with just herself and now has eight full-time employees. She’s invested one million dollars into the local economy, creating high-paying full-time jobs and freelance opportunities.

She is committed to giving back to her community, actively mentoring entrepreneurs and advocating for small businesses.

 

2025 Entrepreneur of the Year

Inessa Yonaty
Owner, The Goldsmith

The Entrepreneur of the Year exemplifies leadership and entrepreneurial skills. They show a willingness to take risks and demonstrate exceptional vision that contributes to business success. This person exhibits personal drive, focus, innovation and business acumen.

Inessa and her family emigrated from the former Soviet Union when she was six years old.

In 1993, they moved to our area and Inessa attended Hilel Academy, Vestal High School and then Binghamton University, always appreciating the love and support of this community.

After living downstate for a few years, Inessa returned to Binghamton with a strong desire to give back to the community that had given her so much support. She purchased Fabulous Finds in Vestal in 2016 and transformed it into Vintageness Consignment Boutique, a fashion-forward model of a new city-minded consignment store.

In 2020, her dream of owning The Goldsmith, where she had worked as a teenager, came to pass, giving her the challenge of appealing to a new generation of clients and building out a clothing boutique within the store. Little did she know the world would shut down just two days after her grand re-opening in March of 2020 due to Covid-19.

Never one to back down from challenges, Inessa went to work building an e-commerce website; used social media platforms to gain new customers and delivered products herself to those new clients! She was determined to meet these challenges head-on!

Inessa is always conscience of the fact that many people depend on the success of her business, and she adapts to challenges and always perseveres to move the business forward constantly.

Inessa never forgets the community that welcomed her, and, on a weekly basis, she donates clothing to those families in need as well as supporting local organizations such as The Mercy House of the Southern Tier, Mothers and Babies, The Firehouse Stage and so many more.

 

2025 Distinguished Chamber Volunteer of the Year

Jennifer Craig, Instructional Designer, Education & Development

The Raymond Corporation

There are some volunteers who quietly go about doing whatever needs to be done and, as they say, “fly under the radar.”

Jennifer is one such volunteer. She joined the SPARK planning team, usually meant for GBEOP Board members, because she was committed to supporting the program.  SPARK is a career exploration experience for eighth graders in our region. Held in January on the SUNY Broome campus, it offers these students hands-on learning activities from over one hundred industry partners.

As part of her responsibilities, Jennifer is on the bi-weekly planning calls and provides a valuable viewpoint on how the program feels from a teacher’s perspective (having had a background in teaching) and planning on the business end.

Over the past two years, Jennifer has recruited seven to ten different departments from Raymond to participate and has taught them how to create activities about their respective fields. Most companies send one to two departments, but Jennifer thinks and sees outside the box and knows all the various career paths that Raymond offers would be interesting and engaging for the students.

She also coordinates the twenty-five volunteers that Raymond sends to SPARK each year, no small task!

Rose Olsen, Director of GBEOP, says, “Jennifer has never received any formal recognition for the work she has done; she simply does this because she believes in the mission of connecting business and education.”

 

2025 Civic Leader of the Year

Linda Cerra
Executive Director, The Mercy House of the Southern Tier.

The Civic Leader of the Year shows evidence of having had a long-term beneficial impact on the community. They demonstrate civic engagement by using a combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make a difference in our communities.

The mission of the Mercy House is to provide a home with an extended family for people with a terminal illness so they can live the final chapter of their journey with dignity in a comfortable and peaceful environment.

Linda began as a volunteer working on the Mercy House concept in 2014 as marketing and fundraising chairperson. She then served on the Board of Directors for two years and was named Executive Director in 2017. Over the past nine years, Mercy House has cared for over thirteen hundred residents and their families. As Linda says, this could not be done without their Staff of twenty-five and their two hundred volunteers!

Linda is constantly thinking “outside the box” with her team on new fundraising events, new programs and ideas to enhance their residents’ care.

Tantamount to this commitment is the current expansion of Mercy House which started in October of 2024. Through grant-writing and community donations, they have raised over one point seven million dollars towards a total project cost of two point one million! And this project has come to fruition with an additional six resident rooms added to the already existing ten rooms.

Though this is a huge undertaking, Linda also donates her time as a Board Member of Spiedie Fest and as the Marketing Chairperson for the Holy Family Bazaar and where she has served as a Trustee for the past two and a half years.

 

Thank you to all our annual dinner sponsors including: Title Sponsor: Visions Federal Credit Union; Event Sponsor: Excellus BlueCross BlueShield; Cocktail Reception Sponsor: iA; Award Presentation Sponsor: Security Mutual Life Insurance; Décor Sponsor: TechMD; Award Presentation Sponsor: Rapid Deployable Systems; Dessert Sponsor: Tri-City Hearing; Supporting Sponsors: Bridgewater Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, Vestal Park Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, and Absolut Center; Music Sponsor: Dave & Busters; Wine Sponsor: Thirsty Owl Wine Company; Technology Sponsor: Syracuse Technologies; and Creative Sponsor: Idea Kraft.