Top minority-owned businesses in Phoenix area made $525M in revenue

PHOENIX — The 25 largest minority-owned companies in Maricopa and Pinal counties generated $524.9 million in revenue, according to the Phoenix Business Journal.

The news outlet’s Minority-Owned Firms list, published last week, shows that 18 of the companies were owned by Hispanics, three by African-Americans, two by Asians and two by Native Americans.

It’s not a surprise that so many companies are Hispanic-owned, said James Garcia, a spokesman for the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He said the increase corresponds with the population’s growth since the 1990s.

“With that kind of growth and that kind of vibrant entrepreneurial spirit in the Hispanic community, it’s no wonder that these companies are doing well now,” Garcia said.

Hardrock Concrete Placement Co. Inc. made the largest revenue in 2017 at $71.64 million. It employed 384 local, full-time employees.

But Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass beat out Hardrock for local, full-time employees — by two. The Sheraton Grand employs 386 and made $46.3 million in revenue last year.

Valor Global, which focuses on IT services and a call center, has the most total employees. There are 1,000 people working at this firm, which has locations in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Costa Rica, Germany and the Philippines.

Each November, the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce runs a program called the million dollar circle of excellence.

“It was an effort to kind of take the place, if you will, of some of the government monitoring that used to go on under affirmative-action programs,” he said.

Garcia said it does this to recognize firms that do business with minority-owned companies.

“They know that their customer base is increasingly diverse, and so they want to make sure that they’re reaching out to businesses that are owned by people of color to ensure that they’re not just buying from non-minority-owned business, and then selling to a growing customer base that happens to be people of color,” Garcia said.

In addition to the large list of multimillion dollar companies, Phoenix Business Journal found eight firms that made between $100,000 to $1.9 million in revenue, and one that made $14,000.

Total, the top 25 companies on the list employ 2,266 people.

“Minority-owned firms are growing so substantially that they’re able to provide services or products in pretty much any category that you can imagine,” Garcia said.

“There’s probably not a category in the economy that is not being served by a minority-owned business.”

KTAR News’ Griselda Zetino contributed to this report.

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