Andrew Neal, 34

Leadership isn’t foreign to Andrew Neal. 

The vice president of operations at Scanco, a software company in Nokomis, south Sarasota County, has been a leader since he worked his way up to general manager at Chick-fil-A during his time in college (though not before he became one of brand’s beloved cows, in a costume, that encourages people to eat more chicken). 

Neal graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University in 2013. Windward, a pool furniture manufacturing company in Sarasota, hired him to develop and implement a new software system. About four years later, he extended his work with software development with a career at Scanco, where he started in sales. He's since worked his way up.