EY World Entrepreneur finalists announced

Johannesburg – EY announced the finalists of the Southern Africa Chapter of the World Entrepreneur Award for 2014 in the Master, Exceptional and Emerging categories on Thursday.

The award programme recognises entrepreneurs, who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.

“These individual’s ability – to innovate, to inspire others, to power a business along the difficult journey from start-up to market leader – is truly remarkable,” Sugan Palanee, EY’s Africa markets leader.

“As these leading businesses continue to power our economy and with South Africa aiming to meet its growth targets of the National Development Plan(NDP), a stronger emphasis must also shifted towards encouraging youth entrepreneurship.”
 
A recent EY report indicates that, if young entrepreneurs were nurtured and supported correctly, it can lead to meteoric growth, jobs and success across societies.
 
“Fostering a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem is one of the best ways to deal with the high youth unemployment rate, thanks to the large number of jobs that entrepreneurs create and the path to employment and fulfilment that starting a business can offer young people,” said Palanee.

“Governments have a vital role to play in facilitating and encouraging entrepreneurial development and a funding ecosystem."

In doing so, they will make it more likely that new businesses will take root, delivering the sustainable jobs and growth so vital for accelerated development, and helping to build a better working world.

The finalists (in alphabetical order by first name):

Master category

- Asher Bohbot of EOH;

- Craig Venter of Altron TMT;

- Douglas Munatsi of BancABC;

- Jad Pereira of Unitrade Management Services.

Exceptional category

- Anthony Leal of Xlink Communications;

- Divine Ndhlukula of Securico;

- Gavin Lucas, Stephen Lucas and Steven Horton of Stor-Age Self Storage;
    
- Jonathan Kelsey & Joe Swart of Joekels Tea Packers;

- Priakumari Hassan of Women of Africa Fuels & Oils.

Emerging category

- Glenn Pratt, Debbie Pratt, Mark Pratt, Nicole Miller, Candice Riley and Jenna van Jaarsveld of The Drain Surgeon;

- James Fisher of Nautic Africa;

- Justin Clarke of One Africa Media;

- Kim Malan-Thompson, Carryn Yates and Richard, Sharon and Rob Thompson of Cosmic Fashion Options.

The winners will be announced at a gala event to be held in November.

- Fin24