UK Entrepreneurs of the Year-worth tracking in the future

Interim Managers often have a high degree of entrepreneurism, approximately just over 5% of Interim assignments are pure start-ups, but many more assignments are driven by organisations looking for growth where Interims entrepreneurial skills are highly valued. I was privileged to attend yesterday evening, the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Ceremony hosted by Ernst & Young, a highly enjoyable event at the Grosvenor. The National finalists had emerged as the winners from the regional finals held during 2006.

I have listed the winners in each category as they are certainly individuals/organisations to track for the future!

Emerging Entrepreneur- David Gordon- David founded Windsave in 2002, born out of curiosity as to how he could capture the raw energy of the wind and put it in to a building. By harnessing the natural resource of wind and utilising modern technology the Windsave turbine provides the first on-site generation of electricity for the mass market.

Master Entrepreneur- Sir Anwar Pervez- Anwar founded Bestway Holdings, operators of cash-and-carry warehouses in 1976 with his first warehouse in Acton, West London. Bestway are now one of the largest operators in the UK.

Quoted Entrepreneur- Jonathan Straight- Straight was founded in 1993 supplying innovative container solutions for handling all elements of the waste stream. Current products include recycling boxes, home compost bins, kerbside baskets and wheeled bins.

Young Entrepreneur- Christina Domecq- Christina set up SpinVox in 2003 as the world's first voicemail-to-text service converting voicemails into texts sent directly to mobile phones or emails. Within two years Christina hopes that SpinVox will be providing services to 70% of the UK market within two years.

Business Products and Services- Assem Allam- Assem identified a gap in the world market of generating sets, believing that volume and economies of scale would be key to future success he developed a cash and carry model, Assem would like Allam Marine to achieve £100m turnover by 2010.

Consumer Products and Services and overall National WINNER- Tim Richards- Tim left a lucrative job with one of the world's largest international cinema operators in the US deciding to go it alone, Vue Entertainment was subsequently founded in 1998. There are now 53 cinemas and Tim plans to open another 20 over 2 years. The future is in digital projection and 3D movies.

Social Entrepreneur- Andrea and Barry Coleman- Andrea and Barry established Riders for Health in the motorcycle community to raise funds for children in difficulty in developing countries. The key initiative is to use motor bikes to improve healthcare delivery in isolated parts of Africa.

Technology and Communication- Dylan Thwaites- Dylan bought e-commerce company Corporem in 2001 which focussed on search engine marketing. In 2005 they re branded the business Latitude Group and today, they consider themselves the largest search engine marketing company in the UK with a turnover of £21m

I was seated next to the Chief Executive of Unusual Hotels of the World.com, which is an online guide for travelers wanting to stay somewhere different including underground, inside an igloo, up a tree, inside a giant dog or underwater - a fascinating and unusual site worth a surf.

Link to site: http://www.unusualhotelsoftheworld.com/

Thank you to Ernst & Young LLP for the inspiration behind this posting