Queensland’s best 2010 entrepreneurs honoured
Friday, 30 July 2010 — Five remarkable Queensland entrepreneurs have been celebrated for their entrepreneurial spirit and achievements at the 10th annual Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards held in Brisbane last night.
The 2010 Northern Region winners, by category, are:
- Young entrepreneur: Andrew Jessett, MineWare
- Technology & emerging industries: Matt Cudworth, Yeahpoint
- Services: Stuart Giles, APHS – Your Pharmacy Partner
- Products: Nigel Spork, Centor Architectural
- Cleantech: David Lumb, Clearmake Water Treatment and Recycling Solutions
Also recognised at the awards were:
- Social entrepreneur: Dr James Morton, AEIOU Foundation
- Champion of Entrepreneurship: Ian Frazer, Diamantina Institute for Cancer, Immunology and Metabolic Medicine
Jenny Parker, Ernst & Young’s Queensland Office Managing Partner, says the 2010 winners are inspiring and highlight the contribution entrepreneurs make to business, the economy, and the broader community.
“During the past 10 years of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in Australia, we have recognised more than 900 remarkable entrepreneurs and this year is no exception,” says Parker.
The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards are held in 135 cities in 50 countries around the world, celebrating those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses.
2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards, Northern Region
Category: Young Entrepreneur
Andrew Jessett, MineWare
At age 29, Andrew Jessett sold a dragline monitoring system to BHP Billiton, commercialising his own invention without seed money. Five years later his company, MineWare, is a leading global provider of sophisticated dragline monitoring technology to the open cut coal mining industry.
Category: Technology & emerging industries
Matt Cudworth, Yeahpoint
Matt Cudworth revolutionised retail marketing with a kiosk system that is now the market leader in Australia and Singapore. Yeahpoint has grown revenue by over 100% year-on-year since the company began and is now poised for global expansion.
Category: Services
Stuart Giles, APHS – Your Pharmacy Partner
Active Care Pharmacy proprieter, Stuart Giles, rescued Active Care’s parent entity from administration and executed a bold merger strategy that created APHS, now Australia’s largest specialist aged care, hospital and oncology pharmacy provider. Since 2008, additional acquisitions have increased revenue by nearly 40% and doubled EBITDA.
Category: Products
Nigel Spork, Centor Architectural
Nigel Spork turned a failing Australian small business into the worldwide trailblazer in folding door technology. Today, Centor Architectural is a global business that dominates the Australian, US and UK markets.
Category: Cleantech
David Lumb, Clearmake Water Treatment and Recycling Solutions
David Lumb turned a struggling company into a winner, achieving sales growth of more than 35% and an 18.5% EBITDA margin in his first year of owning Clearmake Water Treatment and Recycling Solutions. With new IP driving an expanded product range, he believes the company is capable of growing by more than 40% in the next few years.
Category: Social entrepreneur
Dr James Morton, AEIOU Foundation
Unable to find help for his autistic son, Dr James Morton founded the largest provider of best practice early intervention care to autistic children in Australia. The full-time program is designed to give these children the skills to successfully complete the rest of their education in mainstream schools. Each centre is staffed with specialist early childhood teachers, speech pathologists, occupational and music therapists. Astonishingly, 70% of children from AEIOU centres transition successfully to mainstream schools, with the majority requiring little or no additional support. By 2012, AEIOU will be providing full-time specialist care to 50% of children with autism in Queensland. In the next five years, James plans to support children with autism from diagnosis through childcare, school and ultimately into the work force and to replicate his model in NSW.
Category: Champion of Entrepreneurship
Ian Frazer, Diamantina Institute for Cancer, Immunology and Metabolic Medicine
Professor Ian Frazer is the entrepreneurial scientist responsible for developing the world’s first cervical cancer vaccine. Cervical cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer death among women, killing about 250,000 women worldwide every year. Ian’s breakthrough has inspired other scientists to follow in his footsteps, helping to create a culture of entrepreneurship in the traditionally less commercial sphere of scientific research. Ian is President of the Cancer Council Australia, the Chairman of the Australian Cancer Research Foundation’s Medical Research Advisory Committee and has sat on various committees of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia continuously over the last 15 years. He also advises the World Health Organisation and the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation on papillomavirus vaccines. Ian was Australian of the Year in 2006 and was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science in October 2008.
Full biographies on the winners can be found at www.eoy.ey.com.au.
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