Spotlight shines on NSW entrepreneurs
Friday, 14 August 2009 — The spotlight shone on NSW entrepreneurs last night with five of the state’s best recognised in the 2009 Eastern Region Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in Sydney.
Congratulations to the 2009 Eastern Region winners:
- Kevin Maloney, The MAC Services Group (Listed category)
- Scott Frew, Distribution Central (Products category)
- Robert Castaneda, Customware (Services category)
- John-Paul Syriatowicz, Squiz (Technology & Emerging Industries category)
- Luke Baylis, SumoSalad (Young Entrepreneur category)
The Awards also celebrated the achievements of not-for-profit innovator Ray Dunn, Chief Executive Officer of care provider Life Without Barriers.
Ray was named Eastern Region Social Entrepreneur Of The Year for his work with Life Without Barriers, a national not-for-profit organisation that works to provide support to children and young people in crisis, people with a disability and those with a mental health issue.
Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Markets leader, Jon Dobell, says the Eastern Region entrepreneurs inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievements.
“The 2009 Eastern Region winners join a prestigious alumni of past winners who have, and continue to have, a significant impact on our business landscape, our economy and the broader community,” says Jon.
“These awards celebrate the vision of entrepreneurs who identify and seize market opportunities, bring news ideas and develop innovative methods and approaches.”
The Eastern Region category winners and social entrepreneur will go on to compete in the 2009 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year national awards in November.
Kevin Maloney, The MAC Services Group (Listed category)
In 1995, having built several highly successful businesses in and around the resources industry, Kevin Maloney saw another gap in that market. He realised no one was providing quality, serviced mining accommodation in regional and remote areas. To meet this need, he bought land in Moranbah and established the first MAC Village in 1996. At the time, outsourced mining accommodation was a new concept. Kevin had his work cut out both convincing major mining clients of the benefits of outsourcing accommodation and selling lenders on the merits of his business model. Today, The MAC Group is a top 300 Australian company and the leading accommodation services provider in its home market of the Bowen Basin. It has six villages, 5,300 rooms, million dollar revenues and delivered 34% profit growth for the six months to December 2008.
Scott Frew, Distribution Central (Products category)
Entering a market with global, trillion dollar competitors, Distribution Channel was unique in servicing vendors, while its six independent, specialised business units managed the reseller channel. Scott believed this approach would enable the company, and its vendor partners, to capitalise on all IT distribution opportunities in the Australian and New Zealand markets, without diluting the high level of specialisation required to service complex technology markets. Distribution Central differentiated itself by building its manufacturers a configurator that allowed them to develop a quote for a complex IT system in a matter of seconds, where previously this had taken days. By 2007, Distribution Central was listed at number eight in BRW’s Fast 100 Company list. Today, the company has 68 employees and a strong growth forecast.
Robert Castaneda, CustomWare (Services category)
In the aftermath of the dot.com crash, Robert Castaneda left Silicon Valley and returned to Australia with a plan to found an IT services company based on five core values: delight the customer, share the knowledge, think team, focus on the outcome and talk straight. In 2001, he established CustomWare with a vision of helping global customers to increase business velocity through automation, integrating legacy systems, web enablement, process improvement and social enterprise computing. Soon after launch, CustomWare won its first contract for a global integration project with Johnson & Johnson in China. Two years later, the company had a well established Asia presence, with numerous regional support contracts. In 2004, a $1 million contract with Sony took CustomWare into another growth phase, with Robert opening a Malaysian Development Centre. In 2007, the company opened a New Zealand office on the back of a Telecom NZ contract.
John-Paul Syriatowicz, Squiz (Technology & Emerging Industries category)
In 1998, John-Paul Syriatowicz founded Squiz as a website company focusing on technical solutions rather than graphic design. From the start, he followed two controversial business philosophies: first to develop open source software, and second to operate with little or no debt. John-Paul’s no debt approach served Squiz well through the dot.com crash. The company survived with a relatively small contraction, unlike the majority of its competitors who went under. With the exception of 2001, Squiz has met its annual target of 30% growth while maintaining 30% profitability, without incurring any debt. Meanwhile, open source went on to become a universally accepted IT strategy, giving Squiz a major competitive advantage. Today, Squiz is one the world’s largest web content management vendors, with 170 staff across five countries. The company is the creator of MySource, described by Gartner as one of the world’s top five open source content management systems. John-Paul has successfully expanded into new markets, including the UK, Poland and New Zealand. In 2009, he will open offices in Edinburgh, New York, Moscow and Berlin.
Luke Baylis, SumoSalad (Young Entrepreneur category)
Working in the US, Luke Baylis and James Miller weren’t surprised to be surrounded by an endless array of fatty, fast food stores. But, returning home, they realised the Australian fast food industry wasn’t any better at offering healthy, take-away food. They saw a gap in the market to create a healthy, nutritious fast food franchise. The first SumoSalad store opened in Sydney in 2003. SumoSalad differentiated itself by offering genuinely healthy, delicious and affordable food, using only the best and freshest ingredients. Its web site offered nutritional information to support customers in sticking to a healthy diet. Today, with over 75 stores, SumoSalad is rapidly changing food courts around Australia and the face of the fast-food industry, in the process helping people with busy lifestyles to improve their diets and wellbeing. Luke’s strategy for the next five years is to grow outlet numbers by a further 85%, while also focusing on consolidating the existing business and building the profitability of the franchisees. He intends to achieve this by improving processes and providing a more versatile product range that is tolerant of seasonal changes.
Ray Dunn, Life Without Barriers (Social Entrepreneur)
In 1999, Ray left a senior position in the NSW Government for the role of CEO at Life Without Barriers (LWB). The organisation was in its infancy. It existed financially from month to month, and all the programs were operating in and around Newcastle. Ray, however, had the creative vision and passion to innovate and drive improvements to the existing welfare services for disadvantaged young people. Ray was confident that the recruitment and support of specialist foster carers was the key to significantly improving the lives of children and young people in the foster care system and also those with a disability or mental health issue. The model Ray devised was unique in the welfare industry, offering support that surrounded the child and the carer. Today LWB is a national, multi-million dollar organisation. It is also the primary non-government provider of family-based care placements for young people with high, complex behavioural and/or medical needs in Australia. LWB has over 3,000 employees, including 1,500 carers, who support and place thousands of young people into caring home environments. Within its sector, LWB has set the standard for the delivery of welfare and foster care services. In the future, Ray foresees LWB expanding the types of programs that are offered to young people as part of its holistic services, continuing to increase its geographical presence, and developing new partnerships. Ray remains dedicated to his firm belief that LWB can make a significant difference to the lives of the people it works with and for.
About the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award program
Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year is the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs. The unique award makes a difference through the way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential, and recognises the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement.
As the first and only truly global award of its kind, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 135 cities in 50 countries.
Since Ernst & Young’s global program began in Australia in 2001, more than 800 leading Australian entrepreneurs have been recognised for their entrepreneurial spirit. Entrants are assessed by a leading panel of independent judges on their innovation, integrity, influence, strategic direction and national/global impact. Their relationships with their local communities are also taken into account.
The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year program is conducted across five regions in Australia with these winners progressing to the national awards ceremony in November. Independent judging panels, drawn from a broad range of successful Australian businesses, assess the entrepreneurs on their innovation, integrity, influence, strategic direction, and national or global impact.
The Australian Entrepreneur Of The Year is invited to represent Australia at the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year Award held annually in Monte Carlo. Former Australian winners have included Peter Farrell of ResMed Limited (2001), John Rothwell AO of Austal Limited (2002), David Bussau AM of Opportunity International (2003), Robert Gerard AO of Gerard Corporation (2004), Tony D’Antonio and Peter Hosking of Global Machinery Company Worldwide (2005), Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar of Atlassian (2006), Shane Yeend of Imagination (2007) and Rod Jones of Navitas (2008).
In Australia the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year program is sponsored by Westpac (primary sponsor), Qantas and supported by the Federal Government through Austrade.
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