West’s best 2009 entrepreneurs
Friday, 24 July 2009 — Six of Western Australia’s best entrepreneurs – in industries spanning shoe retailing, transport, uranium mining, deep-sea diving, waste management and fertilisers – have been recognised in this year’s Western Region Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in Perth last night.
Congratulations to the 2009 Western Region winners:
- Danny Breckler, Betts Group (Products category)
- Ian Cook, Sadleirs Transport (Services category)
- John Borshoff, Paladin Energy (Listed category)
- Doug Austin, Divex (Technology & Emerging Industries category)
- Tom Rudas, AnaeCo (Cleantech category)
- Pankaj Oswal, Burrup Fertilisers (Young Entrepreneur category)
The Awards also celebrated the achievements of mining magnate Andrew Forrest and his wife Nicola, and Perth businessman Kerry Stokes AC.
Andrew and Nicola Forrest were named Western Region Social Entrepreneur Of The Year for their work as co-founders of the Australian Children’s Trust, assisting underprivileged children, particularly indigenous children. Kerry Stokes AC was awarded the Western Region Champion of Entrepreneurship, recognising his business achievements in the media sector, as well as rental, property, mining and construction.
Ernst & Young Perth Managing Partner, Jeff Dowling, says the 2009 winners highlight the depth of entrepreneurial talent and achievement in WA.
“Entrepreneurs are all driven by an intense passion and commitment to their vision and the successes of our 2009 Western Region Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year winners show this,” he says.
“It is that innate ‘vision’ that allows entrepreneurs to see challenges as opportunities, and to adapt and grow in the new market reality, with fresh ideas and new business models.”
The Western Region category winners and social entrepreneur will go on to compete in the 2009 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year national awards in November.
Danny Breckler, Betts Group (Products)
In 1985, at the age of 25, Danny Breckler took over his family’s footwear business. It was a tough time for local retailers, with the introduction of major suburban retail shopping centres bringing competition from national and international players, resulting in pressure on sales and margins. To counter this, Danny began expanding his operations nationally with a number of acquisitions in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, taking the group into Victoria, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. In 2000, in the face of another surge of increased competition, Danny began repositioning the Betts Group, turning it into a vertically integrated business that could design and source its own products. He established Zu Shoes and started designing and developing footwear products and accessories for manufacture in China. To reduce the level of third party involvement in acquiring product from Chinese manufacturers, he also developed the Betts Group China Resource Centre, which handled quality control and transportation.
Today, Betts has 1,500 employees and 165 stores in every Australian State and Territory, with offices in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and China and a franchise store in the United Arab Emirates. Thanks to Danny’s vertically integrated strategy, the Betts Group owns nationally recognised brands for children’s shoes (Betts Kids), premium men and women’s fashion footwear and accessories (Zu), contemporary affordable men and women’s dress and casual footwear and accessories (Betts) and contemporary comfort/technological men’s and women’s fashion shoes (Airflex).
A number of international companies now order a range of Betts-designed shoes, recognising the Betts Group’s design and sourcing expertise and commitment to global best practice. In addition, over 130 independent retailers in Australia now stock Airflex shoes. Danny’s five-year plan includes growing the group to 250 stores and further developing international wholesaling and franchising opportunities.
Ian Cook, Sadleirs Transport (Services)
In 1993, when Ian Cook took over as Managing Director of Sadleirs Transport, the business was financially sound but had achieved little growth. Under his leadership, the company has delivered consistent revenue and profit growth for 15 years. Rather than following the company’s previous diversification strategy, Ian decided to grow the core business by expanding its range of transport-related services and he set aggressive goals to grow the business annually by at least 15% over the long term.
To execute this strategy, Ian put controls in place to ensure growth was profitable. He made business units autonomous in achieving results, while adhering to company policy and goals, and he introduced staff incentives. He also invested in handling equipment and updated the vehicle fleets to improve branding and productivity. On the back of a five year contract, the business also entered a new market of bulk transport. Ian’s strategy for the business proved successful, with its multi-million dollar turnover more than doubling between 1999 and 2006. The following year, Sadleirs Transport opened an international freight office in Brisbane.
Today, Sadleirs Transport is one of Australia's leading transport groups and an internationally recognised logistics provider. Ian believes part of his success comes from setting high standards of integrity. In an industry known for ‘cowboys’, he has established a culture of openness and honesty, where management is always available to respond to staff and customer issues. This has helped to create both an exemplary reputation and a high staff retention rate. Retaining staff, which Ian sees as another key success factor, is also helped by his insistence on investing in employee training, rewarding long service and having a sound and safe working environment. Ian’s future goal is to continue to grow the existing business at around 15% p.a., while identifying acquisition opportunities.
John Borshoff, Paladin Energy (Listed category)
In 1991, when his West German employer withdrew from the dying Australian uranium industry, John Borshoff acquired the company’s databases and used them to found Paladin Energy. When Paladin listed on the ASX in 1994, the geological, metallurgical and environmental data gave the company enormous credibility. John sees the years following Paladin’s listing as ‘character building’. To survive in a period where funding for resources, and particularly uranium, was almost impossible, Paladin diversified its activities into software and IT companies.
In 2002, Paladin purchased the Langer Heinrich Project in Namibia for A$15,000 and John waited patiently for two years until funds became available to grow his company. In January 2004, he was able to start building two uranium mines in Africa – the world’s first new conventional uranium mines in 20 years. Developing a uranium mine in Malawi was particularly difficult. The mine was the largest private investment in Malawi’s history, which would increase GDP by 10%. But the government had no precedent or framework to deal with the complexity of establishing this type of project, and John had to placate numerous, divergent interest groups. Despite the challenges, both mines proved successful. Today, Paladin remains the second largest pure play uranium mining company in Australia and Canada and the eighth largest mineral resource company in Australia. The company has a market capitalisation of $2.6 billion and employs 500 people. In addition to developing a strong pipeline of projects in Australia, John plans to expand Paladin into Africa, North America and Asia, taking advantage of the nuclear revival he expects in future decades.
Doug Austin, Divex (Technology & Emerging Industries Category)
After lengthy discussions with the principle shareholder of Divex Ltd in the UK, Doug Austin persuaded him to invest in a partnership to develop a smaller, lightweight version of the Divex deep diving system for the Asia Pacific region. Fighting the UK’s preference to base the new company in Singapore, Doug convinced his investors that the expertise, real estate, subcontract skills and marine experience in Western Australia would be the best location for the new venture.
In 2003, Divex Asia Pacific was born. The company became the first in the world to design and build truly portable, modular systems, which can be transferred from one mother ship to another, and yet still achieve the high demands of Classification by Lloyds Register of Shipping – a standard only previously attained by heavy, built-in systems. With the oil industry boom taking off, Divex Asia Pacific was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the increase in demand for deep diving systems and, over three years, won seven multi-million dollar projects. Meanwhile, in the military sector, Divex produced highly efficient diving rebreathers that allow divers to remain underwater longer, increase their safety, and enable them to work safely in minefields with totally silent and non-magnetic diving systems. As a result, the company developed a strong reputation in both the commercial and military markets in Australia and the region. By the end of 2008, Divex had a multi-million dollar turnover, having achieved consistent sales and profit growth of over 30% over each of its first five years.
Over the next five years, Doug intends to expand into the US and Europe. Recognising that the market for new diving systems is finite, he also plans to structure the business with a focus on product support – helping customers to maximise their investment in Divex equipment.
Tom Rudas, AnaeCo (Cleantech category)
Experience working with a small, privately owned company that built Australia’s first alternative waste technology facility, gave Tom Rudas an idea for a new type of waste management technology. In 1999, he founded AnaeCo and began developing the DiCOM System – the first ever combination of aerobic composting and anaerobic digestions processes inside a single closed vessel for treating organic waste. His vision was to create a compelling product for local authorities, and any other waste generators, currently disposing of organic waste in landfill.
In the absence of adequate investment capital willing to take the risk to back a commercialisation project, Tom realised the only way he could fund his venture was to commercialise new technology on a live project. This meant securing both a local government authority willing to commit to a long-term off-take for waste, as well as an infrastructure fund investor willing to commit equity capital to commercialise AnaeCo’s technology.
Eventually, the commercial demonstration was financed by an infrastructure investment fund, which justified this as a means of securing a potential future pipeline of infrastructure asset investment. This was largely facilitated by the support of a champion in that organisation who saw Tom’s vision. Having commissioned the first DiCOM plant at WMRC project, Shenton Park, Western Australia, AnaeCo is now poised for a mass market roll out of DiCOM. Tom will achieve this by virtue of a handful of key commercial relationships, underpinned by strong relationships between his key people and their counterparts in other organisations. Internationally, AnaeCo has attracted a significant amount of interest. Tom fields many enquiries from overseas and has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a company operating in India. He also sees the UK as a potential market that he is progressing with this year.
Pankaj Oswal, Burrup Fertilisers (Young Entrepreneur category)
Of the many global parties who signed gas contracts to build petrochemical plants on the Burrup Peninsular, Burrup Fertilisers has been the only one to achieve success. Newly arrived to Australia and only 29 years old, but with a strong family background in the business, Pankaj Oswal raised US$1 billion and persuaded local governments to support his dream of building a world-class ammonia plant in the north west of Western Australia. Having initiated discussions in 2000 with the West Australian government, in April 2006, the new plant was successfully commissioned. Within one month, it reached design capacity of 2200 tonnes per day. In November 2007, the one millionth tonne of ammonia was shipped. In June 2008, the first major shut down of the plant was completed on time and within budget, increasing production to 2,400 tonnes per day.
Today, Burrup Fertilisers is the operator of one of the world’s largest, single train merchant ammonia plants, with 125 employees in Australia and 300 worldwide via the Oswal Group Global Network. Burrup Fertilisers is considered a fierce competitor in the global ammonia market, with the lowest production costs of the product in South East Asia, while producing in excess of 4% of the world’s tradeable ammonia. The company has singularly shifted Australia’s position in the ammonia trade from an importer to an exporter. The plant’s success has allowed diversification into further supporting and expanding businesses, with Pankaj establishing the Oswal Group Global, including businesses in a vast range of sectors from power to lifestyle restaurants. Pankaj is also currently planning on constructing a technical ammonium nitrate plant, thereby introducing further downstream processing facilities. He aims to repay debt from cashflows and then draw on his team’s expertise to develop further petrochemical projects in the region.
Andrew and Nicola Forrest, Australian Children’s Trust (Social Entrepreneur)
Andrew is a Director and co-founder of the Australian Children’s Trust and his commitment to helping underprivileged children is well known. He has been at the forefront of initiating programs for the benefit of children across Australia and is the primary funder of the Trust, established with the philosophy of helping people to gain the skills to help themselves. This philosophy is also evident in the Australian Employment Covenant (AEC), an industry-led initiative of Andrew’s bringing together Indigenous people, employers and the Australian Government. The goal of the AEC is to place 50,000 Indigenous people into work with sustainable employment.
Nicola is a Director and co-founder of the Australian Children’s Trust. She is also a director of the Women and Infants Research Foundation (WIRF), which is one of Australia’s pre-eminent community-based research organisations. Dedicated to obstetrics, gynecology and newborn medicine, WIRF has a close working relationship with King Edward Memorial Hospital which is the sole tertiary level prenatal centre for Western Australia, and the School of Women’s and Infants’ Health of the University of Western Australia.
Kerry Stokes AC, Seven Network Limited (Champion Of Entrepreneurship)
Kerry Stokes’s leadership of the Seven Network caps four decades of his involvement in the ownership and management of media companies in Australia. Today, Seven Network Limited’s joint venture, Seven Media Group, is recognised as one of Australia’s leading media companies, with a presence in broadcast television, magazine publishing and online through the Yahoo!7 joint venture with Yahoo! Inc. Kerry is also Chairman of West Australian Newspapers. Through his private companies, including Australian Capital Equity and WesTrac Pty Limited, Kerry has broad business interests and investments in a range of sectors including property, construction, mining and oil exploration. Through all the companies associated with Australian Capital Equity, both private and public, they account for over 10,000 employees in Australia and China.
In the last 15 years, Kerry has taken a personal interest in building and developing Telethon. Telethon is Western Australia’s charitable fund-raising activity which supports the Children’s Telethon Institute. Kerry’s well recognised art collection is a constant lender of Australian and international works to Australian and international institutions.
Kerry has received the Order of Australia and in 2008 was awarded the Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia. He has also been recognised by the Australian Institute of Company Directors for his contribution to economic progress and corporate governance, and his contributions to the community and efforts in not-for-profit organisations. He is a former chairman of the National Gallery of Australia, a former director of the Western Australian Gallery and former chairman of the Western Australian Art Gallery Foundation. Kerry is also a Council Member of the Australian War Memorial, as well as an international member for the Paley Centre for Media (formerly the Museum of Radio & Television New York), a life member of Variety Australia, and a Member for the International Council of the Louvre, Paris.
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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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About Ernst & Young
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