Road to Monte Carlo: World EOY 2011 - judges profiles - Ernst & Young - Global

2011 World Entrepreneur Of The Year Judging Chairman
Trained as a civil engineer, Tan Sri Francis took over the running of his family’s company in 1988 and grew it into a business conglomerate comprised of six listed companies, with a combined market capitalization of over USD10.7b and assets of over USD13b. YTL owns and manages regulated utilities and other infrastructural assets, serving 10 million customers on three continents.

Ranked by both Fortune Magazine and Business Week Magazine as one of Asia’s 25 Most Powerful and Influential Business Personalities, Francis has won many business awards, including the Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.

An ardent advocate of environmental conservation, Francis supports clean and renewable energy initiatives. He also has a passion for the arts and is Regional Chairman of International Friends of the Louvre and the driving force behind The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre.

Francis is the Primus Inter Pares Honouree of the 2010 Oslo Business for Peace Award for his advocacy of socially responsible business ethics and practices. The award was conferred by a panel of Nobel Laureates in Oslo, home of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, José Luiz Alqueres graduated as a civil engineer and earned his postgraduate degree in Urban and Energy Planning at Chicago University.

As an engineer, Alqueres worked in construction, engineering, large energy equipment manufacturing companies, public water, energy and transportation. He held the CEO position at CERJ (Rio de Janeiro Electricity Company), Eletrobras, Alstom do Brasil and Light SA.

Over the course of his career, Alqueres has held senior executive positions at the Brazilian Development Bank, Simonsen Advisory Opportunity, Calyon, Signature-Lazard Freres, Pactual, Arsenal Investments and Rio Bravo Investment Bank. As Brazil’s National Secretary of Energy, he was active in the privatization of the infrastructure sector.

For his outstanding career and work with charities and cultural initiatives, Alqueres has been honored with distinguished awards, including Officier de L’Ordre National du Mérite, France.

He serves on the Board of many companies, including ALCOA Brasil and is a member of the Executive Board of the ICC – International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. He is honorary Vice President of the World Energy Council, Vice President of ABDIB (Brazilian Infrastructure Association) and CEBRI’s Board (International Relations).

Jack Cowin moved to Australia from Canada at the age of 26 to establish his business with the support of loans from 30 Canadians. Today the business has grown from a single foodservice outlet to a business of $1.2b in revenue employing 26,000 staff throughout Australia. The group is also the major shareholder in three companies operating in Canada and the US as well as a joint venture in Malaysia.

In addition to operating 350 restaurants in Australia, the company operates five manufacturing facilities producing frozen value-added meat products as well as processing fresh vegetables. The company exports to 29 countries.

Cowin is also a director of the Network Ten television business, Chandler McLeod, a listed recruitment company and Sydney Olympic Park and is the largest shareholder in BridgeClimb, a major tourist attraction in Sydney.

Diane Foreman began her entrepreneurial career as a child. Today, under her holding company, Emerald Group, she employs 4,110 people and has a global reach that spans 32 countries. Its three main businesses are Healthcare Holdings, Emerald Foods and Emergent Recruitment.

Healthcare Holdings has revolutionized health care in New Zealand. Its hospitals and clinics provide 45,000 operations and procedures annually and is New Zealand’s only provider of private radiotherapy for cancer treatment, robotic surgery and PET scanning.

Emerald Foods manufactures 15 million liters of ice cream in New Zealand which is exported to 4,000 supermarkets, 711 franchised New Zealand Natural outlets and 300 hotel chains. A dedicated in-house laboratory has led to innovations including ice cream that looks like sushi, wheat- and gluten-free ice cream and many more.

Emergent is a market leader in executive contracting, servicing many of New Zealand’s leading businesses.

Dedicated to social responsibility, Foreman partnered with the New Zealand Government (who matched her dollar for dollar) to create a facility that teaches deaf, cochlear-implanted children. Her efforts have changed the lives of thousands of children in New Zealand.

Yves Guillemot was 26 when his four brothers nominated him president of their small family business, Ubisoft. Almost 25 years later, Guillemot still relies on the support of his brothers to guide him through important business decisions.

Ubisoft, with more than 6,000 people, is the third leading video game company worldwide, multiplying its turnover by five over the last 10 years. In 1995, Ubisoft was the only western developer to have a game — Rayman — ready for the Sony PlayStation launch.

In 2006, it seized the launch of the Nintendo Wii to bring gaming to a mainstream audience.

Overall, Ubisoft has brought to life 19 multimillion-unit-selling brands, including blockbusters such as Assassin’s Creed, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and Just Dance, offering experiences that are not only fun to play but rich in learning and emotion.

Brian Long is Managing Partner and founder of Atlantic Bridge Ventures, a mid-market technology fund based in Dublin and London. The fund has in excess of €240m under management and has recently closed a first round of €85m commitments in a new fund, Atlantic Bridge II.

Prior to founding Atlantic Bridge, Long founded Parthus Technology Inc a semiconductor company that develops IC and software technology solutions for the mobile and smart phone markets. In 2000, Long brought Parthus public on the Nasdaq and London stock markets, reaching a market cap of $2b, and in 2002 merged with DSP Group to form Ceva Inc.

In 2005, Long founded GlovNav Inc, a GPS fables Semiconductor Company, which developed single-chip GPS solutions for the cell phone market. He successfully sold the company in 2008 to NXP, now part of ST-Ericsson.

Long is an advisor and board member of nine technology companies and a former winner of the Entrepreneur Of The Year Ireland.