Press release

14 Mar 2022 Singapore, SG

Nominations open for the 21st EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2022 awards in Singapore

Nominations for the annual awards are now open until 9 May 2022.

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Sophia Mah

Media Relations Lead (Assurance, Tax, Strategy and Transactions, Growth Markets), Ernst & Young Solutions LLP

Passionate about the influence of media, both old and new. Avid reader. Closet cynic. Loves to travel.

Related topics Entrepreneurship

Nominations for the annual EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ (EOY) awards in Singapore are now open until 9 May 2022. The awards, which was started in 2002 to coincide with the government’s focus on entrepreneurship, celebrates its 21st year anniversary this year.

The theme for the awards this year is “The Unstoppables”. The public and business community are encouraged to nominate outstanding entrepreneurs for the award at www.ey.com/sg/eoy.

Mr. Max Loh, Managing Partner for Singapore and Brunei, Ernst & Young LLP says:

“Now more than ever, as Singapore works toward recovering from the pandemic, entrepreneurs have an important role to play in energizing the economy and workforce. We look forward to celebrating the ambition, purpose and resilience of our leading entrepreneurs and the sustained impact that they are making to their business and ecosystem of stakeholders. This year, we have also updated the global judging criteria to better reflect the attributes of winning entrepreneurs that are key to driving long-term value.”

The nominees will be assessed by an independent judging panel across four globally benchmarked criteria of entrepreneurial spirit, growth, purpose and impact (see factsheet A).

Entrepreneurs who excel across the four criteria will be honored as winners of award titles that are designed to reflect their unique qualities or achievements. The individual who ranks the highest across all four criteria will be selected as the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022 Singapore to represent the country at the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year (WEOY) award next year.

Come June 2022, last year’s EOY Singapore winner, Dr. Zhou Lihan, Co-founder and CEO; Dr. Zou Ruiyang, Co-founder and CTO; and Mr. Isaac Ho, CIO of MiRXES will be Singapore’s representatives at the world award to compete with close to 60 other countries.

Commenting on the leadership lessons learned from the pandemic, Dr. Zhou Lihan, Co-founder and CEO of MiRXES, says:

“One should always lead by example, and be agile and fearless when making decisions. We have seen how important national security was for Singapore, specifically when the COVID-19 situation started last year. If we were not able to produce the test kits ourselves, there would be a lot of waiting and unknowns. This showed us that building our manufacturing base was a right decision even though when we first started, we had many detractors and many wondered why we were venturing into so many areas. As an entrepreneur, aside from making sound financial decisions, it is also about taking a leap of faith, trusting your instincts, and looking at the big picture.”

Partners and supporters for EOY awards

The Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) continues as a partner of the EOY awards for the third year.

Commenting on the awards, Mr. Pol de Win, Senior Managing Director and Head of Global Sales and Origination at the SGX, says:

“We are delighted to extend our partnership with EY to recognize home-grown entrepreneurs, whose vision and tenacity continue to inspire us in an increasingly unpredictable world. As Singapore faces a generational opportunity with Asia driving global growth and unprecedented capital flows, SGX is committed to provide an international platform for founders to profile their businesses and access global capital."

The supporters of the EOY awards include The Business Times, The Edge Singapore and Portfolio magazine (official media partners); and the supporters are Action Community for Entrepreneurship; Enterprise Singapore; Singapore Business Federation; and SkillsFuture Singapore.

On board the EOY platform, the EY organization will once again confer the EY Family Business Award of Excellence this year. The award recipient will be selected based on the family enterprise’s ability to successfully balance business and family issues, grow the business and show responsibility for others through philanthropic or social engagements (see factsheet B for eligibility and judging criteria).

Knowledge Partners, Business Families Institute @ Singapore Management University (BFI @ SMU) and The Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise, INSEAD, will select the winner. This is an honorary award presented for the 10th year and the award recipient does not compete for the EY EOY Singapore 2022 title.

For more information on the EOY awards, visit www.ey.com/sg/eoy.

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Notes to Editors

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This news release has been issued by Ernst & Young Solutions LLP, a member of the global EY organization.

About EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 

EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ is the world’s most prestigious business awards program for unstoppable entrepreneurs. These visionary leaders deliver innovation, growth and prosperity that transform our world. The program engages entrepreneurs with insights and experiences that foster growth. It connects them with their peers to strengthen entrepreneurship around the world. EY Entrepreneur Of The Year is the first and only truly global awards program of its kind. It celebrates entrepreneurs through regional and national awards programs in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries. Winners go on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ title. ey.com/eoy

Fact sheet A: Nomination and judging criteria

Nomination criteria:

To be a nominee, the candidate must be:

  • An owner-manager primarily responsible for the recent performance of a privately held Singapore-based company that is at least two years old, or
  • A founder of a listed Singapore-based company who is still active in senior management.

Judging criteria:

The following four judging criteria sets the global standard adhered to by each and every country participating in the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year awards.

Entrepreneurial spirit

  •  Identifies opportunities to innovate and create a better world.
  • Takes risks to realize their vision.
  • Demonstrates courage, perseverance and resilience to overcome significant obstacles.

Growth

  • Increases market share and expands into new markets.
  •  Drives positive financial performance.
  • Invests in attracting, developing and retaining a diverse mix of talent.
  • Builds a culture of innovation that pioneers new approaches or technologies.

Purpose

  • Commits themselves and their organization to an inspiring purpose and vision.
  • Drives strategies for a sustainable future business.
  • Creates and protects value in the long term, across a broad group of stakeholders, including consumers, employees, suppliers, government, communities, investors and shareholders.

Impact

  • Positively impacts the customers they serve.
  •  Integrates sustainable Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices in their strategy, with robust commitments and execution plans.
  •  Focuses on diversity and inclusion across multiple dimensions.

Fact sheet B: EY Family Business Award of Excellence

This winner will be selected by independent knowledge partners, Business Families Institute @ Singapore Management University and The Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise, INSEAD, based on the judging criteria below.

Eligibility:

Leadership of the company includes family member(s) from second or subsequent generations, or has multiple branches of a family involved in leadership (i.e., one individual and first generation would not qualify for the award).

  • The family still has a significant ownership and voting stake and is primarily responsible for setting the strategic direction and values for the firm.
  • The legal form of the company or group of companies is not relevant.
  • Companies may be private or publicly traded.
  • If the shares and voting rights have been transferred to a trust, it will remain to be considered as family enterprise if the family has dominant influence on the trust in a way described above.
  • The business or headquarter of the business is located in Singapore.

Judging criteria:

  • Companies shows evidence of a successful, sustainable and long term-oriented strategy.
  • Company has adopted an effective and transparent corporate governance approach, enabling the execution of the desired strategy and living out of family values.
  • Company governance enables unity among the family ownership (i.e., little evidence of significant family disputes impacting the business).
  • Demonstrated the ability of the family to preserve company culture, tradition and values and maintained the entrepreneurial spirit and continued innovation over generations.
  • Evidence shown of exceptional personnel management.
  • Commitment to philanthropic causes or corporate social responsibility.
  • Other exceptional achievements such as business awards, public service etc.