The average lifespan of a Standard & Poor’s 500 business today is just 15 years. In addition, according to the World Economic Forum, five million net jobs will be lost around the world by 2020.
Clearly, the world’s economies are changing at an unprecedented rate and are being driven by forces which were well below the radar only until a few years ago. Above all, we are increasingly living in a world marked by widespread disruption of everything we have held to be economically and financially sacred.
The disruptive force of technology and innovation is transforming economies and the conduct of life itself at an unprecedented pace. There is no business, government or even individual that is unaffected by it. Some argue, with the comfort of history on their side, that the spirit of entrepreneurship was and always will be disruptive to lesser or greater extent. Because disruption is its very essence.
Successful ideas which reshaped economies over the centuries almost always started out as alien and initially unrecognised game changers, oddball thinking from left field.
For the last three decades we at EY have made it our mission to seek out the entrepreneurial ideas that moulded our collective future, men and women who changed the world because they see it differently from the rest.
An entrepreneur’s ability to take an idea build, scale and nurture it into a great company inspires all of us. That is why for 30 years we have been proud to celebrate such achievements at the annual EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Program – the pre-eminent recognition of entrepreneurial excellence.
Once again at last year’s World Entrepreneur of the Year Forum in Monaco, we saw up close how entrepreneurs are the pivotal drivers of innovation, job creation, and the ones challenging the status-quo.
We heard from many business leaders at last year’s Forum and there was one constant theme throughout. Entrepreneurs understand these challenges and are re-imagining the way businesses operate. Through technology and innovation they are enabling new forms of creativity, products, competition and jobs to thrive around the world.
They see the upside of disruption and seize the opportunity. Last year, the range of national EY Entrepreneur Of The Year contestants vying for the world title was truly inspiring. There was Ilkka Paanenen, the founder of Finnish mobile games developer Supercell who built a US $8 billion company in six short years.
Then there was Jim Tan, Group Managing Director and CEO of IRIS Corporation and winner of Entrepreneur of The Year Malaysia. A self-confessed ‘computer illiterate’, this accountant has nevertheless co-founded and piloted the invention of the world’s first electronic passport (epassport).
Gonzalo Bofill transformed his family firm by taking advantage of a disastrous fire. Founded in 1898 by an Italian immigrant to Chile, Empresas Carozzi is a fast-moving consumer goods business that is no in the hands of the fourth generation. Employing some 10,000 people and trading in over 50 countries, it is one of Latin America’s most important mass consumer goods companies.
These are just three of those who took part in last year’s EY World Entrepreneur of the Year. They were joined by many others from all four corners of the globe and, indeed, economic activity.
Our mission at EY is to build a better working world, a mission that drives all our initiatives and decisions. In this sense, EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year awards have pride of place because they encapsulate our clearest and most emphatic commitment to giving the best we can to our future.
This article is provided by EYGM, a member of the global EY organisation.