Entrepreneur of the Year search begins

THE search for the 2011 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year is on with the deadline for the nominations for the five categories of the search set for May 31.

Maria Madeira Vestil, SGV & Co. Cebu partner in charge who facilitates the nomination process in Cebu, said the nomination was officially opened in Manila in March and was officially announced in Cebu yesterday in a press conference.

The five categories for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year are Master Entrepreneur, Small Business Entrepreneur, Woman Entrepreneur, Tourism Entrepreneur and Social Entrepreneur.

“The search is open to all Filipino entrepreneurs. To be eligible, a nominee has to be a Filipino business owner or founder who is primarily responsible for the growth of his or her company,” Vestil said.

Vestil said that the nominated company must also be at least two years old in operation as of Dec. 31, 2010 and is still active.

“To nominate, one only needs to fill out the nomination form and submit the needed documents such as audited financial statements and other documents that may be required,” she said.

An individual can nominate himself or he can be nominated by an organization which believes that his story in business can help inspire other businesses in the country and in the world for the global program.

“For the Master Entrepreneur category, we are looking for an individual who maintained management excellence over a long period of time with the business founded over five years ago. The Small Business Entrepreneur is someone engaged in industry and or services whose total assets including those arising from loans and excluding the land or property where the business is located does not exceed P100 million.”

Vestil said this year’s industry-specific entrepreneur award is focused on tourism and the awardee should have exemplary performance.

“This covers the businesses of service rendered to tourists, including transportation, guided tours, accommodation and recreation. Facilities like amusement parks, adventure and ecotourism facilities, sports, theme parks, agri-tourism farms training centers and institutes and health and wellness facilities are also included,” she said.

The woman entrepreneur awardee is someone who has shown outstanding management excellence that makes her a trailblazer or a trendsetter in her particular field of business while the social entrepreneur is someone who has applied practical, innovative and market-oriented approaches to his or her business.

“Social entrepreneur must have done something that helped solve problems in a community and benefited the poor. The business may have focus on enterprise development, health education, environment, labot conditions or human rights,” Vestil said.

She said that since Ernst & Young was introduced in the country in 2003, Cebu has been a constant supplier of inspiring nominees which made it as finalist in the national program.

“Cebu has 15 finalists out of the 26 total finalist which means we have many businesses here that inspires. It could be a story about a businessman whose own family did not believe in him and did not support his idea but achieved success anyway aside from the capital unavailability,” Vestil said.

Among the 15 Cebuano finalists are William Liu and Justine Uy of Profoods International Corp., who attended the forum and shared that they were very honored to be given the award that, despite having no cash prices, is already a priceless award.

They said it has given them the avenue to meet other inspiring businessmen who later on became their friends and business partners whom they share best practices with.

The theme of this year’s program is “Shine,” which aims to recognize an entrepreneur as a shining ray of hope and inspiration that others can follow.

“To request for forms, you can contact the secretariat at (02) 891-0307 local 7766,” Vestil said.