SCOTLAND's entrepreneurial prowess will be highlighted at a dinner at the Glasgow Hilton on November 27 when the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards are presented in front of about 500 guests.
Staged this year by Entrepreneurial Scotland in association with professional services firm Deloitte and media partner The Herald, the awards are Scotland's longest-standing annual prizes for growth-oriented entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurial Scotland is an organisation for ambitious entrepreneurs that has 400 members, representing more than £17 billion of turnover and 150,000 employees. The awards fall into two categories, Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year and Entrepreneur of the Year.
Our preview of the short- listed candidates in each category concludes with the three nominees for Entrepreneur of the Year.
Abdelhamid Guedroudj, who has built the Petroleum Experts business into a global player in the oil and gas technology industry, won the award last year.
Name: Tony Moloney
Company: Enterprise Foods
Location: East Kilbride
After stints as a soldier and as an officer in the fire service, Tony Moloney took an entrepreneurial turn into the food business and co-founded the Aunt Sally's cake firm in 1994. In the 20 years since then he has developed further successful catering operations such as the Anthony Alan Foods business, which was acquired by the Finsbury Food Group for £6.5 million in 2007, and ventures in very different sectors. The Enterprise Technologies venture Mr Moloney started in 2009, to develop products in areas including covert video surveillance, was sold to a bigger company in 2012.
After leading a buy-out of Enterprise Foods in 2007, Mr Moloney has built the firm into a leading UK supplier of craft bakery products to retailers. The company acts as a "conduit" between more than 450 local producers and the grocery multiples. Mr Moloney brought new private equity backing into the company earlier this year in a £29m deal and retained a 25 per cent stake in the business.
He owns the Touch 4 and LivSmarter businesses, which are active in the touchscreen technology and weight-loss businesses respectively.
Mike McGregor, the Deloitte Partner who led the team that interviewed nominees, said: "Tony's track record in acquisitions and disposals demonstrates his entrepreneurial flair and ability to take his knowledge and success and fully apply his experiences to businesses within different sectors."
Name: Kevin Stewart
Company: Meta
Location: Aberdeen
A born entrepreneur, Kevin Stewart started four businesses before he left school, including a quarterly disco that he paid teachers to supervise. After training as a mechanical engineer offshore, he linked up with an Aberdeen entrepreneur to start up Petro-Data, which developed technology to allow oil and gas firms to monitor wells remotely. The firm quickly showed promise and won £800,000 venture capital funding within two years of starting up. It was bought by a private equity fund in 2005.
Mr Stewart went on to play a key role in growing the Enventure business, developed by Shell and Halliburton into an international business with revenues of more than $300m. He became chief executive of the forerunner of Meta, Read Well Services, in 2011 a year after the oil and gas well technology venture was bought by a consortium led by Energy Ventures. Meta was launched in 2012 and under Mr Stewart's leadership has developed a strong portfolio of patented products and operations in Australia, Kuala Lumpuar, Dubai, Houston and the UK.
Mr Stewart also found time to found the Green Gecko oil and gas technology company, which he chairs. The three-year-old group has eight-figure commercial revenues and is working in the USA, Canada, UK and Middle East.
Describing Mr Stewart as motivated and energetic, Mr McGregor said: "To each new challenge he brings an ability to identify business development and growth opportunities, experience of international and strategic development, and a natural leader's talent for effecting real change."
Name: Peter Vardy
Company: Peter Vardy Motor Group
Location: Glasgow
Peter Vardy had a hard act to follow after deciding to start a business in the car sales trade in which his father Reg had become a household name. But after winning backing from his family, he has developed a company that could be set to match the success of the Reg Vardy operation. This was sold to Pendragon for £506 million in 2006. In the eight years since he opened his first dealership in Perth, the younger Mr Vardy has developed a fast-growing business with showrooms across Scotland selling a range of vehicles including prestige marques such as Porsche, Jaguar and Land Rover.
Mr Vardy places a big emphasis on hiring and retaining suitable staff, and introduced a policy that his dealerships would close on a Sunday to help get the best out of the workforce. He recently opened a "Car Supermarket" in Hillington, said to be the first of its kind in Scotland, where cars are displayed with set prices.
Convinced of the importance of corporate social responsibility, Mr Vardy is working with the social enterprise Glencraft, which supplies beds and mattresses to businesses and individuals from Aberdeen. Mr Vardy is helping to develop a new site for Glancraft to support its expansion, having bought the venture's existing site for re-development.
Mr McGregor said: "Overall Peter is a very impressive individual who is always open to new ideas of how to compete in the marketplace and ensure his organisation is the one of choice for both customer and employee."
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