Entrepreneur of the Year 2020: Switzerland's best entrepreneurs honored

Every year, the auditing and consulting firm EY presents the "Entrepreneur Of The Year" award in five categories to entrepreneurs who have rendered outstanding services. Traditionally, the award ceremony takes place at a festive gala. Due to the current situation, EY decided at an early stage to hold this year's award ceremony in the form of a hybrid gala. Thus, this year's award show - in compliance with a strict protection concept - was streamed live from the studio of Swiss Television in Zurich on October 30, 2020. The jury, finalists and the organizers were present on site. The invited guests, including the families and friends of the award winners, were able to virtually participate in the ceremony and interact with each other thanks to the live stream. In total, over 1,000 viewers from 20 countries took part in this digital premiere.

Entrepreneur of the Year 2020: The Winners

In 2020, an eleven-member jury was responsible for evaluating the candidates and awarding the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards. It examined the candidates independently of EY. The following entrepreneurs have now been chosen from the finalists:

• Patrick Firmenich, Chairman of the Board of Directors Firmenich, Geneva
  The winner in the "Family Business" category is Patrick Firmenich, because he has held the tradition of the family-owned company together so successfully for many years that it is one of the top companies in the world. Patrick Firmenich is the family delegate and chairman of a traditional family business that was founded back in 1895. Today, the largest privately owned fragrance and aroma company is present in over 100 markets. More than 10,000 people work for the Swiss company worldwide.
• Marek Dutkiewicz, Founder and CEO HR Campus, Dübendorf (ZH)
  The resume of the winner in the "Services/Trade" category shows that true entrepreneurship is borderless. Marek Dutkiewicz came to Switzerland as a Polish refugee and started his company HR Campus in 1998 as a technology provider for HR departments. Today, with more than 160 employees, the company is the leading service and IT provider dedicated to HR excellence. Its tools, solutions and platforms cover the entire employee lifecycle for HR professionals.
• Avni Orllati, Founder and Board Delegate Groupe Orllati, Bioley-Orjulaz (VD)
  The winner in the "Industry/High-Tech/Life Sciences" category receives recognition for his hard work that led to an inspiring start-up story. In 1997, at the age of 21, Avni and his twin brother started their own business by renting a machine that breaks up concrete. Today, Orllati is a leader in the field of "green building" and employs over 850 people in western Switzerland. The company specializes in all areas of preparatory construction work, such as demolition, earthworks, wastewater disposal, and drilling.
• Michael Born and Karim Nemr, Co-Founder and CEO respectively Chief Business Officer PXL Vision AG, Zurich
  The winners in the "Emerging Entrepreneurs" category are honored for having developed an absolutely convincing future technology. Michael Born and Karim Nemr met at 3D scanning specialist Dacuda (2012 EOY winner) and decided to develop this technology further. Today, PXL Vision provides a technology platform for secure identity verification and trusted digital identities. The platform is a scalable business model that is only at the beginning of a large and global application area.

Stefan Rösch-Rütsche, Country Managing Partner of EY Switzerland, comments: "This year's implementation of our "EY Entrepreneur Of The Year" election has once again shown that Switzerland has a very large potential of innovative entrepreneurial personalities. I am also pleased to see that a wide variety of professional and private paths can lead to successful entrepreneurship in Switzerland."

Logitech founder honored for lifetime professional achievement

At the same time today with Daniel Borel a long-standing, successful and deserving Swiss entrepreneurial personality was also honored. He received this year's "Master Entrepreneur" award from the jury for his professional life's work. Daniel Borel co-founded Logitech in 1981 and led the computer mouse manufacturer as CEO from 1992 to 1998. He served as Chairman of the Board of Directors from 1988 to 2007 and subsequently as a member of the Board of Directors until 2015. In 1988, Daniel Borel led Logitech to the Swiss stock exchange SIX and in 1997 also to the US technology exchange Nasdaq. Jury member Prof. Dr. Thomas Zellweger says: "With Logitech, Daniel Borel and his comrades-in-arms have written a Swiss success story that has attracted international attention. Today, Logitech is headquartered in Switzerland, engineers and researchers work in America, and products are manufactured in Asia. There are few companies from Switzerland that have achieved a listing on Nasdaq. At the same time, Borel also mastered entrepreneurial crises, such as when the company had to lay off half of its workforce in 1994."

Source and further information: EY