Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022: Five personalities honored
The Entrepreneur Of The Year was awarded for the 25th time on October 28, 2022. With this award, the auditing and consulting company EY honors personalities all over the world for their entrepreneurial achievements every year.
In front of 400 invited guests, the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022 award ceremony took place in Dübendorf on October 28. This comprehensive support program for entrepreneurs was held in Switzerland for the 25th time. Striking this year was the fact that four of the five awarded entrepreneur personalities came from the canton of St.Gallen. "A strong sign for Eastern Switzerland as a business location," said Sascha Stahl, Program Pargner of EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Switzerland. Another award went to Western Switzerland. A ten-member jury was responsible for evaluating the finalists and awarding the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022 Award in a total of four categories; the jury reviewed the candidates independently of EY. EY in Switzerland was supported in the Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2022 program by Credit Suisse as program partner and AMAG, Bucherer, SWISS and HDI as sponsors.
Category "Industry, High-Teh & Life Sciences": Andreas Wälti, Evatec AG
Andreas Wälti, CEO of Evatec AG from Trübbach in St. Gallen, is no stranger to the readers of our medium. 2020 the Prix SVC Ostschweiz. His company was formed in 2004 from a management buyout of the former Unaxis, which in turn emerged from Gerätebauanstalt Balzers, founded in 1946. Andreas Wälti and Marco Padrun turned the conglomerate into a global innovation leader for process solutions and mechanical engineering for thin films. These layers are so thin that they are in the nano range and are used in semiconductor technology, precision optics and optoelectronics. "Andreas Wälti impressed with his irrepressible entrepreneurial strength, with which he has made his company indispensable on global markets as a Swiss high-tech brand," was the jury's tribute.
Category "Service & Trade": Carsten Koerl, Sportradar AG
Engineer Carsten Koerl has always been interested in using data to make successful forecasts. Two startups have emerged from his ideas. Finally, in 2001, he founded Sportradar AG in St.Gallen with a partner because he noticed that everyone in sports wants accurate data and no one can provide it. Since then, he has been collecting sports data in real time for sports clubs, media houses, bookmakers and sports organizations. The company employs 3000 people in over 20 countries and is going public with an IPO on NASDAQ in 2021. From a niche, Carsten Koerl has succeeded in creating a business empire that for a long time had received far too little attention, according to the tribute by Sascha Stahl.
Family Business" category: Franziska Tschudi Sauber and Daniel Tschudi, Weidmann Holding AG
In 2001, Franziska Tschudi Sauber and her brother Daniel Tschudi became the fifth generation to inherit the extremely traditional Weidmann Holding in Rapperswil-Jona, also in the canton of St.Gallen. The company is now the world market leader for electrical insulation of transformers and specializes in high-quality plastic components for medical and pharmaceutical technology. With 2700 employees at 30 locations around the globe, the Weidmann Group is one of the few industrial groups to maintain its market dominance internationally. "Franziska Tschudi Sauber and her brother Daniel Tschudi stand for a lived family tradition that upholds and develops the Swiss pioneering spirit in industry," says Sascha Stahl.
Emerging Entrepreneurs" category: Yann Cotte, Nanolive SA
As mentioned, the award in this category went to the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Yann Cotte and Fatih Toy founded Nanolive in 2013 at the EPFL Innovation Park in Lausanne with the idea of revolutionizing the cell research industry. Today, Nanolive offers a globally unique technology to observe living cells in 3D without destructive dyes, which is enormously valuable for research. The technology, which is exported to 95% worldwide, is modularly scalable for hardware and software, promising great future potential. The jury recognized Yann Cotte as a visionary in the high-tech medical field, but one who knows how to implement a promising business model. "Yann Cotte is a true revolutionary in his field and his success clearly shows how positively the Lake Geneva region around EPFL is developing," commented Frédéric Tissot, Director Entrepreneurship & Family Enterprise Suisse Romande at EY.
Source and further information: EY
