This year's Entrepreneurial Scotland Awards celebrates 21 years of Scotland's top entrepreneurial talent. The awards honour individuals who have excelled in entrepreneurial leadership over the past 12 months.
Once again Deloitte is delighted to continue to support the awards through our backing of the 'Entrepreneur of the Year' category. This prestigious accolade, has been won by some of Scotland's most high profile entrepreneurs including Jim McColl OBE of Clyde Blowers (1999), David Sibbald, Alantech (2000), Ann Budge of Newell & Budge (2005), and Mike Loggie of Saltire Energy (2015).
This year Barclays will be backing a new award category "Scale-Up Entrepreneur of the Year" (previously Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year). Scotland has a growing number of companies with the potential to scale-up and become a major force in the business world. The new category will recognise the achievements of leaders who are building a scale-up organisation or enterprise with outstanding potential. Previous winners of the emerging award include Lucinda Bruce Gardyne, Genius Gluten Free (2005), and Mike Welch, Blackcircles (2014).
Deloitte is looking forward to working with our partners to search for the best entrepreneurial talent in Scotland, and to recognising the individuals who have excelled over the past 12 months. Scotland has long been a hub of entrepreneurial activity and the past few years have demonstrated just how many inspirational leaders and innovative new businesses there are trailblazing the way for others to follow.
Nominations are invited from all sectors. They can be company founders, CEOs or leaders of innovative organisations or family businesses. Nominations remain open until Wednesday, 16 August 2017 and can be a self-nomination or by anyone who believes their candidate qualifies.
Successful nominees will be assessed by industry experts and company visits will be carried out as part of the evaluation process. Finalists will be invited to meet the judging panel which will include the winners of the 2016 awards - Entrepreneur of the Year, Jimmy Milne of Balmoral Group, and Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year, Chris Gauld of Spark Energy.
The winners will be announced at Entrepreneurial Scotland's Celebration Dinner. This year the event moves to Scotland's most dynamic new event space - SWG3 in Glasgow on St Andrew's Day, Thursday, 30 November 2017.
Scotland's entrepreneurial spirit is amazing - an economy which encourages entrepreneurs is one which can create a strong and prosperous country. At Deloitte we have worked with many of these companies and entrepreneurs from the beginning, supporting them in growing their businesses and advising them through the most crucial stages.
Over the coming months, I am looking forward to meeting some of Scotland's best entrepreneurial talent.
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