The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year awards seek to encourage, reward and recognise great talent amongst business leaders throughout the UK and this year’s 137 finalists are seen as ‘part of a dynamic group who are contributing to growth in the UK economy’, the judging panel said. 

Judging takes place later this month with the regional winners being announced at an awards dinner in London on 27^th June. Those who gain regional awards will go on to battle it out in October at the UK Awards, and one will win the prestigious UK title, won last year by Lance Uggla of global financial information services company, Markit.

Stuart Watson, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of The Year UK Leader, said: ‘In the face of a flat economy, the clear theme from the finalists is that the UK’s leading entrepreneurs are searching out opportunities for growth and using innovative thinking to get ahead of their competition wherever they can.

‘Entrepreneurs aren’t waiting for traditional markets to recover and they are agile enough to ramp up activities and capitalise on pockets of potential.’ 

Other London and the South regional finalists in this year’s competition include business leaders from firms such as White Clarke Group, the Morgan Motor Company, Oxford Catalysts, ARM, Kingfisher and Zoopla.

David Hosking commented: ‘I’m absolutely delighted to have been selected as a finalist for this prestigious award, which rewards entrepreneurialism in business.

‘At Tusker, we pride ourselves on our entrepreneurial thinking and spirit, and our ability to think out of the box. We believe the spirit of entrepreneurialism that exists throughout the business helps us to develop the very best products and solutions to meet the exact needs of our clients, rather than providing them with formulaic, off the shelf solutions,’ he said.