The Entrepreneur of the Year Award

Winner: Hans-Martin Rueter, Conergy AG
Hamburg , GERMANY

Hans-Martin-Rueter with Jon Housman, managing director of The Wall Street Journal Europe

 

A life-long fascination with capturing energy from the sun led Hans-Martin to start a business in 1996 from his living room. Today Conergy is Europe’s largest solar company and a world leader in renewable energy solutions on five continents. Former decathlete Hans-Martin retains his desire to “fight for the last inch”. www.conergy.com

 

The Finalists

Andrew Ainge of MetalFX® Technology
Leeds – UNITED KINGDOM

Andrew’s MetalFX® revolutionised the printing of metallic colours across the globe. Commercial printers now have millions of colours available, easily and rapidly.
www.metal-fx.com

 

Helen Colley of Farmhouse Fare Limited
Clitheroe – UNITED KINGDOM

In four years Farmhouse Fare became the UK’s top specialist manufacturer of specialist chilled desserts and achieved listings with every major UK supermarket. www.farmhousefare.co.uk

 

Martin Holecko of ET NETERA s.r.o.
Prague - CZECH REPUBLIC

ET NETERA is a leading e-business services consulting company focused on helping top-rank business clients to exploit information technologies and the Internet. www.etnetera.cz

 

Torsten Jansson of New Wave Group AB
Kungälv - SWEDEN

Torsten’s New Wave Group of companies provides a model of successful synergy across a range of complementary clothing and gift brands.
www.nwg.se

 

Janet Kelly of Free Features Ltd
Caterham – UNITED KINGDOM

Free Features provides a rare service for the UK print media industry that gives editors editorial copy free-of-charge in return for advertising space to be sold on to business brands. www.freefeatures.co.uk

 

Karl-Heinz Land of VoiceObjects AG
Bergisch Gladbach - GERMANY

The VoiceObjects Phone Application Server deploys, manages and analyses personalised customer self-services for 500 million telephone users worldwide. www.voiceobjects.com

 

George Milonas of ALUMIL MILONAS S.A.
Kilkis - GREECE

George leads one of Europe’s largest private aluminium production groups and has seen significant success in a particularly volatile international marketplace. www.alumil.com

 

Kristin Syltevik of Hotwire
London – UNITED KINGDOM

Hotwire is a leading pan-European provider of public relations services to technology sector clients ranging from start-ups to multi-nationals across a variety of markets. www.hotwirepr.com

 

Pieter Zwart of Coolblue BV
Rotterdam - THE NETHERLANDS

Coolblue is an e-commerce platform successfully operating 26 specialised online shops serving 238,000 registered users with consumer electronics products, accessories and telecom subscriptions. www.coolblue.nl