Six top entrepreneurs have made the final shortlist for the EY Entrepreneur of The Year Awards 2023 (EOY) West Africa. The top entrepreneur would be named at a Gala/Award dinner on Thursday, March 16 with the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Niyi Adebayo as Special Guest of Honour.
This year’s edition has four entrepreneurs competing in the Master entrepreneur category, with one of them set to emerge as the overall winner. The four in this category include Chairman/Founder, Brittania-U Limited, Uju Catherine Ifejika; Group Managing Director of Interswitch, Mitchell Elegbe; Managing Director of Providus Bank, Walter Akpani, and Managing Director, Rite Foods Nigeria Limited, Saleem Adegunwa.
In the emerging entrepreneur category, Founder/CEO of Nature’s Bounty Health Products T/A ReelFruit, Affiong Williams and Founder/Chief Analyst, Nairametrics Financial Advocate Limited, Ugodre Obi-Chukwu made the shortlist.
Rose Ada Okwechime would receive the Life-time Achievement Award as a pioneer of a primary mortgage bank in Nigeria. Until her retirement, Okwechime was the founding Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc, the premier and leading non-aligned primary mortgage bank in Nigeria. She will be honoured for being a frontline Mortgage Banker in Nigeria’s financial landscape.
Launched in West Africa in 2011, the EOY award was instituted to recognise and celebrate unique men and women who have combined ingenuity, hard work and perseverance to create and sustain successful growing businesses. The programme, a yearly global event, has enjoyed international recognition for over 30 years.
Senior Partner and Entrepreneur Of The Year Award leader for West Africa region, Ashish Bakhshi, while providing overview of the programme, said: “The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year award brings together some of the finest and most accomplished entrepreneurs, some of whom have grown to become global market leaders in their fields of play. The six shortlisted finalists will undergo the final stage of judging by an independent five-member panel of entrepreneurs, some of whom were past winners of the award.
“They will assess the finalists through criteria such as their entrepreneurial spirit and leadership, financials, innovation, as well as community impact, among others. The overall winners in both categories will be announced at the Gala/Award dinner ceremony on Thursday, March 16.”
