Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year

International finalists

BRIAN CONLON

First Derivatives plc

BASED IN Newry, Co Down, First Derivatives plc is a leading global service provider in the Capital Markets technology sector. Founded by Brian Conlon in 1996 with seed capital of £5,000, the company is now capitalised at over £40 million. This growth has been achieved largely organically and financed by reinvestment of retained earnings and without any external funding.

The company has been profitable since inception – turnover has grown from £96,000 to a projected turnover of £33 million and an operating profit of £8 million in 2011. In 2002, the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange (and subsequently on ISEQ) and since then has achieved compound growth rates of about 40 per cent per annum. It is only one of two listed Northern Ireland Companies.

The company’s turnover is almost 100 per cent export. First Derivatives employs over 400 people, the vast majority of whom are from the island of Ireland and have graduated within the last five years from top universities. The team is working all over the globe with some of the world’s top financial institutions on mission critical projects. These projects involve working with the latest thinking in financial and risk management theory and with the latest advances in technology, in areas such as cloud computing, virtualisation and hardware devices. First Derivative has offices in Newry, Dublin, Belfast, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, Stockholm, Shanghai, New York, Philadelphia, Toronto and Chicago.

PRODUCTS

First Derivatives sells a range of software products and associated services to the world’s financial markets. These products are largely based around trading and risk management in equities, foreign exchange, fixed income products, oil, base metals and other commodities.

CUSTOMERS

They have nearly 100 customers including nine of the 10 largest US investment banks, 30 of the world’s top hedge funds, two of the world’s largest Stock Exchanges and three of the largest retail banks in South East Asia.

WHAT VISION PROMPTED YOU TO START UP IN BUSINESS?

Having spent a few years with Morgan Stanley in London and New York, I joined a capital markets software company as a financial engineer. The business model involved maximising sales in the short-term in advance of a trade sale/IPO. The market was also infinitely huge. I thought that building a longer-term relationship in partnership with the customer would improve returns in the longer term, so I set up First Derivatives.

AIDAN LEE

Eolas International Research

ESTABLISHED BY Aidan Lee in 2002, Eolas International is a full-service market research agency based in Cork.. The company’s key client focus is fast moving consumer goods (fmcg), in particular those in the food and beverage industry in Ireland and abroad.

The company’s four divisions are Eolas Market Research, which provides International product retrieval and auditing of product quality at points of sale across the globe. Their employees visited over 25,000 points of sale worldwide in 2009. Eolas Consumer Research carries out both Qualitative and Quantitative Consumer Research in Ireland and overseas for numerous clients.

Eolas Sensory Research has an on-site sensory research laboratory which includes food preparation facilities and has over 30 trained sensory panellists employed – and Eolas Laboratory Research offers a range of laboratory testing services for a variety of clients from its facilities in Cork. The company employs 50 people in Ireland and has international researchers in over 100 countries, many of whom are Irish.

PRODUCTS

Eolas International provides a market research service to clients both at home and overseas. The company can either assess client products at points of sale across the globe, or by shipping the product to its facilities to perform sensory or laboratory tests on products.

CUSTOMERS

Eolas International Research’s multinational clients include Pepsico and Unilever and their international based researchers operate for these throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa. Their Irish based clients include Jacobs Fruitfield, CC (Bulmers) and Green Isle.

WHAT CHALLENGES DID YOU FACE STARTING UP?

The major issue faced was to convince a multinational company like Pepsico to take a risk with a small local agency, when it was used to dealing with large global suppliers. However, by putting a strong team in place and by offering the client a free trial period we proved capability and successfully took on a major contract.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST BUSINESS ACHIEVEMENT?

Having successfully won some major contracts from a multinational was quite an achievement for a small start-up like ours. An ongoing achievement is being able to sustain impressive growth year on year from inception.

JOHNNY WALKER

Global Diagnostics

DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING specialist, Dr Johnny Walker, whilst providing a mobile ultrasound service to a small isolated Aboriginal community from the back of a truck in remote Western Australia in late 1995, was confronted with a highly critical complication of pregnancy, and experienced first hand the injustice of the penalty of distance in prohibiting access to high quality diagnostic services for the people of these communities.

Walker that evening embarked on a mission to fundamentally change the way healthcare was delivered through the design and implementation of a simple digital Teleradiology solution linking any patient, any where, any time, to the best diagnostic specialists around the clock around the world. Walker created a truly “paperless and filmless” system and in 2002 Global Diagnostics was born.

In 2007 Global Diagnostics entered the Irish market through a local strategic alliance with Centric Health, a young rapidly emerging Irish primary healthcare company that provides a range of innovative and accessible primary care services with the aim of keeping people out of hospital by providing patients with more options of care within the own local community.

Global Diagnostics, now with HQ in Dublin, has since captured a number of significant contracts in the Irish market servicing each of the Vhi-Swiftcare Clinics throughout the country, along with the state-of-the-art Hermitage Medical Clinic in Dublin.

Global Diagnostics recorded revenues of over €22 million in 2009 and is on track to grow 20 per cent in 2010 employing 120 staff over three countries.

PRODUCT

Global Diagnostics provides an international desk-top-to-desk-top web-based digital tele-radiology service linking referring clinicians and their patients instantaneously, wherever they may be located around the globe, to a “virtual” team of accredited diagnostic specialists around the clock around the world for immediate diagnosis and management planning.

CUSTOMER

The company has performed 2.3 million cases since inception with 92 per cent of the referrals being GP.

One of the most exciting projects Global Diagnostics has been engaged in is the first ever HSE Community-based Tele-Diagnostics Clinic in Arklow which opened in 2007 and has since serviced over 25,000 patients locally in Wicklow.

PETER & RICHARD CULLEN

The Jelly Bean Factory

FATHER AND son team Peter and Richard Cullen co-founded Aran Candy in 1998 upon identifying an opportunity in the European confectionery market for a high quality gourmet jellybean. With over 40 years of combined confectionary market experience, they set about creating their own gourmet recipes.

Now, the Blanchardstown based company produces jelly beans under “The Jelly Bean Factory” brand and is among the largest producers of gourmet jellybeans worldwide – 98 per cent of its production is exported to almost 50 countries.

Significant emphasis has been placed on a highly styled design, brand identity and packaging innovation to meet the company’s vision to bring gourmet beans to outlets that traditionally did not stock this niche product. Joint managing directors, they also divide their roles internally with Peter responsible for operations and Richard for Sales and Marketing. Offices have been opened in the US, UK and Middle East, and there are distributors in all key markets. They have also launched an innovative sports bean with multinational pharmaceutical, GlaxoSmithKline, which is jointly branded with the Lucozade brand name. This product has been WADA (World anti doping association) tested and opens many new markets for the company in the pharmaceutical and sports arena.

PRODUCT

The product is styled as an American type gourmet bean with a multitude of flavours, it’s smaller than the traditional jelly bean and the flavour is 100 per cent throughout the bean.

CUSTOMERS

The company lists Debenhams, Wal-Mart USA, Trader Joe’s USA, REWE Germany, Julian Graves UK, Disney Europe, BP, Blockbuster, Tesco IRL and UK, GSK, Airport Duty Free worldwide, Avoca, Emirates Airlines, Stena Line, Carrefour, Merlin Theme Parks, WH Smith, Boots, ASDA, The Bay (Canada), Sobeys (Canada) Spinneys Dubai, 7/11 Canada to “The Warehouse” in New Zealand as among some of its customers.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST BUSINESS ACHIEVEMENT?

It has been building a brand from zero, to gaining distribution in nearly 50 markets with many of the biggest retailers in the world. Securing two large long term supply contracts in the US, as well as partnering our brand with a giant such as GlaxoSmithKline, and creating a state of the art confectionery manufacturing facility which meets their most stringent standards which are among the highest in the world.

The Award

The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, now in its 13th year, aims to recognise and acclaim Ireland's entrepreneurs. The award is run in association with The Irish Times, RTÉ, Enterprise Ireland, InterTradeIreland, and Newstalk. Four companies have been shortlisted in each of the three categories: International, Industry and Emerging. The judges are business people who have achieved success in their own right. Thus, all nominees are judged by their peers.

Judging criteria include growth in turnover and employee numbers, as well as vision, degree of innovation, creativity in production, marketing and selling, and expansion in local and international markets.

The chairman of the judging panel is Padraig O'Ceidegh, chairman of Aer Arran. The other judges are Terry Clune CEO, Taxback.com; Hugh O'Donnell CEO, Kentz Group; Brian Long, partner, Atlantic Bridge Ventures; Michael Carey, executive chairman, Jacob Fruitfield Group; Anne Heraty, chief executive officer, CPL Resources plc; Jerry Kennelly, CEO, Gustavo; Tom Hayes, Enterprise Ireland; Pat McDonagh, ThirdForce; Liam Shanahan, managing director, Shanahan Engineering; Liam Nellis, chief executive, InterTradeIreland. 

The winner will be announced at a televised awards ceremony on October 21st.