Finalists
MARK and KIRA WALTON
Voya
SWAPPING BUSINESS suits for wellington boots, lawyer turned cosmetic scientist, Mark Walton and his wife Kira, a graphic designer by profession, launched the Voya organic beauty brand in 2007 as a spin-out from the Walton family’s well-known Voya seaweed baths based in Strandhill, Co Sligo.
Confident in the knowledge that some of the highest-quality seaweeds in the world were quite literally on their doorstep, the couple’s vision was to add value to this natural resource by creating a genuinely organic, seaweed-derived spa collection.
Due to the couple’s commitment to the delivery of highly-functional and certified organic formulations, their range of luxury spa treatments took eight long years of RD to come to fruition. However, five years on from its initial launch Voya has become an award-winning luxury organic seaweed brand that has set the bar for organic spa beauty around the world.
Notwithstanding the economic difficulties that persist at home, turnover for the business has doubled in each of the last three years, reaching €1.5 million in 2011, and Voya recently opened its flagship retail store in Selfridges of Oxford Street, London. Voya employs 12 people.
Voya was recently identified by Conde Nast as one of the key trends of 2012. Its “clock-stopping” skin treatments have become a firm favourite of beauty media around the globe and regularly feature in influential glossy women’s magazines following endorsements by some of the world’s leading beauty cognoscenti.
Products:
Since its inception, the company has developed and launched more than 100 new products and skin therapies, targeting its business towards three key sectors: hotel amenity, spa and retail.
All Voya products are licensed by the Soil Association – one of the largest organic certification bodies in the world – and each contains extracts of certified organic, wild seaweed, which has been sustainably hand-harvested, when ripe, by the Walton family.
Customers:
Key to the company’s success has been its rapid international expansion and it currently exports to more than 30 countries, including North America, UK, and myriad countries in the Middle East, Far East and Europe.
The couple have been able to secure a veritable “who’s-who” line-up of clients that include Hilton-Waldorf Astoria, Ritz Carlton, St Regis, Hyatt, Jumeirah, Doonbeg Lodge, K-Club, Dromoland Castle, Selfridges, House Of Fraser and Avoca.
What is your biggest business achievement?
“One wet day, after unloading our products at the delivery docks of House of Fraser, we received a call from the group spa director for Jumeirah Hotels based in Dubai. We pulled in to the car park of the old Dundrum shopping centre and by the end of the call, had agreed on the roll-out of the brand across the Middle East. That call didn’t happen by accident, but it was very surreal.”
What advice would you give entrepreneurs starting out today?
“Modesty is a great attribute, learn from your peers and don’t be frightened to ask for advice or opinions – you’d be surprised at how open and generous most truly successful business people are with their time. We have been really fortunate to meet many successful people over the years and have greatly benefited from their honesty and experience.”
PETER MILNER
Optivia Biotechnology
PHYSICIAN AND SERIAL entrepreneur Peter Milner is the co-founder of Optivia Biotechnology, a private company based in California, which is now recognised as a leader in the emerging field of transporter biology.
Established in 2007, Optivia Biotechnology offers contract services and drug-discovery support to pharma and biotechnology companies in understanding how drugs are absorbed, distributed to various organs and then eliminated from the body.
Specifically, Optivia’s unique platform can detect transporter-based, and potentially harmful, drug-drug interactions, thereby improving drug safety.
The company has worked closely with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to develop a complete suite of cell-based assays that are now standard in which all new drugs must be tested.
In 1990, Milner co-founded CV Therapeutics, which was acquired by Gilead for $1.5 billion in cash in 2009. As a member of the senior management team from 1992-1996, he in-licensed and co-invented several successful pharmaceuticals.
In 1997, he co-founded ARYx Therapeutics, a Nasdaq-quoted company that designed soft-drugs which are now in various stages of human clinical testing, and in 2005, was instrumental in the restructure and subsequent merger of his family pharmaceutical company ML Laboratories to form Vectura, one of the leading makers of inhaled pharmaceutical products.
A native of Roscrea, Co Tipperary, Milner is a former assistant professor of medicine at Washington University in St Louis, a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC), and a board-certified physician and cardiologist. He serves as Adjunct Clinical Faculty in Cardiology at Stanford University School of Medicine and is a board member of the California Healthcare Institute (CHI).
Services:
The FDA and EMA requires testing at seven or eight of the human body’s major transporters and Optivia was the first to offer all of these transporters as assays to its clients.
Working with financial support from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Optivia now has a total of 38 transporters available to its clients, which is more than any other provider.
There are at least 500 known transporters in the human body and using its unique platform, Optivia plans to offer hundreds of different transporter assays to its customers. The resulting information will then allow for precise modelling of how a drug is absorbed and distributed through out the body.
Customers:
At least 100 large, medium and small pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies through the world.
What is your biggest business achievement?
“Founding two Nasdaq-quoted US companies that brought a number of successful drugs to market and created thousands of jobs in California.”
Has your Irishness contributed to your success?
“Yes. It gave me passion and drive but also a desire for learning and knowledge. The Irish have a long history of discovery and invention in science: from Boyle in physics, to Stokes and Adams in physiology, and Berkeley in philosophy. It is inherent in the Irish character to accept change yet to not lose that which is valuable to us.”
RONAN O'BRIEN
Zatori Results
AS THE FOUNDER and CEO of Zatori Results, a company which specialises in online retail, serial entrepreneur Ronan O’Brien has successfully capitalised on the seemingly infinite potential of the internet as a shopping portal by responding to customers’ web-based searches.
The concept behind Zatori is simple: drive traffic towards a website; give customers a choice of products, based on their specific online searches; and allow them to purchase there and then. In essence it is the customers who dictate precisely what is available – and therefore sold – on the company’s sites.
Like many successful business ideas, this simple model has proven to be fruitful for the Laois-based entrepreneur. A number of popular online brands now exist beneath the umbrella of Zatori Results, including TheCostumeShop.ie, TheBikiniShop.ie, MarineElectronics.eu, BuyTophies.ie and TheMobilityShop.ie. In 2011, the business recorded a combined turnover in excess of €2 million.
TheCostumeShop.ie launched in 2007 and was O’Brien’s first venture into the world of e-commerce. The business began life as a part-time operation that supplied high-quality costumes to the fancy-dress and party markets. Five years later, TheCostumeShop.ie has become one of the most successful arms of the Zatori operation, employing 87 people during its peak season (Q4) of 2011.
Although software development and web-based technologies play a vital role, at its core the company is simply a web-based marketing and fulfilment business. To describe the operation in O’Brien’s words: “We are placed somewhere between geeks and old fashioned shopkeepers – the technologies bring them in and providing excellent customer service keeps them coming back. Reputation is everything online.”
Products:
Following on from the success of TheCostumeShop.ie in Ireland, Zatori has launched online costume businesses in a number of other markets internationally, including Great Britain and India.
Having proven the success of its simple template, the firm essentially “recycled” its tailor-made technologies and systems to create several other online retail businesses. These include TheBikiniShop.ie; Mollys.ie – an online retailer of pet products; TheMobilityShop.ie, which provides wheelchairs and mobility aids; MarineElectronics.eu; and BuyTrophies.ie, which supplies trophies and medals to schools, clubs and societies.
Future plans for Zatori include an online clothing website and the further expansion of the existing businesses internationally, with a particular emphasis on emerging markets.
Customers:
By capitalising on the global reach of the internet and offering a wide variety of products targeted at a range of demographics, Zatori has captured market share from traditional retail stores and engaged customers of all ages.
What vision prompted you to start in business?
“TheCostumeShop.ie was started to win a bet with a friend when we needed to get costumes for a DJ gig. TheBikiniShop.ie was founded because the summer was a bit slow for costume sales, and I noticed a girlfriend who had to buy two bikinis as the shops did not sell separates and she was not the uniform one size. TheMobilityShop.ie was a direct response to HSE cutbacks.”
What role does social responsibility play in your business strategy?
“We support a charity radio station during the festive period called Christmas FM, which raises huge amounts of money for its charity partners. I love presenting on air and delivering Christmas cheer to the listeners.”
MATTHEW BROWN
Connect Telecom
CONNECT TELECOM was founded in 2007 when Matthew Brown and his fellow directors identified a unique opportunity in the telecoms delivery market.
Based in Belfast, this telecoms provider offers a complete range of solutions and business mobilisation across mobiles, landlines, systems and data services but, crucially, sets itself apart from the competition by managing its customer accounts on a face-to-face basis.
By moving away from its competitors’ streamlined, office-based approach to account management, Brown and his fellow directors at Connect Telecom have adopted a hugely successful, back-to- basics, consultative approach to customer service.
The firm not only appoints a dedicated account manager to each of its corporate clients but delivers regular, face-to-face account management to each customer, and, as a result, has carved out a niche to become one of the leading telecoms solutions providers in the UK market.
This focus on the delivery of a highly effective and personal form of customer service has proven to be extremely successful; over the past three years the company turnover has increased tenfold, with projected turnover to hit €6 million in 2012.
It has resulted in the company successfully securing a national partnership with BT and is the first telecoms business in Northern Ireland to become a Vodafone Gold Partner.
Following this success in Northern Ireland and recent commercial success in the Welsh market, Brown plans to further expand the business into England and Scotland over the coming months.
Services:
As mobile technology increasingly becomes an essential element of everyday life, the telecoms industry is one which is undergoing constant evolution.
Both the business user and non-business consumer are increasingly relying upon such technology-based methods of communication, and need a trusted partner to clarify the often complex telecoms offering.
Connect Telecom works upon developing a partnership with each of its customers and establishing their mobilisation needs. This approach ensures that every telecoms offering is tailor-made and fully clarified, allowing customers to boost productivity and reduce costs specific to their own business offering.
Customers:
Connect Telecom has established a strong customer base in Northern Ireland, from SMEs through to the public sector, and a range of blue-chip companies that include Mascott Construction and Hastings Hotels.
The steady growth of the business, coupled with its high level of customer retention, are traits that Brown and his team look forward to bringing to the British and Irish market in the months and years ahead.
What were the biggest challenges you faced when starting up and how did you overcome them?
“Starting a business in the worst recession in years proved to be a huge challenge, particularly due to the lack of availability of working capital. In order to overcome this challenge, we had to manage our cash flow exceptionally well and make sure that every penny spent had a definite return on investment.”
What are the biggest challenges you face now?
“Sadly, the lack of working capital to assist expansion is still a challenge, particularly when, as a business, we are on a defined growth path and continue to invest heavily back in the business. As we seek to expand throughout Ireland and Britain, the need for financial discipline remains.”
