These marketing professionals are:

Lee Grant, BrandServe Group:

Comprising of a number of well-established and specialist companies, BrandServe Group provides route-to-market solutions, research and reporting, marketing and supply chain related services, Point of Sale (POS) and promotional goods to the retail industry and consumer brands. Established by Lee Grant, a retail, promotional and field marketing expert, the business has an overarching goal to provide a holistic consumer marketing services to established South African brands.

Gil Oved and Ran Neu, The Creative Counsel:

Founded in 2001, The Creative Counsel is currently the largest advertising group in South Africa by staff and turnover, with a targeted presence in Africa and plans to expand further into emerging markets. Gil Oved and Ran Neu-Ner started the business 14 years ago as an in-store promotions company, which has since evolved into an integrated agency that offers brand activation, experiential sales and marketing solutions to brands that wish to engage with their customers in a unique way.

Ruan Oosthuizen of Flume Communications

Armed with a passion for all things digital, Oosthuizen started Flume Communications in 2013 with the objective of bringing tangible business to clients, as well as a targeted approach to digital marketing. The digital marketing agency creates and implements strategies that builds a brand’s reputation and attracts actual business at the same time. In 2013, when the business was started, they realised that the digital marketing industry offers much room for growth as many competitors in the industry still needed to adapt, and there were many opportunities to take advantage of.

According to Christo Botes, spokesperson for the 2015 Sanlam/Business Partners Entrepreneur of the Year competition, the finalist judging process was extremely challenging this year due to the number of high quality entries received. He says that the entrants have once again provided the judges with a vast variety of thriving businesses to select finalists and winners from.

Botes says that they received entries from a wide selection of entrepreneurs that operate in a variety of sectors all over South Africa.

“We would like to congratulate and commend all entrants, as these are the individuals addressing the unemployment crisis in South Africa and are positively playing a key role in the growth of our economy. They have all made a significant contribution towards society and all deserve to be celebrated.”

Botes explains that the next step in the judging process is the selection of the winners in the different categories. “The judging process is completely independent and is monitored by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The judges also represent different areas of the business community and include successful seasoned entrepreneurs, as well as a representative from each of the sponsors and a director from PwC. The evaluation process runs through three different filtering processes, which ensures that everything is checked and rechecked to remove any human error or human preference which otherwise could  have crept into the process.”

The 2015 finalists stand the chance to win prizes worth R2-million, which includes cash prizes to the value of R350 000. “Beyond the chance to win prizes, previous entrants and finalists have benefitted from the competition’s various networking opportunities and associated exposure. Past winners have also gone on to win other prominent awards and form valuable partnerships as a result of their success in the competition.

“We are excited to move onto the next round of the competition and wish all the finalists continued success and good fortune,” concludes Botes.

The 2015 Sanlam/Business Partners Entrepreneur of the Year winners will be announced on Wednesday, 2 September 2015 at the official awards breakfast in Johannesburg.

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