Just months after leading his company to a spectacular $1 billion float, Carsales.com founder and chief executive Greg Roebuck has been named entrepreneur of the year in the annual awards run by accounting firm Ernst & Young.
Roebuck, who beat out a strong field that included E3 founder Vanessa Jordan, Sumo Salad’s Luke Bayliss and Paladin Energy founded John Borshoff, will go to Monte Carlo next year to represent Australia at the 2010 World Entrepreneur Of The Year.
Roebuck, who comes from a software background, founded Carsales.com in 1997 after shopping for a car for his wife and becoming disgruntled with the quality of information in classified ads.
In 2002 he was responsible for what would become a big change in the pricing model used by classified advertisers when he introduced new pricing models, whereby car sellers could pay for every lead they got or pay a one-off fee until their car sold.
Carsales now dominates the online car classifieds market and the company’s recent float valued Roebuck’s stake at over $30 million.
The head of awards judging panel, BridgeClimb founder Paul Cave, praised Roebuck for taking “car advertising into a whole new space”.
“Greg Roebuck has shown absolute flair and executed his business model very well. Financially carsales.com is outstandingly successful – not many businesses are getting the profits they are delivering,” says Cave.
“Greg recognised a need and grew an amazing business from the ground up. The business is totally customer focused which has been fundamental to its success.”
The award for the best young entrepreneur went to Pankaj Oswal of Burrup Fertilisers, who raised $US1 billion to fund and build an ammonia plant in the north west of Western Australia. Following the successful opening of the plant in 2006, Oswal’s investment vehicle, Oswal Global Group, has expanded into other areas including energy and restaurants.
The award for the entrepreneur of the year in the area of services went to Quest Serviced Apartments boss Paul Constantinou, while the social entrepreneur of the year award went to Fortescue Mining boss Andrew Forrest and his wife Nicola, who fund the Australian Children’s Trust.
The awards also recognised four high-flying business people as “champions of entrepreneurship” including fashion retailer Naomi Milgrom, media baron Kerry Stokes, Queensland property developer George Chapman and the head of Yalumba Wine Company, Robert Hill Smith.
Full list of winners:
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
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