The Edhec Entrepreneur of the Year prize
The Entrepreneur of the Year prize is awarded to an Edhec entrepreneur who has decided to take a leap into the unknown and has contributed to EDHEC’s image as a creator of talent by their taste for risk and adventure. Their daring and sense of innovation will have impacted on the winner’s sector or region, or on the vision others have of the sector.
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Therefore, Edhec Alumni vote two times, on Facebook and on the voting module. Each of the two votes counts for 50%.
Now it's time for you to vote !
Sacha Poignonnec (EDHEC 2002) with Jumia
Sacha Poignonnec is the co-CEO and co-founder of Jumia, Africa's largest online trading platform. Jumia was created in 2012 with the vision that e-commerce had an incredible opportunity to grow in Africa, and "leapfrogger" the traditional stages of physical retailing, in a continent where infrastructure does not allow the classic development of large distribution. Jumia started in 4 countries (Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco and South Africa), and then once the logistical and commercial challenges were met, launched across Africa.
Five years later, Jumia employs more than 3,000 people in 23 countries, has more than 3 million customers on the continent for more than 6.1 million transactions in 2016. Jumia has become the first African start-up Valuation higher than 1 billion euros. Jumia shareholders include MTN, Orange, Axa, Goldman Sachs and Rocket Internet.
Jumia has become today more than a destination for e-commerce. Jumia offers a wide range of online services, such as hotel reservations, restaurant orders and classifieds. Jumia is launching its offer of payment and financial services.
Prior to launching Jumia, Sacha worked for 5 years for McKinsey, based in Paris and New York, focusing on retail and consumer products. He began his career with Arthur Andersen and in 2004 was involved in the creation of Accuracy, a Paris-based start-up in corporate finance. Sacha graduated from EDHEC (2002) with a master's degree in business management, specializing in finance. He is married to Marion Sanchez (also Edhec 2002) and they have 3 children.
>Find out more about : www.jumia.com or www.jumia.com.ng
- Michael Chekroun (EDHEC 2000) with Carenity
Michael founded Carenity in 2011 with the aim of offering patients and their loved ones a social network that would facilitate connections between people trying to move medical research forward.
Carenity now boasts 250,000 members of a worldwide community in which patients share their views on their treatment and quality of life by participating in online surveys. The results enable medical researchers to improve the quality of treatments and services made available to patients.
Michael oversees an international team of 20, with an innovative and ethical economic model in which individual, anonymous and combined experiences help stakeholders in the healthcare industry to better meet the needs of patients. Carenity is the market leader in Europe and is profitable with a 250% increase in revenue between 2014 and 2016.
Michael is a graduate of EDHEC (2000) and the LSE and began his career as a consultant on strategy and M&A. He is a member of the EDHEC Club Entrepreneur and Health Club.
Find out more about : www.carenity.com
- Jean-Marc Lazard (EDHEC 1996) with OpenDataSoft
In 2012, convinced that the value of data is all about how it is used, Jean-Marc Lazard created OpenDataSoft, the first online platform designed to make all data shareable and easily reusable.
As a pioneer of open data as a way to support the initiatives of public stakeholders on transparency and innovation, in 2012 Jean-Marc quickly expanded his market to companies in the private sector to help them innovate with their data. After 5 years, more than 100 major cities, public administrations and companies in 13 different countries have placed their trust in OpenDataSoft as a way to share their data between staff members and with their partners: examples include Paris, Brussels, Toulouse, Eindhoven, Potsdam and Lille, as well as Veolia, Schneider Electric, Saint-Gobain, Solvay, BPCE and SNCF.
After raising €6.5 M from investors including Salesforce Ventures and Caisse des Dépôts, being named as one of the top 10 most innovative partners of Amazon Web Services for its Smart Cities solution, and signing partnerships with General Electric and Cisco, in 2016 OpenDataSoft established its first team in the US (10 out of a total staff of 50).
To support the company’s mission to promote openness, transparency and innovation, the senior management team at OpenDataSoft have also made “well-being” and meaningful work essential drivers of development, with a Chief Happiness Officer sitting on the executive committee, systematic sharing of company metrics with staff members, and the introduction of circles inspired by Holacracy.
Find out more about : www.opendatasoft.fr
- Vincent Huguet (EDHEC 1998) with Hopwork
Vincent Huguet is 41 years old and an EDHEC graduate. He started his career in the telecommunications industry with France Telecom and then TELMEX in Mexico. He set up his first company in Mexico City, an online flower shop, in 2003.
Back in France in 2006, he acted as the co-founder and COO of both Ooprint and Dromadaire. He felt there was no easy or efficient way to connect companies with freelancers, and so he founded Hopwork in 2013 with Jean-Baptiste Lemée and Hugo Lassiège, both ex-freelancers and developers. Hopwork is today the leading platform for freelancers in France, with more than 45,000 registered freelancers and 21,000 companies, 50% of which are CAC40. Next step for Hopwork, European development in Spain and Benelux. Hopwork is supported by the funds Isai, Serena Capital and Kerala Venture.
To find out more about : www.hopwork.fr
- Didier Kuhn (EDHEC 1992) with Chais d’œuvre
Having gained experience in micro-project financing in Rwanda, before working for Société Générale in New York and later on a Telco project in London, Didier Kuhn co-founded ScreenTonic in 2001 with the aim of making mobile services an advertising platform, albeit with highly questionable timing: the Internet bubble had just burst and online prospects seemed to have no future, there was no available financing for start-ups, and mobile services belonged to the world of science fiction.
Seven years, two fundraising campaigns (€6.5 M) and many errors later, ScreenTonic established itself as a pioneer and the market leader in Europe for “mobile advertising”, employing more than 50 people in 4 different countries. Microsoft Corp bought the company in 2007 with a view to developing its business on a worldwide scale.
Since 2010, Didier has invested in more than 25 start-ups at an early stage (e.g. BlaBlaCar in 2010, Drivy in 2012, Bankin in 2013) as a hands-on business angel and is also active in the underlying ecosystem: founding member of the incubator 50Partners and Galion Project, investor in the entrepreneurial funds ISAI and Network Finances, and co-founder of Chais d’œuvre (www.chaisdoeuvre.fr) in 2012, a club for wine initiations and purchases. Didier’s interests include the mountains, kite surfing and wine.
To find out more about : www.chaisdoeuvre.fr
- Aurélien Lepretre (EDHEC 2000) with Insitaction
Aurélien Lepretre has always been passionate about technology and driven by a desire to innovate since his early years. After a short spell with Publicis Conseil and later Accenture, in 2004 he decided to see through the project he had been working on since leaving EDHEC: setting up Insitaction! For 13 years, Insitaction and its staff of 40 have been supporting players in the retail sector through their digital transformation. Sport, luxury items, catering and transport are all sectors in which Insitaction is excelling!
The company’s primary value added is its human resources and the passion that drives them! A passion for technology, innovation and intrapreneurship! Insitaction and its in-house lab have given rise to 3 start-ups! With 22% of its revenue coming from overseas, the company decided to team up with the Altavia group in 2017 to boost its development. Their shared ambition is to increase their business twofold by 2020 and generate 50% of revenue internationally.
Happiness in Business has always been Insitaction’s driving force! First of all by putting in place decentralised management policies and working methods (design thinking, agile) that favour autonomy, personal development and intrapreneurship, secondly through a particularly advantageous scheme for the redistribution of company earnings (25 to 30% on average), which incidentally has always shaped the success of its retailer clients in the Hauts de France region, and lastly by creating working and living spaces that are conducive to interactions and decorated with meaningful objects (Aurélien likes to scour yard sales with his family on weekends)!
To find our more : www.insitaction.com
> Click here if you want to register to the EDHEC Rendez-Vous Paris on June 15 <
> Click here if you want to discover the other cities hosting a EDHEC Rendez-Vous <
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