This year’s winners of the Ernst & Young Canadian entrepreneur of the year awards include a strong showing by both startups and more established tech firms.
Martin-Luc Archambault picked up the award for emerging entrepreneur inQuebec. He’s the CEO of Wajam, a Montreal startup that’sbeen turningheads for its social search tools. Fellow Montrealer Dax Dasilva, CEOof mobile commerce firm LightSpeed, won as entrepreneur ofthe year inthe Quebec IT category.
HootSuite founder Ryan Holmes was named media and entertainmententrepreneur of the year for the Pacific region. In the same categoryfor Ontario, co-winners were Ivan Yuen and Allen Lau of Toronto-basedWattpad.
Barb Stegemann of 7 Virtues Beauty Inc. won as emerging entrepreneurfor Atlantic Canada; in the prairies, winners included Lyle Michalukand Cliff Wiebe of Poseidon Concepts Corp. for emerging entrepreneurs,Marcos Lopez of Solium Capital in the technology category, and DavidCronin and Chris Izquierdo of DevFacto Technologies Inc. forprofessional and investment services.
In Ontario winners included Somen Mondal and Shaun Ricci of N4 SystemsInc. as emerging entrepreneurs, Jon Lerner and Derek Ting of EnflickInc. as young entrepreneurs, Jon Hantho of Maxxam Analytics in theservices division, and Dragon’sDen stalwart Robert Herjavec of TheHerjavec Group in the IT category.
Wajam CEO Martin-Luc Archambaultwas named emerging entrepreneur of the year in Quebec. (Photo:Facebook)
Among the Pacific region winners were Greg Blake and Andre Kroecher ofDaiya Foods Inc. as emerging entrepreneurs, Kenshi Arasaki, WilkinsChung and Eric Diep of A Thinking Ape Technologies in the IT divison,and Michael Fergusson of Ayogo Games Inc. who received a specialcitation as social entrepreneur of the year.
For the record, a young entrepreneur is defined by Ernst &Young as someone under age 30 while an emerging entrepreneur is someonewhose company is three to five years old. Complete winners’ lists canbe found here.