Press release
28 Oct 2022 

EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ 2022: Award for five innovative Swiss entrepreneurial personalities

  • The winners in the four categories of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2022 are: Andreas Wälti (Evatec AG), Carsten Koerl (Sportradar AG), Franziska Tschudi Sauber and Daniel Tschudi (Weidmann Holding AG), and Yann Cotte (Nanolive SA)
  • The award ceremony with around 400 invited guests took place this evening at a gala event in Dübendorf
  • The comprehensive support program for entrepreneurs is already in its 25th year in Switzerland

ZURICH, October 28, 2022 – With the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Award 2022, the audit and consulting firm EY in Switzerland has honored innovative and committed Swiss entrepreneurial personalities for the 25th time. “This year, four of these personalities come from the canton of St. Gallen, sending a strong signal for Eastern Switzerland as a business location,” said Sascha Stahl, Program Partner of EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Switzerland. “Western Switzerland is represented among the winners by a particularly innovative company , highlighting the positive impact the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne has on the entire Lake Geneva region,” said Frédéric Tissot, EY’s Director, Entrepreneurship & Family Enterprise Suisse Romande . A ten-member jury was responsible for evaluating the finalists and awarding the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022 Awards; the jury reviewed the candidates independently of EY. This year’s five prize-winners are:

Andreas Wälti, Evatec AG, Trübbach (SG) in the category “Industry, High-Tech & Life Sciences”
Evatec was created in 2004 from a management buyout of the former Unaxis which in turn emerged from the Balzers Gerätebauanstalt founded in 1946. Andreas Wälti and Marco Padrun are transforming the conglomerate into a global innovation leader for process solutions and mechanical engineering for thin films. These films are so thin that they are in the nano range and are used in semiconductor technology, precision optics, and optoelectronics. “Andreas Wälti impressed us with his irrepressible entrepreneurial strength which he has used to make his company indispensable on global markets as a Swiss high-tech brand,” was the jury’s verdict.

Carsten Koerl, Sportradar AG, St. Gallen (SG) in the "Services & Commerce" category
As an engineer at the University of Konstanz, Carsten Koerl is passionate about using data to make successful predictions, resulting in two startups. Matured by experience, he founded Sportradar AG in 2001 with a partner because he noticed that everyone in sport wanted accurate data and no one could provide it. Since then, he has been collecting sports data in real time for sports clubs, media houses, bookmakers, and sports organizations. The company employs 3,000 people in over 20 countries and is going public with an IPO on Nasdaq in 2021. “With Carsten Koerl, a passionate person wins in the Services & Commerce category; he has created a business empire out of a niche that has received far too little attention for a long time,” said Sascha Stahl, EY Program Partner.

Franziska Tschudi Sauber and Daniel Tschudi, Weidmann Holding AG, Rapperswil-Jona (SG) in the "Family Business" category
In 2001, Franziska Tschudi Sauber and her brother Daniel Tschudi, the fifth generation of the family, took over management responsibility for Weidmann Holding in Rapperswil-Jona, a company steeped in tradition. The company is the world market leader for electrical insulation of transformers and specializes in high-quality plastic components for medical and pharmaceutical technology. With 2,700 employees at 30 locations around the globe, the Weidmann Group is one of the few industrial groups to maintain its market dominance at an international level. “Franziska Tschudi Sauber and her brother Daniel Tschudi embody a family tradition that is very much alive and upholds and develops the Swiss pioneering spirit in the industry,” said Sascha Stahl.

Yann Cotte, Nanolive SA, Tolochenaz (VD) in the "Emerging Entrepreneur" category
Yann Cotte, Sebastien Equis, Christian Depeursinge, Andreas Kern and Faith Toy founded Nanolive in 2013 at the EPFL Innovation Park in Lausanne with the idea of revolutionizing the cell research industry. Today, Nanolive offers a globally unique technology to observe living cells in 3D without destructive dyes, a facility which is enormously valuable for research. The technology, 95% of which is exported worldwide, is modularly scalable for hardware and software and therefore promises great future potential. The jury recognized Yann Cotte as a visionary in the high-tech medical field, but one who understands how to implement a promising business model. “Yann Cotte is a true revolutionary in his field and his success highlights how positively the Lake Geneva region is developing around the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne" said Frédéric Tissot, EY’s Director, Entrepreneurship & Family Enterprise Suisse Romande.

 

Stefan Rösch-Rütsche, Country Managing Partner of EY in Switzerland, comments: “Every year for the past quarter century, we at EY have had the privilege of selecting the winners in the four EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ categories from a diverse pool of high-caliber finalists. This year, the winners’ impressive entrepreneurial achievements demonstrate that innovative strength and success can be found throughout Switzerland.”

This year’s award ceremony took place this evening at a gala event in The Hall in Dübendorf. Around 400 invited guests attended the occasion. Additional viewers and employees from the competing companies were linked via a live stream.

EY in Switzerland was supported in the 2022 Entrepreneur Of The Year™ program by Credit Suisse as program partner and AMAG, Bucherer, SWISS, and HDI as sponsors.

EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2022 Award – Notes for media professionals

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