EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2023: Award for five innovative Swiss entrepreneurial personalities

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• The winners in the four categories of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2023 are: Luca Santarelli (VectivBio AG), Paul Fritz (Home Instead Holding AG), Daniel Bossard (Bossard Group), Judith Häberli & Robert Ruttmann (Urban Connect AG).
  
  
• The award ceremony with around 400 invited guests took place this evening at a gala event in Lausanne.
  
  
• The comprehensive support and networking program for entrepreneurs is being held in Switzerland for the 26th time.

ZURICH, 27 October 2023 - With the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Award 2023, the audit and advisory firm EY in Switzerland has honored innovative and dedicated Swiss entrepreneurial personalities for the 26th time. Stefan Rösch-Rütsche, Country Managing Partner of EY in Switzerland, comments: "Every year for more than a quarter of a century, we at EY have had the privilege of selecting the winners in the four categories of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year from a large number of high-caliber finalists. This year, too, all these personalities with their impressive achievements are an expression of the innovative strength and the very high quality of entrepreneurship in Switzerland."

A ten-member jury was responsible for evaluating the finalists and awarding the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2023 Award; it reviewed the candidates independently of EY. This year's five award winners are:

Luca Santarelli, VectivBio AG (BS) in the category "Industry, High-Tech & Life Sci-ences"

Luca Santarelli is CEO and founder of VectivBio in Basel. This biotech company focuses on the discovery and development of therapies for serious rare diseases. After a period as head of the neuroscience and rare diseases department of Roche Holding AG, Luca founded Therachon and successfully sold it to Pfizer. He has since founded yet another highly successful biotech company, VectivBio, that is now listed on NASDAQ. "With Luca Santarelli, we are honoring a biotech entrepreneur who is committed to research into rare diseases at a world-class level and who is also highly successful financially in placing this research on the market," says Sascha Stahl, Program Partner of EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Switzerland.

Paul Fritz, Home Instead Holding AG (BL) in the "Services & Commerce" category

Paul Fritz is the owner and managing director of Home Instead Holding in Rheinfelden. This company is the largest retirement care organization in the world and, as a result, a real alternative to retirement homes. Home Instead was founded in 1994 in the USA. Paul Fritz initially bought Switzerland out of the franchise. Today, the Home Instead Group of Switzerland also includes France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand. "With Paul Fritz, we honor an entrepreneur who has successfully reconciled the difficult balance of caring and economic growth and is now driving a fantastic internationalization strategy from Switzerland," says Frédéric Tissot, Director Entrepreneurship & Family Enterprise Suisse romande at EY.

Daniel Bossard, Bossard Group (ZG) in the "Family Business" category

Daniel Bossard is CEO and representative of the seventh generation of the Bossard Group in Zug. The company is a leading global provider of solutions in industrial connection and assembly technology. Daniel combines exemplary leadership of family and company in a highly competitive market and across generations. "We honor Da-niel Bossard because he and his family have managed to build up the company strongly, maintain the structures, establish smart governance, and in the process be highly successful internationally in very difficult markets," says Sascha Stahl.

Judith Häberli & Robert Ruttmann, Urban Connect AG (ZH) in the "Emerging Entrepreneur" category

Judith Häberli and Robert Ruttmann are the founders of the first truly CO2-neutral mobility platform, Urban Connect in Zurich. They offer an ecosystem of low-emission, shared vehicles such as e-scooters, e-bikes and e-cars, with access to public transport. "With Judith Häberli and Robert Ruttmann, we honor a pair of entrepreneurs who are thinking about mobility in a new and, above all, sustainable way. We can make many technologies sustainable. But they only become truly sustainable when we link them together," says Frédéric Tissot.

This year's award ceremony took place this evening at a gala event at the SwissTech Convention Center in Lausanne. Around 400 invited guests attended the festive event.

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EY’s organization is represented in Switzerland by Ernst & Young Ltd, Basel, with 10 offices across Switzerland, and in Liechtenstein by Ernst & Young AG, Vaduz. In this publication, “EY” and “we” refer to Ernst & Young Ltd, Basel, a member firm of Ernst & Young Global Limited.