Nominees should be responsible for the company’s success. This is typically the company's founder or CEO. These individuals should be in their role for a minimum of two years, and the business should be operational for at least two years as of 1 January of the year of entry. The entrepreneur should have a significant personal financial stake in the business, either directly or via share options. Co-nominees are eligible if they share leadership responsibilities at the company.

Anyone who is associated with a successful entrepreneur can nominate a candidate. This includes spouses, employees, bankers, attorneys, public relations managers or entrepreneurs themselves. Self-nominations are encouraged! After all, no one knows the dimensions of an entrepreneur's success better than the entrepreneur.

You do not need to be a client or have any relationship within the EY organisation as it pertains to services.

Yes. The information on the nomination form will be used by the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ UK team (in connection with the administration of the award), the sponsors (who will review nonfinancial information), and the independent regional and national panels of judges.

There is no cost to submit a nomination.

Nominations can be submitted through our Entrepreneur Of The Year™ secure online application form. 

For nominees who advance to next stages, we estimate that the total time commitment over the course of the programme cycle will be between 8 and 12 hours:

• Complete nomination
• Interview with EY leaders and headline sponsor
• Interview with the independent panel of judges
• Participate in video filming
• Join awards celebration
• Attend any related events (virtual or in-person)

The independent panels of judges include entrepreneurs and other prominent C-suite business leaders. Many of the judges are past winners of this award and now members of our Entrepreneur Of The Year™ alumni community. There are separate judging panels for each of the four regional programmes and a UK national panel.

The number of awards varies every year. 

At the regional level, all nominees are judged based on their individual merits, stories and achievements. They are not scored only against companies in their industry. The judges carefully consider all of the nominees across the same scorecard using the global judging criteria and select the most impressive and compelling ones to be named finalists and winners each year.

Nominees do not enter into a category. We usually recognise winners amongst specific categories depending on the nominees’ profile.

The annual  celebration where finalists are celebrated is traditionally in November. 

Please email the EY Entrepreneur Of the Year™ UK team at eoy@uk.ey.com