wiGroup named winner of the FNB Innovation Awards 2016

Bevan Ducasse

FNB Business in association with Endeavor South Africa announced Bevan Ducasse, Founder and CEO of wiGroup as the overall winner of the 2016 FNB Business Innovation Awards, in Bryanston, Johannesburg.
               
Ducasse was honoured and recognised for using innovation to drive business growth and having potential to significantly scale through the Endeavor network.

He will be sponsored by FNB and flights provided by SWISS International Airlines to attend the prestigious Endeavor International Selection Panel (ISP) in Boston in September this year, to stand a chance to be selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur. Endeavor Entrepreneurs are part of a global network of founders, they gain access to influential business leaders as mentors and an advisory board to help them achieve their business goals.

“I am excited and feel privileged to be recognised as the winner of the FNB Business Innovation Awards. This accolade is testament to the hard work and dedication that has gone towards establishing wiGroup as a trusted and reputable brand. Innovation and excellence have always been at the centre of our business. We will continue breaking boundaries while still delivering quality products and services to our clients,” said Bevan Ducasse, CEO of wiGroup.

“Access to a global platform of leading business luminaries and a peer group of highly ambitious founders at the Endeavor ISP is something I am incredibly excited about.  Beyond that, I feel the journey must be of scale and innovation that challenges the status quo in the sector we operate in,” added Ducasse.

Michael Vacy-Lyle, CEO of FNB Business, congratulated Bevan for a well-deserved accomplishment. “It was certainly a closely contested challenge with all finalists’ demonstrating great potential to scale up their businesses. I wish all of them the best on their journey ahead. The FNB Business Innovation Awards have undoubtedly proven that South Africa has a lot of potential to create high-impact global businesses. We need more platforms of this calibre to unearth and recognise innovative businesses with the capability to create sustainable jobs,” added Vacy-Lyle.

Congratulations to Bevan, a remarkable journey to date in founding and building the business to this point.  Through Endeavor and the exposure at the ISP we are confident that Bevan will be even more motivated to think bigger and engage with a network of like-minded ambitious entrepreneurs that are driven to build a business with a global footprint,” said Catherine Townshend, Managing Director of Endeavor South Africa.

The selection criteria for the FNB Business Innovation Awards 2016 focused on businesses that:

• Exhibited high growth potential and the capacity to add substantial economic value by creating a number of high-value jobs.
• Demonstrated real innovation that has the potential to change the way an industry operates locally and/or internationally.
• Were interested in accepting advice and support from FNB and Endeavor, as well as contributing to the Endeavor network.

Factors such as brand and reputation, stakeholder relations and goodwill, environmental sustainability, social responsibility and quality of governance were all taken into account.