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#Biz50 In association with Friday 14th October 2016 12:30pm-2:30pm • Titanic Belfast The thirteenth annual Belfast Business Top 50 promises to be another outstanding celebration of the city's brightest and best entrepreneurs and business leaders. 2 | Belfast Business Top 50 - 2016 October 2016 “ere are lots of bad reasons to start a company,” the Russian-born the Entrepreneurial Spark hatchery in Lombard Street. As principal Silicon Valley entrepreneur Phil Libin once observed. “But there is only sponsor of the Belfast International Homecoming 2016, we are also one good legitimate reason and I think you know what it is: to change delighted the city is taking time to recognise 50 of its brightest and the world.” Belfast has lots of companies who want to change the best companies at the Top 50 lunch. ese firms are making a positive world, whether it is through product innovation, digital technology difference to their customers’ lives and they offer real inspiration to or simply a new standard of customer experience. It is not sufficient to customers. ey show, with a bit of ingenuity and a strong simply harbour that ambition, you have to deliver upon it. As Belfast commitment to customer service, Belfast firms can change the world businesses make their presence felt in a fast moving digitised world, it and that is surely something worth celebrating. is important we take time to cherish those companies, support them and celebrate their achievements. Ulster Bank is doing our bit by Richard Donnan, investing in firms, financing their growth ambitions and helping early Managing Director, stage businesses realise their potential through our partnership with Head of Ulster Bank NI Premier Business Partner Richard Donnan Nominations OPEN! Friday 2nd December, 2016 • Europa Hotel Follow us on #AislingAwards Connla McCann NOMINATION FORM Tourism; tech; arts; fashion; law; medicine; finance. 1. The Aisling Person of the year Award: ___________________________________________________________________ ere are no limits to the sectors in which our brightest 2. The Kennedy Centre Educational Achievement Award: _________________________________________________________ and best business brains are excelling and no limits to the scope of their ambitions as they forge ahead – 3. The Ulster Bank Culture & Arts Award: __________________________________________________________________ individually and collectively – in shaping our new 4. Belfast Brand Award: ____________________________________________________________________________ Belfast. As we gather to honour the Belfast Business Top 50 in the engine room of the city’s proud industrial past, 5. Belfast’s Best Business Award: _______________________________________________________________________ our 50 honourees are firmly focused on the future and 6. The Sean Graham Sport Award: (Closes 4th November) ________________________________________________________ their rising tide is liing all boats around them. eir outstanding commitment to driving economic success 7. Gradam na Gaeilge: _____________________________________________________________________________ through their entrepreneurial leadership is acknowledged today, but is reflected day and daily in 8. The Park Centre Positive Belfast Award: (Person/Organisation_________________________________________________________________ making a difference through positive projects) the products, services, creations and solutions pouring 9. Roll of Honour Award: ___________________________________________________________________________ forth from their companies – and their ideas. Today we voice our appreciation of their dynamism and Nominee contact number: _________________________________________________________________________ dedication, because an entrepreneurial society with its sights set on the future is one that benefits us all. We Nominee email address: ___________________________________________________________________________ also thank our Belfast Business Top 50 sponsors, with our main partner Ulster Bank this year joined by Your name: ____________________________________ Your contact number:_________________________________ Tourism NI, Tennent’s NI, Visit Belfast, Belfast City Council and Lough Shore Investments, who are Your email address: ______________________________________________________________________________ sponsoring our Best Start Up Award. And not to forget our panel of judges who have helped us bring together Post your completed nomination form to: Aisling Awards, Teach Basil, 2 Hannahstown Hill, Belfast BT17 0LT. such an inspiring collection of business champions. You can also nominate online at www.belfastmediagroup.com/aislingawards Go n-éirí go geal leo uilig san am atá romhainn. The closing date for nominations is Friday 11th November 2016. (Sports nominations close Friday 4th November 2016). Connla McCann, Director, Aisling Events Platinum Sponsors Gold Sponsor October 2016 Belfast Business Top 50 - 2016 | 3 Special Honouree: Jim Clerkin Jim Clerkin has been chosen to receive the Spirit of the Diaspora Award, sponsored by NI Connections, at the third annual Belfast International Homecoming because he epitomises the very best of the tradition of the Wild Geese. We don’t say that just because he now sits at the board table of the most venerable business established by those same Wild Geese 250 years ago – Hennessy Cognac, which is part of the LVMH Group – but rather because his commitment to his new home of America and his enduring fealty to his homeland go to the very heart and soul of what it means to be a member of the Diaspora. As President and CEO of Moët-Hennessy North America, Jim Clerkin heads up a drinks business with revenues approaching $2bn and which boasts some of the world’s most prestigious brands, including Dom Pérignon and Moët & Chandon. He is the longest-serving CEO of a drinks company in the US, his longevity in high office linked directly to the values of straight-talking and hard work he learnt as the son of a pig-farmer from Rostrevor, Co Down. And the traits and talents for which he is lauded were nurtured as a manager for Guinness during some of the toughest days of the Troubles. He is therefore a business legend in the US. But that’s not how the majority of us know him or why many of our community and political leaders have had the opportunity to visit his corporate offices below the High Line in New York. e Jim we know is the peace and reconciliation ambassador who has spent 25 years working with and for Co-Operation Ireland, initially in Belfast, then as the chairman of the Board in Ireland, and for the past ten years in the USA. He recently secured the biggest-ever investment from the US for its bridge-building work. at’s the true spirit of the Diaspora: you don’t decry the divisions of the past, you work to heal them. He is the ally of every inward investment mission from this city which makes land in New York. A booster for Belfast, he has been tireless in urging business leaders in the US to explore the possibilities of investing in Northern Ireland. No-one beats the drum more for tourism, for investment, and for partnerships between Irish America and Belfast than Jim Clerkin. He does that not only because he knows jobs are the concrete foundation on which peace and prosperity can be built, but also because he knows that in our midst there are tens of thousands of intelligent and ambitious young men and women hungry for work and advancement. In giving back to his homeland and in particular to its youth, Jim Clerkin shows us that the indomitable spirit of the Diaspora not only beats in his heart – it soars. We present to you our Spirit of the Diaspora 2016 recipient, Jim Clerkin. Jim Clerkin • CEO, US Moët Hennessy 4 | Belfast Business Top 50 - 2016 October 2016 Age : 50 Judith Totten is the majority shareholder and Managing Director Place of Birth: Belfast of Upstream Working Capital Ltd, a company she established Name of Business: Upstream Working Capital Ltd 2011 as an independent provider of working capital funding for Job Title: Managing Director Northern Ireland SMEs. Having bought out her Business Partner Website: www.upstreampositive.co.uk for a six figure sum in June 2015. the business moved to spacious Twitter Handle: #upstreamjudes Grade A offices in Linenhall Street Belfast and Upstream has First Job: Working at a local stables – mucking out , feeding and flourished since. excercising the horses! Upstream currently supports funding in excess of £120m to What it taught me: at getting up early, working hard all day, indigenous NI businesses and Judith is driven to see the getting your hands dirty and going to bed late with the job done alternative finance market growing exponentially in the years doesn't kill you – it actually makes you feel good about yourself. ahead. Current expansion includes diversification into trade Oh, and that the smell of the 'great outdoors' does linger a while! finance – a centuries-old product offered in a new and refreshing Family: Husband, David; son Robbie (25), engaged to Ami, and way for NI. they have a little daughter, my delicious and adorable Upstream will then complete the circle, providing ‘end to end’ granddaughter Emily (2); and my daughter Rachel (17). finance from supplier to buyer. Experience of these facilities to Best advice anyone ever gave you: “Have a good old belly date proves that clients with this package expand, enjoy enhanced laugh every day and do not ever take yourself too seriously.” is gross margin and diversify on a much faster growth

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