The Great British Entrepreneur Awards & Community

EVERYTHING WE DO IS ABOUT

2020 Winners

2019 winners

2018 winners

2017 winners

2016 winners

2015 winners

In 2012 we launched an awards programme to shine a light on Great British Entrepreneurs.

It’s now grown to so much more than that, and while we are home to the largest celebration of entrepreneurship via The Great British Entrepreneur Awards, we are also a community and eco-system of some 50,000 entrepreneurs and their supporters.

Take a look around to see what we’re doing, along with our impressive community and passionate supporters.

Proudly partnered with Starling Bank

"It’s particularly exciting for us to have such a committed partner with a real entrepreneurial success story behind it. Starling’s founder and CEO, Anne Boden MBE, is someone who saw so many problems with traditional banking and decided to do something about it, disrupting an entire industry in the process."
- Francesca James, Founder of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards & Community

Find out more

Latest

What I learned reading Anne Boden’s book ‘Banking On It’

January 11, 2021

We’ve got two copies of Banking On It to giveaway!Find out how to get your hands on them at the end of this post I’d

Vaccine rollout boosts small business confidence

January 4, 2021

Small business owners are feeling overwhelmingly more confident about their prospects for 2021 following the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, according to research by the Great

Starling Bank becomes first profitable digital bank

November 20, 2020

In a blog post on Starling’s website, founder Anne Boden wrote how the bank is breaking barriers and breaking even, becoming the UK’s first digital bank

New businesses increase 5% in Q3

October 20, 2020

The number of people launching businesses in the UK has risen by more than 5% since last year, despite the hugely challenging conditions facing firms,

2021 pre-registrations now open

Follow the link below to pre-register your interest for the 2021 awards - it should only take a minute!

latest Community News

Here’s what members of our community have been doing, making, announcing and disrupting.

Happy news: AMPLYFI lands USD 5m for AI platform that analyses data

It’s easy to start feeling more than a little overwhelmed with the bad news right now which is why, with our partner Printed.com, we’re on a

Mr Lee’s sends noodles to those who deserve thanks

It’s easy to start feeling more than a little overwhelmed with the bad news right now which is why, with our partner Printed.com, we’re on a

Grenade to donate £500,000 of care packages to frontline workers

January 14, 2021

haysmacintyre joins Great British Entrepreneur Awards as partner

January 14, 2021

Achieve Your Life Goals: Shield Your Business from Issues in Your Personal Life

December 22, 2020

Digital opportunities in consumer sectors

November 25, 2020

The importance of 21st century skills: Why we invest in founders, not just start-ups

November 23, 2020

We're a gateway organisation for the government's Kickstart scheme. This means we can support employers taking on less than 30 roles.

Did you know we have a magazine?

View the latest issue of the GB Entrepreneurs magazine. This magazine brings those incredible stories together in one place, helping to shine a spotlight on some of the best entrepreneurial stories and biggest issues facing entrepreneurs in the UK today.

Previous Issues

Nice things say about us

GBEA is a community that really does work to the benefit of everyone involved. Something you don’t realise, even being in business yourself, is just how many incredible British businesses there are and we should be sharing success stories and championing those getting out there and doing it more – and that’s exactly what GBEA does.

In truth, we didn’t really understand what was going on. When Steven (founder of Poundland) said he would do it, we thought he was joking. Even when we exchanged contact details we thought maybe he would change his mind. But Steven kept his promise and helped us exceed our target. When we saw he’d done it we were dancing around and screaming at each other down the phone.

GBEA is utterly brilliant at recognising the wonderful and diverse entrepreneurial talent we have in Great Britain. Winning the Young Entrepreneur and Great British Entrepreneur of the Year for the South West Region was literally mind-blowing and is now inspiring me to push myself harder than ever before!

Winning The Great British Entrepreneur of the year 2019 has been a very special experience for both myself and the Hey Girls team. Whilst only a few months in, the recognition and opportunities are coming thick and fast. As a start-up Social Enterprise this kind of accolade is invaluable to help us grow and evolve. Onwards and upwards!

I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life, and when I did stop to think about winning the award, it felt like such an honour and maybe it’s a little pat on the back to myself. All the hard work was finally being recognised, and Mr Lees was the catalyst for that. We have won lots of awards over the years, but this is the one that really meant a lot to me.

There’s so much amazing innovation and creativity in UK F&B brands right now, so this recognition was incredibly special, at a really pivotal time for Snaffling Pig. As an entrepreneur, you come up against so many unexpected highs and lows - being able to share that with other founders, within the GBEA community, has been incredibly rewarding and I’d recommend it to anyone thinking about going for it in 2020.

a community RECOGNISED BY GOVERNMENT:

What marks these awards out is the way they've fostered such an impressive, supportive community of people. And that's never been more important than right now.

Rishi Sunak, Chancellor

Upcoming

Days

Hours

Minutes

Seconds

In a time when both our business models and personal relationships are being tested to their limits, it is important to understand how the breakdown of a relationship can affect your business.

People at the heart of your business

Chieu Cao, CMO of Perkbox

This session will explore the impact of positive health and wellbeing in the workplace for employees and employers, and how these steps should be a fundamental part of your business plan.

Are Social Entrepreneurs the Business Leaders of the Future?

Mel Young MBE, Serial Entrepreneur

Mel will identify how being a social enterprise can compare to a purely for-profit business, what it means to be a social entrepreneur and have social values, and how your business can support change in the world for a brighter future.

Becoming a B Corp

December 10, 2020

This free session sees Great British Entrepreneur Awards Founder Francesca James speak with a panel of B Corp business leaders including Pippa Murray of Pip

Scaling effectively: The art of letting go

December 3, 2020

In this free session, GBEA head of content Jonathan Davies sits down with entrepreneur and start-up and scale-up adviser, Kate Methuen-Ley. As the leader of

How much should a small business be spending on Google ads?

November 26, 2020

In this free session, James Oakley, recognised as one of the world’s leading mobile marketers, identified how much small businesses should be spending on Google

How to use Influencers to grow your business

November 19, 2020

In this free session, Great British Entrepreneur Awards head of content Jonathan Davies sat down with founder of Influencer, Ben Jeffries and influencer marketing manager of

Supporting International Innovation

Working with Fortunis Capital, we're showcasing some of the most promising foreign entrepreneurs who have been endorsed under the new Home Office Start up & Innovator scheme and have relocated their business to the UK – creating new jobs and helping to strengthen the economy for an overall positive effect.

VIEW THIS YEARS SHORTLIST

The Great British Entrepreneurs

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH UBS GLOBAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT

The Great British Entrepreneur Awards Hall of Fame recognises individuals with a long-term record of combining their outstanding entrepreneurial achievements with a sustained commitment to supporting entrepreneurial talent throughout the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and other partner programmes.

The first fourteen individuals were inducted into the Great British Entrepreneurs Champions Hall of Fame in 2019, with three new members being inducted at the 2020 virtual regional final.

Julie Deane OBE

John Stapleton

Oli Barrett MBE

Will King

Steven Smith

James Caan CBE

Holly Tucker MBE

Kanya King CBE

Ajaz Ahmed

Peter Roberts

Dr Stephen Fear

Mel Young MBE

Paul Lees

Matt Smith

Hugh Chappell

Hayley Parsons OBE

See more from UBS Global Wealth Management:

A year of renewal: the decade of transformation

In a “Year of Renewal” we will see a world that is steadily returning to normal, despite continued uncertainty, while also rapidly accelerating into a transformed future.

Download the report

Introducing the latest Great British Entrepreneurs Champions Hall of Fame inductees

December 9, 2020

We are delighted to announce the six newest additions to the Great British Entrepreneurs Champions Hall of Fame. Supported by UBS Global Wealth Management, the

UBS Entrepreneur Report

December 1, 2020

A different way of thinking – Turning crisis into opportunity There’s no time like a crisis for revealing people’s true colors; the COVID-19 pandemic is

Digital opportunities in consumer sectors

November 25, 2020

Consumer behaviour is changing. Greater smartphone penetration has dissolved boundaries of time and place, transforming how consumers interact with consumer companies. Read the full report

Four ways entrepreneurs young and old can benefit from succession planning

November 18, 2020

Exiting a business can be a moment of truth for an entrepreneur. A solid succession plan can make the difference between success and failure. Read

Setting a new course: Rethinking health and wealth in a post-COVID world

November 11, 2020

Amid the confinement of the pandemic— and facing threats to their lives and livelihoods—investors looked inward. Most rediscovered the joy of family, the importance of

Entrepreneur ROund tables

As a community, we regularly bring together thought leaders and industry experts for roundtable discussions that allow us to ‘test the temperature’ and highlight industry concerns and/or trends.

The new way of working – Is remote working here to stay?

As the Covid-19 pandemic progressed and businesses spent more time working from home, thoughts started to turn from returning to the office to making remote,

Building back better for population health and wellbeing

Discussions around getting the UK more healthy have been ongoing for a number of years. But it seems to have intensified in recent years, with

City mobility post-pandemic: A better new normal

As we become more and more accustomed to smart technology in our personal and home lives – our phones, our watches, lighting, heating, music and

What impact will Boris Johnson’s Obesity Strategy have?

‘Empowering everyone to make healthier choices’ was the UK government’s message when it announced its new plan to tackle obesity in July. The Obesity Strategy

Reaching for the Starlings

Along with our partners Starling Bank, the Great British Entrepreneur Awards prides itself on supporting exciting entrepreneurs making waves in the UK.