Issa brothers win entrepreneurship award

Mohsin and Zuber Issa, who founded the billion-pound EG Group, have been crowned overall winners of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 North awards.

The Blackburn-based brothers also took home the Sustained Excellence award and the Building a better working world award, after judges praised their sustainable business model that had seen strong international expansion and had a clear strategic direction.

Founded in 2001, EG Group operates across eight markets (UK, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany and the US) and employs more than 20,000 people. The business has strategic partnerships with many leading retail brands.

Victoria Price, partner and EY Entrepreneur Of The Year leader in the North, said: “Mohsin and Zuber’s entrepreneurial spirit, along with their forward thinking approach and clear strategy has resulted in sustained strong financial performance. The business also has plans for further international expansion.

“When speaking to Mohsin and Zuber, their personal integrity and purpose driven approach to leadership is also very clear and the fact that they want to use their success as a force for good is to be applauded.”

“We’re not rocket scientists [...] what we are is meticulous, have attention to detail and look at what the consumer wants and deliver it,” says Mohsin Issa of @TheEGGroup - one half of our 2018 North overall winners. A truly humble and deserving #entrepreneur #EOY20years pic.twitter.com/CUsdZ26wWX

— EY EOY UK (@EOY_UK) 28 June 2018

Held at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester and hosted by presenter and broadcaster Jeremy Vine, the awards dinner honoured six business leaders across five categories. Each winner was judged and selected from 21 finalists leading 19 companies from across the North West, Yorkshire and the North East. All of the North of England winners will go on to represent the region at the UK finals in November 2018, where the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year UK will be crowned. The UK country winner will then attend the ‘EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year’ in Summer 2019, which gathers the world’s most inspiring entrepreneurs from more than 60 countries.