Honouring Asia's top entrepreneurs

LAUNCHED in 2007, the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards are the region's most prestigious and honours outstanding entrepreneurship, continuous innovation and sustainable leadership. The Awards provide a platform for companies and governments to recognise entrepreneurial excellence, and inspiration in spurring greater innovation, fair business practices and growth in entrepreneurship. As a regional award, it groups together leading entrepreneurs and serves as a by-invitation-only networking powerhouse. The programme has grown to encompass 13 markets: Brunei, BIMP-EAGA, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and now the Middle East.

The Awards are noted for the stringent entry criteria and highly competitive judging parameters. Nominations are by invitation by past and current awardees, a supporting trade association or the organising committee of Enterprise Asia. Nominees are then subjected to a series of rigorous tests, including financial verification by an appointed audit firm and a compulsory physical site audit and interview, culminating in a secret balloting process by Enterprise Asia's organising committee.

The APEA remains one of the toughest contests for entrepreneurs. Enterprise Asia, which makes the compulsory site audits, uses a regional yardstick that is the same whether the entrepreneur is in India, Hong Kong, Singapore or Taiwan. This allows the award alumni to quickly focus on building business opportunities since the tedious process of authentication and credential checking have been done by Enterprise Asia and its audit partners.