The chief executive of one of South Africa's biggest transport companies, Imperial Holdings, has won the Ernst & Young 2006 World Entrepreneur Of The Year award.
Bill Lynch (62), who is from Ballybunion, Co Kerry, emigrated to South Africa with his wife Ann in 1971. He joined Imperial Holdings, which was a Chrysler car dealership, on arrival and quickly became a shareholder and the driving force behind its growth into a company that is now valued at €3.2 billion.
Today the firm is a publicly listed company with annual revenues of €6.5 billion across seven divisions that include fleet management, vehicle and forklift leasing, aviation operations, sales and leasing, car rental and tourism related financial services. The group's operations include Air Contractors in Swords, Co Dublin.
Mr Lynch is among 32 national winners, which includes Ireland's representative, Aidan Heavey of Tullow Oil. The award was presented in Monte Carlo on Saturday night.
Accepting the award Mr Lynch said he was very proud that the company employs 36,000 staff on three continents, including 30,000 in South Africa.
"We have 29 per cent unemployment in South Africa and I am proud that Imperial is creating employment. Some 40 per cent of our workforce is made up of black people who each have a shareholding in the company that will in time allow them to afford to send their children to university and to have a good home," he said.
Chairman of the nine-member judging panel, Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder of Bharti Enterprises and 2004 India Entrepreneur Of The Year, said Mr Lynch was the epitome of an entrepreneur. "He started with nothing, but he grew an amazing business over 30 years . . ."
Mr Lynch had worked in the car business in Ireland in Listowel and in Dublin where he was a director of Murphy and Gunn before emigrating.
He travelled to South Africa with an assisted passage from that government and £2,000. "I knew it might be difficult but I had enough confidence to believe that I could make it," he said .
When he joined the then familyowned company it was losing about €9,600 a year. He says the owner had been advised to recruit someone with a university education to help to stabilise the business.
Mr Lynch, who had no such qualifications, said his employer was impressed by his enthusiasm and decided to hire him as a car salesman. Within six months he was managing the business. The family later offered him a 5 per cent stake in the business but he declined saying he would prefer to acquire a 10 per cent shareholding.
"I paid for it five years later . . . I was very committed to the business," he said.