Navan entrepreneur Moran on UTV documentary tonight

This week’s EY Entrepreneur Of The Year programme features the people behind The Healy Group, Uform, Plotbox, Kitman Labs and Meath’s Prepaid Financial Services on Monday 3rd October at 8pm on UTV Ireland.

Navan native Noel Moran created Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) which provides an alternative payment method from pre-paid credit cards to online merchant payments. Founded in 2008, PFS is now the fastest growing issuer of MasterCard® prepaid products in Europe, with programmes live in 23 countries and the ability to transact in over 20 different currencies.

Noel explains that his inspiration came while working for a major bank in London just before the crash. “It was an attractive proposition and a way to make money 24/7, even while you are asleep. So far this year we have sold over 800,000 cards with a forecast of 1.5 million new cards and customers for 2016.”

A well-known businessman and philanthropist, Maurice Healy moved from his native Cork to Dublin in the 1970s where he set up the Healy Group, a food ingredients and chemicals distributor which donates 20% of all pre-tax profits to charity.  The Healy Group supports a varied range of industries including food, health and nutrition, pharmaceutical and industrial, trading from premises in Leicester, Dublin, Shanghai, Singapore and Netherlands. Maurice says: “We are in practically every country in the world now.”

Next in the technology sector we meet husband and wife team Sean and Leona McAllister who set up PlotBox in Portglenone, Co Antrim which provides cemetery mapping software.  The company was founded in 2011 and started by mapping over 200 burial grounds in Ireland before expanding to the UK and the USA. Members of the public can also search and find deceased records, headstone pictures and grave locations via the company’s genealogy website www.discovereverafter.com. Leona says: “Last year 65% of our sales were in the States, next year I expect it will be over 90%.”

Kildare man, Stephen Smith previously worked as a Rehabilitation Coach with Leinster Rugby before turning his skill of assessing injury risk into technology company, Kitman Labs. He specialises in using technology and data to create tailored training regimes for a specific individual athlete’s needs, overall reducing the potential for injuries. His applications can track an athlete’s weak point through movement and determines how to avoid injury occurring through training. Kitman Labs has expanded to the United States working with clients across 15 different leagues including Miami Dolphins, Detroit Pistons, Irish Rugby Football Union, South African Rugby Football Union and Everton FC.

At just 17 years of age Eamon Donnelly starting selling kitchens before setting up Uform, a family business based in Toomebridge which manufactures kitchen doors and components, supplying 700 independent kitchen retailers throughout the UK and Ireland. The company has recently announced a £3million investment plan to support growth with a new 31,000 sq ft. extension to accommodate new product introductions and enhance existing ranges through more colour offerings at its Antrim HQ.

There is also a feature on Science Summer camps which are being run by Entrepreneur Ross Maguire, whose company Learn It is inspiring the next generation of science and engineering entrepreneurs.

The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ series will broadcast for the second year running exclusively on UTV Ireland and UTV this autumn, presented by Dermot Murnaghan and Pamela Flood. Last year the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ series reached more than one million people throughout the island of Ireland – 670,000 on UTV Ireland and 413,000 viewers on UTV in Northern Ireland. 

The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ six-part documentary series profiles entrepreneurs who have overcome adversity through innovation and creativity to create world-leading businesses which are revolutionising technology, education, health, agriculture and more. It explores the lives of the people behind these businesses and the inspirational stories in their journey to success. The series premieres on Monday 26 September at 8pm and will air every Monday in the build up to the Awards Gala on Thursday 27 October.

The prestigious business awards programme is divided into three categories - Emerging, Industry and International - with eight finalists chosen per category. The 24 finalists have been selected by an independent panel of judges made up of former EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ winners and Anne Heraty, CEO of Cpl Resources plc and Chairperson of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Judging Panel.

The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ is sponsored by Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland.