E&Y's world entrepreneur summit 'kicks-off'

The World Entrepreneur Summit of Ernst & Young (E&Y) took off literally with a flying, unusual start. With the World Cup round the corner and football fever slowly peaking in Europe, the tenor of the Summit was set rolling with the E&Y worldwide chief operating officer Paul Ostling asking the participants from different parts of the world in packed the Grimaldi Forum to give their vote through the electronic voting handheld machine, as to who will win the World Cup. The clear verdict: Brazil, with a vote of 49 per cent of all the participants in the audience.

Having set the tone, Jim Turley, chairman and CEO of E&Y worldwide outlined the two key themes that the Summit will discuss over the next few days. One, opportunities and challenges in Central and Eastern Europe and second, corporate social responsibility. Turley said that the success of many businesses in Central and Eastern Europe best demonstrated the power of entrepreneurship: thriving through the challenges in a difficult and ever changing environment.

No person best to demonstrate the above than the keynote and first speaker at the Summit, Greek serial entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of one of Europe's best known low cost airline, easyJet and CEO of the easyGroup. In an interactive discussion, by taking answers from the audience rather than giving a presentation, Stelios outlined the key aspects of entrepreneurship.

Although he was from an established Greek family business with main interests in shipping, he wanted to set up his own venture. Why? Because, he says he had some of the key personal attributes of an entrepreneur: that he wanted to be his own boss from a young age, that he would get bored easily with one thing and third, that he relished risks.

But even though his family was in the shipping business, he did not get into the family business, rather he set up a shipping venture of his own. This was because shipping was the business he knew well and it was necessary to start on a strong footing. Confesses Stelio, " I am not a self-made man."

But after having established his own shipping venture, he however soon went back to his father and got some financial support to start a low cost airline called easyJet. He adopted the colour orange for all his aircrafts and today, the two key words that comes to one's mind when you think of easyGroup is "easy" and "orange." This was a deliberate strategy to create a brand differentiator and strong personality in the minds of the consumers. Having established his airline business across Europe, he then went to start more than 16 venture, all with the 'easy' brand extension.

When a women partipant asked him about one of his ventures easyMale, his quick reply which won a loud response was: 'It's not what you think it is. It is a brand of male toiletries." Today, his businesses span areas of travel, leisure, telecom and personal finance.

Finally, who are the role models that he has? One, Richard Branson for having established multiple businesses successfully.  Two, the founder of IKEA, who is known for his humility. Third, Michael Dell for having created a focused business in a market of hyper-competitition. Clearly, he left the audience with rich ideas and lessons in entrepreneurship.