Longford duo looking forward to EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards

Two Longford natives, leaders in their business field, will go up against each other on Thursday, November 28 to vie for the most prestigious accolade in Irish commerce.

Andrea Reynolds of Swoop and Padraic O’Kane of Corporate.ie represent Longford on the 24 finalist shortlist for the 2024 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards.

The 2024 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards will take place in Powerscourt Hotel, Wicklow.

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Longford Town native, Padraic O’Kane, who is a finalist in the Established category, will join 23 other finalists from across the island of Ireland at the awards which are a standout showcase of entrepreneurship.

Andrea Reynolds, daughter of former Taoiseach Albert, along with fellow Swoop CEO Ciaran Burke, is nominated in the Emerging category. Swoop is a fintech company recently named the winner of the 2023 Deloitte Fast 50, a ranking of the country’s 50 fastest-growing technology companies.

Swoop is a global platform supporting businesses by bringing their data into one place to garner insights and be instantly matched to eligible finance, as well as assess their spend on cost categories such as energy, banking, and FX.
This year’s EY Entrepreneur Of The Year programme launched in January 2024 and received more than 200 nominations – the highest ever in the programme’s history.

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The 24 shortlisted entrepreneurs span a range of sectors including technology, energy, healthcare, hospitality, consumer products, engineering and gaming. Collectively, this group of world-class business leaders is already generating annual revenues of more than €700M and employing over 4,000 people.

Roger Wallace, Partner Lead for the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year programme said: “This year’s EY Entrepreneur Of The Year programme received the most nominations ever in the history of the programme with an incredibly high standard across all of the nominations received emphasising just how vibrant and robust entrepreneurship is throughout the island of Ireland.

“Our 24 finalists are an outstanding cohort of entrepreneurs achieving remarkable success both in Ireland and globally. They represent a wide range of backgrounds and lead inspiring, cutting-edge businesses that are creating innovative products, services and solutions in their respective industries.

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Padraic O’Kane, CEO, Corporate.ie said: “As someone who is familiar with bringing exceptional groups of people together in experience-driven ways, I thought I had a presumed idea of what to expect going into the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year programme.

However, after my first 6 a.m. yoga session in Cape Town on the Entrepreneur Of The Year CEO Retreat, I realised that my time in this programme would be nothing short of transformative.

The retreat opened my eyes to new perspectives, particularly in sustainable practices and technology integration, including the ever-evolving world of AI and its potential within my portfolio of businesses. I genuinely appreciate the connections I’ve made within this incredible network of diverse innovators, who represent the ultimate win in this process.”

Overall winner of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2024 will travel to Monaco in June 2025 to represent Ireland at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year 2025 awards.