"Our contest is not between companies, but between entrepreneurs. It focuses on their personal characteristics, ability to successfully implement a business idea, unusual strategies of entering a market," said Alexander Ivlev, partner with Ernst & Young, which organizes the contest in Russia.
In June 2005 Vardanyan will represent Russia at the international stage in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
This year the final involved even regional companies from St. Petersburg, Nizhni Novgorod and Novosibirsk, Ivlev pointed out. "We view it as the contest's further potential," he said.
The contest aims at assisting entrepreneurial activities and economic growth, stimulating successful entrepreneurs to climb new heights and looking for business role models for next generations of entrepreneurs, he explained.
In 2004 the Russian stage of the international contest for the second time gathered the brightest representatives of the country's business from all over Russia.
Anatoly Karachinsky, president of the IBS group and winner of the Entrepreneur of Year 2003, said, "The world views entrepreneurs as national assets, because they take the risk, spend sleepless nights and create jobs. There is a payment, though: many of them succeed, but some fail and lose everything. Nevertheless, they are a crucial element in the state structure."
"The economy can create private business. We have to change Russian mentality, because Russia still cannot decide how to perceive business and entrepreneurs - as a crucial element or as an unnecessary one. But everything can be built and it will be working," he believes.
In his opinion, the contest's goal is "to show this group of people, entrepreneurs, to promote these people, to remind that their efforts have created 60%, 70% or maybe even 80% of jobs in the world."
