RedBalloon Founder Wins Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Industry

18^th November, Sydney Naomi Simson, founding director of online experiential gift retailer RedBalloon was last night named Ernst & Young Australian Entrepreneur of the Year, winning the industry category in the prestigious awards.

RedBalloon recently celebrated its tenth birthday and Ms. Simson shows no sign of slowing down as an entrepreneur, with the business recently recording a greater than 70 percent year-on-year revenue growth.

“This win is a fabulous acknowledgment for all women who start businesses, and who believe in their people. It’s an acknowledgement for suppliers and team members past and present, who took a chance to try something different,” says Ms. Simson.

At start-up RedBalloon was completely new: an online gifting service aggregating over 1,500 unique experiences – massage, sailing, chocolate tours, cookery lessons, car racing and skydiving – across Australia. For the public, RedBalloon offers experience gift vouchers; for organisations it creates reward and recognition solutions, corporate gifts and sales incentives to keep employees and customers motivated, rewarded and engaged.

“Initially RedBalloon was about my wanting to create a business that allowed me to blend my responsibilities as a mother to young children. As my babies grew, I dared myself to play a bigger game and make a difference. To have RedBalloon deliver a meaningful experience to two million people by 2015. To do this, RedBalloon needed to grow into a significant organisation with people who believed in this purpose.

“Receiving this award is an important milestone on our journey to delivering two million meaningful experiences. It’s an honour to be recognised and one I hope will be an influence on the wider community; to working parents and business leaders looking to create truly flexible work places and to the next generation of young women seeking positive role models,” said Ms. Simson.

The E&Y judges commented: “Naomi Simson has shown true entrepreneurial spirit, vision and passion in creating a new industry and way of gifting. She has demonstrated great self-awareness through her ability to step back and work on the business, not in the business – a rare quality for a founder. Naomi is also a wonderful and active role model for female entrepreneurs.”

Previous Australian winners include the entrepreneurial brains behind businesses such as Atlassian, Carsales.com, and Res Med, while past World Entrepreneur Of The Year winners have included the founders of Amazon and IKEA.

Naomi Simson shares her entrepreneurial advice and learnings from business on her blog naomisimson.com

Further Information: Philippa Lowe, PR & Communications Manager, 0414 711107philippa@redballoon.com.au

Note to Editors: Hi-resimages of Naomi Simson are available. Download at http://www.redballoon.com.au/corporate/team/naomi-gallery