Aim To win the battle for talent and customers by helping clients create high quality, low cost video and film content.
Icon Nelson Mandela for taking an inspired and contrarian approach to the transfer of power in South Africa. He's a leader and a hero.

When he was 17, Adrian Tripp boasted to his friends that he was going to retire in his 30s. "They'd laugh at me," he says, "so achieving something and not having egg on my face is important." He did retire after the sale in January 2007 of his publishing firm Quest Media to United Business Media, but not for very long.

Tripp, who came to the UK from South Africa when he was a child, started up Quest Media 11 years ago. He'd been working at a publishing firm and complaining that it was "ruining his ideas", so he decided to build his own business-to-business (B2B) publishing company. It was then that he had the idea for the awards programme for UK businesses, in order to diversify and raise Quest's profile.

"The idea was to create something that allowed companies of all sizes to compete," he explains. "We pulled the methodology and judges together, went out and found some brilliant sponsors (including Orange) and created the National Business Awards. Then the world fell apart with the dotcom crash and 9/11".

It was the closest he came to going out of business, but he stuck to his plan. "We concentrated on fixing the publishing business but we pushed on with the awards as I believed there was even more reason for it," he says. The awards grew to become a major platform for celebrating business success. He explains: "Maybe I'm an anorak, but I love business. Most awards are launched as extensions of people's products to make additional revenue. But ours encourage success."

After three months of retirement, Tripp couldn't resist, stepping back into an operational role in The European Business Awards, the programme he founded two years ago. He also launched Tracc Films, spotting a gap for high quality video and film content. "Video is becoming ever more important for most businesses, and when you see it used well it is amazing the results it can achieve."

He says he's proud of what he describes as "probably the biggest B2B sponsorship deal in the UK at the time and the biggest awards programme", but he tries to remain grounded. "If it all fell apart tomorrow, I'd still be who I am," he says.

Even though he's started another venture he says that selling Quest has given him a better work-life balance. As he explains: "I do a three- or four-day week. There are highs and lows. It's one long game, you just keep playing it."