Tomáš Čupr, founder and owner of Rohlík Group, the largest online food retailer in the Czech Republic, was awarded the prestigious title of EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021. Among other things, the independent judging panel appreciated his company’s approach to sustainable business, technology and the superior service it provides to customers. In addition to the Czech Republic, the company also operates in Austria, Germany and Hungary, and its services have been used by more than 850,000 customers. The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year competition was held in the Czech Republic for the twenty-second time, and this year’s competition was dominated by state-of-the-art technologies and social benefit, including a sustainable approach to business.
As every year, the winners were selected by an independent judging panel composed mainly of national winners of previous years of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year competition. The panel particularly highlighted the high standard of quality of RohlíkGroup’s services, which are backed by the owner’s motto: “Love first, money second”. It is the highly professional yet friendly service that he provides to his clients that is the key to his success, and has enabled Tomáš Čupr to compete in such a demanding and rapidly evolving segment as the online sale of food and other fast moving consumer goods.
“It’s a huge recognition of not only my work, but the work of the whole team. Even though we at Rohlík are primarily concerned with customer satisfaction and don’t really think too much about awards, it’s great to see and know our work is appreciated. This of course makes us very happy,” said Tomáš Čupr, holder of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 title in the Czech Republic, after the ceremony at Žofín in Prague.
Rohlik.cz has an 80% market share in the Czech online grocery world, with a record 60% growth last year. Tomáš, who, after his success on foreign markets, is not hiding his ambition to turn RohlíkGroup into a major pan-European retailer and to reach the one-hour delivery limit even in big cities, also wants to inspire others and would like to see other companies follow in his footsteps in making the customer always come first.
“The twenty-second edition of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year competition presented the largest number of business personalities in history, with modern technologies dominating in terms of industries. I’m very pleased to see that the majority of entrepreneurs put great emphasis on business sustainability, which is a new development compared to previous years,” said Martina Kneiflová, EY’s managing partner in the Czech Republic, and added: “I’m convinced that Tomáš Čupr will represent the Czech Republic very well at the World Final in Monte Carlo and that his story will appeal to the international jury as it did in the Czech Republic.”
This year’s finalists and candidates for the title of EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 in the Czech Republic were also decided by the jury:
In addition to the main award, winners in other categories were announced once again this year:
Jan Jakůbek and Jan Sohar of ADVACAM s.r.o. were named EY Technology Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021
Martin Dienstbier and Václav Navrátil of DIANA Biotechnologies, s.r.o. won the EY Start-up Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 trophy.
Since 2006, EY has also awarded the Social Entrepreneur Of The Year award. This year’s recipient of the EY Social Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 award is Kateřina Vacková of Loono.
This year, for the sixth time in the competition’s history, the Czech Television Award – Entrepreneurial Contribution to Culture and Art was awarded to Rudolf and Renata Kasper of KASPER GROUP s.r.o.
The MF DNES and iDNES.cz Readers’ Prize for the Best Business Story of 2021 went to Jiří Kůs and Lucie Konečná of nanoSPACE s.r.o.
As in previous years, Tomáš Čupr, as the winner of the national final, will represent the Czech Republic in the global round of this prestigious competition. This year’s winner of the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year Award will be announced in June 2022 in Monte Carlo. There, our Czech representative will compete alongside other national winners from fifty-four countries.
The official car of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 competition is BMW Czech Republic s.r.o. The main competition partner is Česká spořitelna a.s. SAP is a competition partner. The main co-organizer is the daily MF DNES and iDNES.cz. The main media partner is Czech Television; other media partners are Forbes magazine and Seznam Zprávy. The competition is supported by the CzechInvest agency and the Association of Social Responsibility and held under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce of the Czech Republic.
