The Lifetime Ambassador Award is bestowed on an individual who has spent a notable period of their lives in the service of entrepreneurs and/or contributing to the success of the Entrepreneur of the Year® competition sponsored by Sanlam and BUSINESS/PARTNERS.  

This is the first time we are bestowing this award and the Entrepreneur of the Year® competition team believes that they could not have selected a more deserving person.

The recipient of the 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year® Lifetime Ambassador Award goes to Mr Christo Botes – executive director at Business Partners Limited.

Botes is a wise and humble person who has been an integral part of the competition since it was introduced 30 years ago. He is the voice of reason in any boardroom where he participates. He is an advocate for entrepreneurs and always wants to see them succeed.

Botes’ vision and leadership has seen the competition grow from being an internal competition for Business Partners Limited to being a premier national competition for recognising entrepreneurs in the SME space.

His tireless efforts involve reviewing each entry that lands in our inbox and assessing it not only with the aim to the entrepreneur becoming a finalist but to also see that entrepreneur grow as well.

Every year he visits each of our competition finalists in order to understand them and their businesses better and to provide feedback to judges where they may have missed an important aspect of the business.

Under his leadership the Entrepreneur of the Year® competition has unearthed entrepreneurs and celebrated finalists and winners from as far as the dusty streets of QwaQwa to the skyscrapers of Johannesburg.