Meet the EEPA 2021 Jury

September

17

2021

Today on the Promoting Enterprise news portal, we introduce you to the members of the 2021 European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA) jury. The EEPA jury is made up of representatives from the European Commission, business associations, academia, the current European presidencies and the last Grand Jury Prize winner.

EEPA has now progressed to the European level of the competition! The national coordinators have selected up to two of the best national projects to put forward to this stage. Now it is the turn of the European jury to select the best of these national projects to include on 2021 European shortlist. But before that happens, we would like to take a moment to introduce this year’s jury members.

Jury member Professor Thomas Cooney

There are seven jury members in total.  We begin with Professor Thomas Cooney, who has been a jury member for several years and brings significant experience to the role. Thomas is Professor in Entrepreneurship at the Dublin Institute of Technology and Academic Director of the TU Dublin Institute for Minority Entrepreneurship.

Jury member Franciso Sá

Next is Franciso Sá, president of the board of directors of the Portuguese Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (IAPMEI). Franciso represents the Portuguese EU Presidency on the jury. Mr Franciso Sá is the SME Envoy of Portugal.

Jury member Jernej Salecl

Representing the Slovenian EU Presidency is Jernej Salecl. Jernej is director-general of the Internationalisation, Entrepreneurship and Technology Directorate and former head of division for Industry, Innovation and Technology at the Slovenian Ministry of Economic Development and Technology. Mr Salecl is the SME Envoy of Slovenia.

Jury member Dimitri Pivot

Dimitri Pivot represents last year’s Grand Jury Prize winner ‘Le Portail du Rebond’ or ‘The Recovery Portal’, a French organisation made up of associations that together provide a nationwide service to entrepreneurs to help them through difficult times.

Jury member Veronique Willems

The next jury member that we present to you today is Veronique Willems. Veronique represents crafts and SMEs in Europe as the Secretary-General of the SME organisation SMEunited (formerly known as UEAPME), a position she has held since January 2017.

Thomas Wobben

Another veteran jury member is Thomas Wobben, Director of the Directorate for Horizontal Policies and Networks at the Committee of the Regions. His responsibilities include monitoring the Europe 2020 strategy, relations with the OECD and Eurostat, and prospective works of the Committee of the Regions.

Jury member Kristin Schreiber

Finally, we introduce you to Kristin Schreiber. Kristin represents the European Commission, where she was appointed Director for Chemicals, Food and Retail in 2021, having served as Director for SME Policy from 2015 until 2021 and prior to that as Director for Governance of the Single Market and International Affairs.

The jury will meet in Brussels on 17 September to deliberate on this year’s entries and to select a shortlist to move forward to the next stage of the competition. Choosing between so many different projects demonstrating innovation, creativity and passion to support entrepreneurship makes their job difficult. We wish them the very best of luck in their deliberations.

Make sure to visit the News Portal regularly for updates on the European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA) and to find out which projects are selected for the European shortlist by our prestigious EEPA 2021 jury.

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