LONDON - (Business Wire) The Good Entrepreneur, a new ‘green’ reality series, will premiere on 5 November at 23.00 CET on CNBC, the leading pan-EMEA business and financial news channel. Hosted by CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick, the four-part series will see three entrepreneurs pitch eco-friendly business concepts to a panel of leading CEOs and academics, each competing for a prize package valued at €250,000. The series will air across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and South East Asia. The series will follow each entrepreneur’s journey towards making their business a reality. They will meet mentors, including business executives and academics, who will offer advice and identify the strengths and weaknesses of their business proposals.
In the series premiere, viewers will meet the show’s first contender, UK based architect Craig White. Craig’s business idea, to build modular buildings out of straw bales, could see homes and commercial buildings save up to 85% of heating costs. Craig travels to London, Berlin and Lund in Sweden on his quest to gain business insight. The episode includes a rare media appearance by Dennis Jönsson, President & CEO of packaging giant, Tetra Pak, who gives Craig advice.
Two of the show’s judges, Jean-Philippe Courtois, President of Microsoft International, and Professor Sir David King, Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, University of Oxford, will also feature in the first programme.
Episode two (12 November at 23.00 CET) features Maltese inventor and mountaineer Marco Cremona. Marco, who stepped off a trek up the Himalayas to take part in the series, plans to launch a system to save precious water reserves by installing on-site waste water recycling plants in large hotels. Marco manages to keep his cool throughout meetings with social entrepreneur and Founder and Chairman of Solarcentury, Jeremy Leggett, in London and survived a tough grilling from veteran print and broadcast journalist Liam Halligan, former correspondent at the Financial Times and Channel 4 News and now Chief Economist at Prosperity Capital Management.
Also featured in this episode are the competition’s judges Dr. Armin Sandhövel, CEO of Allianz Climate Solutions and Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn.
Episode three (19 November at 23.00 CET) introduces the final contender, Mathew Holloway, whose innovative air cooling system not only looks stylish, but is built from eco-friendly materials and uses just 10% of the power consumed by traditional air-conditioning systems, thus providing a potentially huge reduction in carbon emissions for buildings around the world. Mathew travels to Berlin, Copenhagen and London, where he meets city high-flyer Andy Brough of Schroder Investment Management, who has made a name for himself as one of the top fund managers in the UK.
Viewers also meet the final judge, President & CEO of GE International, Nani Beccalli-Falco, and take a look back at the series so far.
In the series finale, which airs on 26 November at 23.00 CET and will be filmed in front of a studio audience, each contestant will draw upon the advice and expertise they’ve gained from their mentors and pitch their idea to the panel of judges. The judges will interrogate each finalist and put each idea to the test. They will ultimately decide who should be named ‘The Good Entrepreneur of 2009’.
The Good Entrepreneur TV series is the result of a competition organised earlier this year by CNBC and Allianz, one of the world's leading insurers and financial services providers. The competition saw more than 200 entries and aimed to identify an entrepreneur with the best eco-business concept that is sustainable, responsible and innovative.
Visit www.goodentrepreneur.com for more information.
About CNBC in EMEA:
CNBC, First in Business worldwide, is the leading global broadcaster of live business and financial news and information, reporting directly from the major financial markets around the globe, with three regional networks in Asia, EMEA and the US. In EMEA, CNBC is the only real-time, pan-regional business and financial news network dedicated to CEOs, senior corporate executives, the financial services industry and investors. The channel is available in approximately 110 million homes, 1,400 banks and financial institutions and leading hotels across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. CNBC is a wholly owned subsidiary of NBC Universal. NBC Universal is the media arm of the General Electric Company (GE).
For further information or imagery contact:
CNBC
Karolina Nilsson
karolina.nilsson@cnbc.com
+44 (0)20 7653 9312
