South Australia’s 40 Under 40 revealed tonight
A full house has lined up for the fourth annual awards to recognise the state’s top young business leaders and entrepreneurs, with the list of 40 leaders to be revealed at the Adelaide Convention Centre tonight.
South Australia Governor Hieu Van Le AC will attend the gala night, along with the Leader of the Opposition Peter Malinauskas MP and a packed house of more than 340 guests.
The Governor is no stranger to the 40 Under 40 awards, having held a reception for the 2020 recipients at Government House in March, where he told the alumni that the motto “If it is going to be, it has to start with me,” should be their driving force.
This drive to overcome obstacles and give back to the community is the foundation of the judging criteria, and the newest crop of 40 young business leaders announced tonight have all demonstrated a passion for making South Australia a great place to live, work and play.
The chair of the judging panel, David Rohrsheim, who also judged the awards last year, said he was pleased to see that in its fourth year the 40 Under 40 awards had struck a chord with young leaders in South Australia.
“It’s one thing to get 640 referrals and 230 applications, but when the vast majority of those applications are worthy of being on the list, that begins to show the depth of talent in the state,” said Rohrsheim, who manages the SA Venture Capital Fund Portfolio.
The keynote speaker is Michael Waite, an expat who returned to South Australia after having spent years in the United States managing the finance and accounting departments of firms Bentall Kennedy and Cascade Investment, owned by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
On his return to the state, Waite founded The Naracoorte Community News in his hometown and was this month appointed as an independent director of Lenswood Apples.
Waite said he witnessed the benefit of young leadership awards on the individual winners as well as the towns that run them during his time overseas.
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“So much of local elections, when it comes to councils and things like that, is just name-identification,” he said.
“The 40 Under 40 is a really good way to highlight your career and get noticed and impact whatever organisation you’re doing or highlighting and it can be in any unique kind of way. By no means is it by financial or size of company, it’s about size of impact and I would say potential impact.”
The award winners will be announced throughout the night on InDaily and CityMag social media channels and on the InDaily website. The full list and profiles will be published in the winter print edition of CityMag hitting the city streets on Friday.
