Afterpay CEO named Entrepreneur of the Year

CEO and co-founder of Afterpay, Nick Molnar, has won the 2018 NSW ICT Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Molnar was presented with the award by David Thodey, Chair Jobs for NSW and Chair CSIRO. Afterpay is a leading Australian retail payments innovator and one of Australia’s fastest growing fintech companies.

The awards event was held at the Sydney Startup Hub in partnership with the Australian Computer Society (ACS) and with the support of UTS, WiseTechGlobal, the NSW Government through Jobs for NSW and the NSW Data Analytics Centre, Ribit and the ASX.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Small Business John Barilaro congratulated Molnar as one of NSW's most successful fintech entrepreneurs.

"Nick Molnar is a worthy winner of the NSW Pearcey Award as a trailblazer in our state's tech industry," he said.

"As co-founder of NSW fintech company Afterpay, he has enjoyed strong success with the company named among the 'Leading 50' fintech companies in the world in the recent 2018 Fintech100 report by H2 Ventures and KPMG.

"NSW is home to 55% of Australia's fintech companies and it's innovators like Nick Nolnar and Afterpay who are driving rapid change and growth in our financial services sector.

"The NSW Government is investing heavily in the start-up sector to create jobs and industries for the future, including through initiatives like Jobs for NSW and the Sydney Startup Hub and support for industry awards like this."

In addition to awarding Nick Molnar, the Pearcey Foundation also recognised the achievements of other NSW technology entrepreneurs at the event by inducting them into its NSW Hall of Fame: Adam Brimo, founder and CEO of OpenLearning; Silvia Pfeiffer, co-founder of Coviu; and Natalie Nguyen, founder and CEO of Hyper Anna.

The 2018 NSW Pearcey Awards event also featured a pitching competition between companies from incubators at NSW universities, and presentations by some of the finalists and winners in the NSW Young ICT Explorer initiative for school children.

For more information about previous NSW ICT Entrepreneur of the Year Award winners, go to https://pearcey.org.au/nsw.

The 2018 State Pearcey Award Winners were:

• ACT: The 2018 ACT Chief Minister's Pearcey Entrepreneur Award was presented to Ken Kroeger on 4 September.
• NSW: Presented to Nick Molnar from Afterpay on 1 November.
• QLD: Won by Peter Laurie from Junta Pty Ltd on 10 October.
• SA: Presented to Tony Clark from Rising Sun Pictures on 28 August.
• TAS: The 2018 Tasmanian Pearcey Award 2018 was presented to Dr Gary McDarby on 4 October.
• VIC: Awarded jointly to the co-founders of Rome2rio Bernie Tschirren and Michael Cameron on 28 August.
• WA: Awarded to Dr Mark Andrich as part of the WAITTA Incite Awards on 15 June.
   

The 2018 National Awards event, incorporating the Pearcey Medal and Pearcey Hall of Fame awards together with the Pearcey National Entrepreneur Award, was held on 1 November as part of ACS Reimagination 2018, at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Image caption: Nick Molnar, Afterpay CEO.

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