Leigh Caldwell in Observer/Courvoisier The Future 500

The Observer today published its selection of 500 UK rising stars for 2009.

I'm very happy to have been selected in the Business category, along with 70 other businesspeople including Amanda Zuydervelt of Stylebible, Carl Jewitt of Ernst & Young, Jay Bregman of eCourier, Luke Ashworth of Netbasic, Sokratis Papafloratis of Trusted Places, Tom Critchlow of Distilled, Simon Campbell of ViaPost, Richard Alvin of Clearsight, Duncan Cheatle of the Supper Club, Carol Brown of Thomson Bethune, Elizabeth Harrin of Spire Healthcare/A Girl's Guide to Project Management, Edward Mellett of WikiJob and Darren Fell of Crunch.

Some interesting people from the other categories are:

Art and Design: Alex Fleetwood of Hide and Seek, theatre director Annette Mees, Renato Benedetti of McDowell+Benedetti, sports artist Keith Fearon
Drinks: Richard Bigg of Cantaloupe
Fashion and Retail: Tamsin Lejeune of the Ethical Fashion Forum
Food: Liz Jarman of Sainsbury's
Media: Stefan Lewandowski of Odadeo, Jonathan Samuels of Five News, Pasa Mustafa of Endemol, Damien Marchi of Fremantle, James Frost of Coast Digital, William Rowe of Protein
Public Life: Sam Conniff of Livity, Harry Rich of Enterprise Insight/Make Your Mark
Science and Innovation: Aubrey Grey of the Methuselah Foundation, Frank Miller of Track Record Global
Sports and Entertainment: Dan O'Neill of Lovebox, Natasha Kizzie of Euro RSCG, Nick Thisleton of Lucky Voice
Travel and Leisure: Steve Lowy of UMI, Mark Thomas of Intercontinental, Carter Stewart of Trans World Consulting.

We all join last year's members who include Geoff Mulgan of the Young Foundation, Ryan Notz of Buildersite, Anthony Browne of Policy Exchange, Harriet Wallace at the Treasury, Keith Abel of Abel and Cole, Penny Newman of Cafe Direct, Sumon Sadhu of Imperial Entrepreneurs, Emma Baylis of KPMG, Simon Franks of Redbus, Tony Rafferty of printing.com, Rachel Lowe of Destination Dublin Games, Dominic Cooke of the Royal Court Theatre, Karren Brady of Birmingham City, Toby Mundy of Atlantic Books, Joanna Shields of Bebo, Karen Hanton of Toptable, Justin Cooke of Fortune Cookie, Mark Cridge of Glue London, Neil Jones of Carat, Rob Forshaw of Grand Union and Wayne Arnold of Profero.

Congratulations to everyone and particularly to my friend Andy Cockburn of Wigadoo who won the first prize. Wigadoo's a great concept and has interesting economic implications. And thanks to Bonnie Shaw of Snap-Shot-City who first introduced us to the competition.

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