- 15 Dec 2023
Most coveted entrepreneur awards presented for 20th time
There are several entrepreneurial awards in the Netherlands. They are often awarded by a jury or following a vote. However, the FD has taken a different approach for many years, looking at the most successful companies with as objective a view as possible.
At the end of November, the FD awarded the FD Gazellen for the twentieth time, looking only at the figures. Companies that have achieved a growth in sales of at least 20% in each of the last three years and made a profit in the last year are eligible. An appreciation of craftsmanship, entrepreneurial spirit and, more importantly, a highly objective methodology.
Entrepreneurs share successes
This year, more than 1,000 companies received the coveted statuette. And that is certainly something to be proud of! You could see this on your LinkedIn timeline in the month of November, for example. It was full of entrepreneurs wishing to make clear to their networks that they have been commended by the most authoritative financial entity in the Dutch media landscape. The interest in FD Gazellen is shared in many quarters. For example, a Google search for ‘FD Gazellen 2023’ yields 188,000 hits. In Google Trends, meanwhile, there were clear spikes in the search volume in November for the term ‘FD Gazellen’, but also for ‘entrepreneurial award’, ‘entrepreneurship’, and ‘enterprise’.
FD Mediagroep succeeded in focusing much attention on FD Gazellen by means of an extensive advertising campaign. On 24 November, all 1,000 of this year’s FD Gazellen were highlighted in a 2/1 ad page in Het Financieele Dagblad. The FD Gazellen file will feature inspiring entrepreneurial stories for the duration of the FD Gazellen campaign. Moreover, five episodes of the FD Gazellen podcast were published in the run-up to the award ceremony. They can be heard at https://fd.nl/dossier/fd-gazellen.
And the winner is...
A Top 100 was compiled from all of this year’s FD Gazellen. Each of the companies was ranked for this purpose according to three metrics: revenue growth, relative employee growth, and profit margin. Revenue growth was weighted twice as much as the other two components. Brabant-based GP-Connect, an employment agency for cooks and waiters, emerged highest from these rankings. They are entitled to refer to themselves as the national winner of the FD Gazellen for the next twelve months.
If you’d like to see the Top 100 in its entirety, see the list here!