From Mothers Spare Room, To Entrepreneur Of The Year Award
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Ryan Trainor has been named Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year for the Southern Region in the Services category.
- (1888PressRelease) August 30, 2010 - Although being named Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year for the Southern Region in the Services category, Ryan has come a long way from starting his first company, a Retail Security labour force firm in 1997 at the age of 23 from his mother's spare room. The business grew quickly servicing major retailers across Australia, employing 100s of staff, with his mother having to mortgage her house to support growth. Since then he sold the security business in 2000, built another business that was later sold to a listed company and has found a passion for building businesses and great teams.
In 2007, a chance meeting at Los Angeles airport opened Ryan Trainor's eyes to an opportunity to consolidate Australia's cottage training industry into a national, scalable business. He realised that, although there are more than 5000 Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) across Australia, few companies could support national workforces, drive real business outcomes and create simplicity around government-funded training.
His vision, realised in Franklyn Scholar, was to build Australia's Leading Workplace Education Company, creating a scalable training organisation that could support companies maximise the potential of their people anywhere in Australia.
Ryan spent the first quarter of 2008 finding the right business partners and board members - including the previous Federal Treasurer. He also secured debt and equity financing to allow him to make initial acquisitions to create a national footprint, from which he could then grow organically.
Today, Franklyn Scholar is one of Australia's largest private Workforce Education companies, dominating the market with 800 clients. This year, its 200 team members will offer 96 accredited courses across Australia to more than 20,000 employees through traineeships in the workplace. Turnover will reach more than to $24 million.
Ryan's three year plan is to grow revenue to $100 million and become a workplace of choice for his fast growing team.
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