SME Advisor Summit 2010 kicks off

We start today’s event with a brief introduction by Dave Crane, Managing Director, The Life Designers and the moderator for this fantastic event. Dave quite astutely informs the audience that the Summit and Awards ceremony this evening can be followed online with these posts and via twitter: #smedxb2010.

After a brief Welcome Note from Nilanjan Ray, Senior Vice President and Head SME Banking, ADCB, we have started the Summit with a keynote speech from Jeff Leach, Co-Founder, N_K_D Pizza. This entrepreneur is a perfect example of putting a plan into action- a qualified archaeologist by profession, he as established a very successful pizza business.

“I got into the pizza business because that’s where the people area and it takes people to make a business grow.”

It took Jeff three years to develop a product from a purely scientific perspective- after several trial runs with micro-biologists and food experts they finally got it right- it wasn’t just about creating a good taste- its was also about creating a healthy pizza Jeff tells the audience.

What is extraordinary is that Jeff’s company, although a pizza business, is different in that it is the most blogged about restaurant in the world. Jeff managed to persuade Mark Cuban, former Yahoo entrepreneur, to invest with his concept of health pizza- developing a pizza that is good for you, with less calories, less fat, less preservatives.

“We were not going to tell people to stop eating fast food- its not going to solve the problem. So we take the fast food and make it healthy.”

“Dubai is the new place for business, ground zero for entrepreneurship and that’s why we are here.”

They are also on Facebook and are planning to open their first store in Media City, Dubai, in December.

A truly inspiring story!