VKontakte’s Founder Pavel Durov the Most Promising Northern European Leader Under the Age of 30, DealDash’s William Wolfram Fourth

Ranking of the 30 most promising Northern European leaders under the age of 30 was published today in Nordic Business Report. The 30 under 30 in Northern Europe ranking covered basically the whole Northern Europe: Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The 21 jury members that compiled the ranking were gathered from different organization representatives of each nine countries.

Pavel Durov, the founder of the Russian VKontakte social network service, took the first place and Vsevolod Strakh, a Russian entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Sotmarket online store became second. There were three people from Finland who made the cut: DealDash’s William Wolfram holds the fourth position, while the author of ‘Hello Ruby’ Linda Liukas became 22nd and Miki Kuusi, the main organizer and CEO of Slush, became 23rd on the ranking. The 22-year-old William Wolfram is one of the youngest on the ranking. The youngest person is Norwegian Max Gouchan, who is only 20 years old.

The essential criteria for evaluating possible candidates were: results achieved, business sense, originality, practicality and impact of their ideas, international outlook and responsibility in their actions. Each jury member organization built up a ranking of names from their own countries, and the final 30 under 30 ranking was a synthesis of these lists. At least one name from each country made it to the final ranking. Russia clearly dominates the ranking with their 6 names, while Lithuania comes close second with their 5 names.

Read the whole 30 under 30 ranking at www.nbreport.com.

Nordic Business Report is an annually published high quality business magazine. The publication is available only in English. The magazine is produced by Nordic Business Forum together with professional journalists. The magazine is published in Finland, Estonia and Russia.

Additional information:

Hans-Peter Siefen, Nordic Business Report, editor in chief
hans-peter.siefen@nbforum.com, +358 50 412 0783

The jury member organizations:

Finland
Finland Chamber of Commerce
Taivas+Helvetti
PwC Finland
Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Finland
Fujitsu Finland

Denmark
Fonden for Entreprenørskab

Sweden
Fujitsu Sweden
Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Sweden

Norway
Oslo Chamber of Commerce

Iceland
Iceland Chamber of Commerce
PwC Iceland
Deloitte Iceland

Russia
Delovoy Peterburg
Institute of External Economic Relations IRVEN

Estonia
Enterprise Estonia, Helsinki
JCI Estonia
Estonian Business Angels Network

Latvia
Stockholm School of Economics in Riga
Investment and Development Agency of Latvia

Lithuania
JCI Lithuania
Enterprise Lithuania