Professional services firm EY has announced that Richard Barlow, CEO and Founder of Wejo, the world’s leading connected car data company, has won the Disruptor category in its UK Entrepreneur of the Year award 2020.
Richard was one of 28 entrepreneurs selected from 24 businesses competing for EY’s prestigious annual award. There were over 1,000 applicants for the award and there are three sub category awards for Disruptor, One To Watch and Lifetime Achievement.
Victoria Price, partner and EY Entrepreneur Of The Year leader in the North, said: “Richard is a brilliant example of entrepreneurial innovation in action. Spurred on by his passion for both technology and cars, Richard has created the Wejo platform which is now beneficial to the automotive industry, and wider public.”
Richard is both a serial entrepreneur and a veteran in data exchange. He founded Wejo, the leader in mobility intelligence, in 2014. The idea for Wejo came from Richard’s personal interests in fintech and cars, and a recognition that vehicles were a growing source of rich but untapped data. His vision was to unlock data for good and that started with solving mobility challenges by making data safe and secure to access for public and private sector organisations, such as transport authorities, mapping and navigation businesses, traffic management firms and parking app developers.
Richard embodies the word technopreneur and Wejo strives to power tomorrow’s innovations, including the nascent autonomous vehicle ecosystem by unlocking invaluable insight provided by vehicles on the road. As the convergence of tech and mobility accelerates, Richard has positioned Wejo to be at the epicentre of a new wave of progress and was the pioneer of the global car data marketplace when he started the company.
Wejo is the consumer champion for motorists and is focused on empowering a range of driver benefits. It has 18 million connected cars on its platform, receives data every three seconds and has coverage of 95% of the US road network. Wejo has partnerships with General Motors, Daimler, Hyundai and Cosworth.
https://www.ey.com/en_uk/entrepreneur-of-the-year