United Nations honours Australian small-business leaders

united nations

The United Nations and the International Council for Small Business have honoured two of Australia’s leading small-business leaders.

Mark Brennan, the inaugural Victorian and then Australian Small Business Commissioner and David Gregory, chief executive of the Small Business Mentoring Service, have been recognised as “Global Leaders” at the UN’s International Council for Small Business in New York.

Both are vice presidents of the Small Enterprise Association Australia and New Zealand, which is the nation’s leading research organisation in the SME sector.

Brennan also counsels the UK government on its implementation of a Small Business Commissioner, which was established last December based on the Australian model.

Gregory has developed the mentoring service into an organisation, which retains the services of 180 former leading CEO’s as well as other retired senior managers across more than 22 industries.

The mentors conduct more than 5000 training sessions a year and are retained by the federal, state and local governments as well as industry groups to assist entrepreneurs and small business owners negotiate Australia’s extremely challenging small business environment.