Visionary medico wins 40under40

Lions Outback Vision founder Angus Turner has been named First Amongst Equals at the 2015 40under40 Awards, taking the top prize from a another strong field of young entrepreneurial talent.

See all winners and the highlights from the night here.

And watch the video here:

The South African-born ophthalmologist was announced the winner at a gala dinner at Crown Perth last night in front of more than 800 business people and fellow nominees – recognised for his community-driven project which treated nearly 5,000 remotely located patients last year.

Other finalists included Ilya Mayo from Dial A Doctor, Mark Tuke from Sun Connect and Salim Hazife of Perth Inflight Catering.

The winning group reflect the wide range of Western Australia’s entrepreneurial pursuits and include several specialist category winners. While winners with direct involvement in the resources industry were lower in numbers than recent years, many of the winners had strong connections as service players to the sector.

Kelly Haywood of the Royal Australian Navy was named winner of the Intrapreneur category, Kelly Quirk from Harrier Human Capital won the Professional Services category, Kia Dowell of The Cultural Connection Code was named the Indigenous category winner and Steve Durkin from Safescape took out the Small Business/Startup category.

Dr Turner completed his medical studies at UWA in 2000 after which he won a Rhodes scholarship to study evidence-based medicine at Oxford University.

Returning to Perth his focus moved to the high rates of blindness and impaired vision in rural Australia establishing Lions Outback Vision in 2010.

Since then, Dr Turner has tackled many challenges shared by successful business people.

He has raised money, negotiated with governments, led a growing team, and managed extraordinary logistical challenges – all with the goal of delivering improved services to his ‘customers’.

The number of people treated by Lions Outback Vision in rural and remote communities has grown substantially.

It increased to 3,235 patients in 2013 and jumped by 66 per cent to 4,839 patients in 2014.