"We were looking for people whose businesses make an impact, nationally and preferably internationally.
"Ultimately, we're looking out to get category winners so we've got a strong list to compete for the overall winner and somebody who's going to do a great job of representing New Zealand on the international stage."
Judge Bridget Coates said it had been fantastic to meet the finalists and hear their stories.
"Two of the five [category winners] are core New Zealand heartland agricultural-based businesses and it's fantastic to see these entrepreneurs taking traditional businesses or traditional opportunities and transforming them completely."
The Masters category winner, Kidicorp founder Wayne Wright, had championed an amazing entrepreneurial career, Cross said.
Wayne Wright, owner of Kidicorp. Photo / Supplied
"It's taken him to the other side of the world, he's built businesses in a number of different places and in his current business he's built a substantial business in his own right as well as maintaining an extensive investment portfolio and a range of other things.
"Wayne is certainly somebody who's made an out-and-out career of being an entrepreneur."
Awards director Jon Hooper said Wright's business interests spanned telecommunications, building and childcare industries, and in each one he had seen a better way to operate.
"And that was the magic that he brought to the table."
Product category winner Craig Hickson runs meat processing firm Progressive Meats and stood out by thriving in what had lately been a tough industry, Cross said.
Craig Hickson. Photo / Supplied
"He's a leading light in that industry, and he's been recognised by his peers for what he's achieved and what his family's achieved in that industry.
"Given some of the declines and some of the pressures in that industry, the way he's driven productivity improvements across every part of his business just really stands out to us."
Judge John Penno said Hickson's business was predominantly a manufacturing one.
"He's buying livestock, he's processing it into manufactured food products and he's selling and distributing them around the world and he's doing it in a declining industry that we all love to hate, and he's done it profitably.
"He's defying the gravity of the industry and he's done it consistently."
Coates said Hickson had approached his business from a "completely innovative perspective".
"He's really looked closely at the process and he's innovated right through the whole chain. It's very impressive."
When it came to selecting a category winner for the Young Entrepreneur category, Penno said, the range on offer was admirable.
"To see what some of the younger people have established in the time they've taken to establish and their courage to stand and start businesses at often very early ages, deciding that they're going to build a business rather than work for somebody, is always impressive.
"They have quite sophisticated business thinking, for such young people, they really understand the model that they're trying to work to and they're executing that model." The category was won by Pushpay founders Chris Heaslip and Eliot Crowther. After founding their business in 2013, said Cross, the pair had done what not a lot of New Zealand companies were good at - establishing and specialising in a large niche market.
"The fact they've done that in such a short space of time is really impressive. The other thing that really impressed us is the way they work together as a entrepreneurial team, one guy taking the CEO role, leading from the front, and the other guy prepared to do whatever it took to understand the market, the product, the customer and feed that all the way back through the system."
One of the most impressive things about Services category winner John Wikstrom was that the industry his business operated in had changed dramatically, Coates said.
John Wikstrom. Photo / Supplied
"It's taking photos in theme parks, essentially, which is a traditional business, but he's completely disrupted that with modern technology. It's immediately available on your mobile phone and you can then share it to all of your social platforms.
"There's a whole series of marketing and social initiatives around that that he's put in place to meet the changing demands of the customers ... it's excellent."
Tech category winner Hamish Kennedy had begun building his business while still at university, Cross said.
Hamish Kennedy. Photo / Supplied
"He's now one of the two top providers of fruit-sorting equipment in the world.
"Even after 30-odd years, he's got his eyes firmly fixed on being number one. It's truly an impressive business; it's not often we see a New Zealand technology business which has such great market share.
"Hamish is following the footsteps of a number of former winners of the award.
"Over the last 20 or 30 years we've seen some amazing high tech engineering businesses grow up and become very successful."
Penno said one of the biggest trends seen with this year's finalists was the number who had identified and then dominated global niches.
"So if you look at Hamish and what he's doing with his fruit sorting, or you look at Chris and Eliot in terms of what they're doing in the giving space, or John Wikstrom and what he's trying to do with his photography services in the customer experience space, they're really trying to take what they've learned in New Zealand and apply it to global niches and doing it very successfully.
"Across the entrants there's $1 billion worth of revenue and they're employing 7500 people. All those families are better off because of it."
Cross said the judges encouraged many of the finalists who did not make it as category winners to re-enter the awards next year.
Coates said several of the businesses were on the cusp of fantastic growth, but it was "just a little too early to put them on this list".
The category winners will again face the judges in October, when a winner will be selected to represent New Zealand at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year contest in Monaco next June.
Winner sitting in judgment
Last year's Entrepreneur of the Year winner, Daniel Radcliffe, sat on the judges' panel this year and said that although selecting the category winners was difficult, it was much less stressful than being a finalist.
"It's really inspirational coming back in and seeing the businesses coming across," he said.
"Being on the other side of it last year was a completely different perspective of what goes on."
