Laura Ricciuto (BA ’04, MBA ’08), winner of the 2010 Nitsopoulos Family Entrepreneurship Award

Are you a recent Brock graduate who is serious about starting your own business in the Niagara region? Entrepreneurs who graduated from Brock (up to two years ago) are invited to apply for the 2011 Nitsopoulos Family Entrepreneurship Award.

The winning recipient will be invited to submit expenditures for reimbursement of up to $10,000 over a period of two years. And just for applying, you may have the opportunity to receive a free consulting session with a Faculty of Business appointed mentor or the Brock MBA Business Consulting Group to fine-tune your business and marketing plan.

Applicants must complete the award application form and submit it by mail no later than April 30, 2011.  For more information, visit Brock’s Faculty of Business website.

The 2010 winner of the Nitsopoulos Family Entrepreneurship Award is Laura Ricciuto (BA ’04, MBA ’08) of KAIZEN Marketing & Creative Design House, a St. Catharines-based marketing and brand development company. In addition to holding a Master of Business Administration degree with Beta Gamma Sigma honours, Ricciuto holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a concentration in Public Law as well as a diploma in journalism. While completing her Brock MBA, Laura fell in love with the idea of working with entrepreneurs in their quest to follow their dreams.

Following this path, KAIZEN Marketing was formed with the mission to provide small- and medium-sized businesses with effective and affordable marketing solutions.

Throughout her career, Laura has provided assistance to local, national and international businesses, working closely with more than 150 companies in helping them develop business marketing strategy plans that increase sales and set them apart from the competition.

As a market researcher, Ricciuto was intrigued by recent data that indicates while 82 per cent of consumers use the internet to search for a local business, only 44 per cent of businesses have a website. “In Niagara alone, this indicates that more than 5,000 businesses in the region are without a website.”

Websites Niagara, the brainchild of KAIZEN Marketing, was created to help provide small businesses with professional marketing services at affordable prices.

With the assistance of the Nitsopoulos Family Entrepreneurship Award, Ricciuto has committed to helping other entrepreneurs build strong businesses in the community.

“We’ve created a program that removes the high costs associated with web development”, said Ricciuto “Qualifying businesses can have a professional website for as little as $1 per day.”

For more information on the Websites Niagara program, visit WebsitesNiagara.com or call Laura at 905-641-2626.