Entrepreneur and ‘Apprentice’ winner awarded honorary degree

British entrepreneur and alumnus, Sean Yazbeck has been awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Business by Solent University today (Wednesday 11 July 2018).

He said: "I’m very excited to be receiving this award. It’s always nice to be recognised for one’s achievements in life, but it’s particularly nice to be recognised by my university where I graduated many years ago."

After receiving the US EB1 Greencard for 'person of extraordinary ability', he was selected to compete on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, which he subsequently won. Sean went on to work with Donald Trump to build the Trump SoHo Hotel in New York and appear on subsequent episodes of The Apprentice as a boardroom judge.

After leaving the Trump Organization, Sean went on to found Wavsys, which was named one of Inc. 500’s Fastest Growing Companies in America. He also won the Entrepreneur of the Year award from the British Government’s Department of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI).  

Today, Sean lives between Miami and London and is a Visiting Fellow at Solent University. He is the founder and CEO of several technology companies, including the supply chain software company, Scopeworker, which recently signed a multi-billion dollar deal with a US telecoms carrier, Sprint. 

Sean has received the honorary title of Kentucky Colonel from Kentucky Governor, Steve Beshear, and has had a day named after him by Miami-Dade County. He plays polo for the Grand Champions Polo Club in Wellington, Florida and is a member of the Miami chapter of The Young Presidents' Organization (YPO), a global network of young chief executives. Sean is also a patron of multiple US and UK based charities that focus on the arts.  

To this day, Sean believes that his degree has proven to be his most important life achievement, as it has had a domino effect on a list of subsequent life and career accomplishments.  

He said: "Graduating from Solent was the ticket to the path to start my career. Without that degree I wouldn’t have had a lot of the opportunities that were presented to me subsequently. I think everyone knows obviously that I won The Apprentice, but more recently signing my first billion-dollar deal was a huge achievement."

Passing on advice to students graduating today, he added: "As you begin your path and your life, continually revisit that notion of stretching yourself, taking yourself outside of your comfort zone and putting yourself in that area where you’re treading water and your feet can’t quite touch the bottom, because when you stretch yourself, that’s when you’re going to have an opportunity for success."