Each year The American Business Awards®, the top business awards competition in the United States, attracts nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry nationwide.

In The 21st American Business Awards, more than 3,700 nominations were submitted for consideration in a wide range of categories, including Startup of the Year, Executive of the Year, Best New Product or Service of the Year, Marketing Campaign of the Year, Thought Leader of the Year, and App of the Year, among others. 

Professionals and organizations enter the competition to demonstrate the progress and achievements they’ve made, to encourage their teams, to expand the reach of their brand, and to set themselves apart from others in their industry. 

Below are comments from a few of the winners in The 2023 American Business Awards competition, explaining in their own words what winning a Stevie® Award means to them and their organization.

“What Does Winning a Stevie Award Mean to You?”

Women’s Real Estate Investors Network (WREIN) won a Gold Stevie Award for Large Real Estate Company of the Year.

"It is a great accomplishment for both myself and my organization, the Women's Real Estate Investor's Network, to have won a Stevie Award this year. This recognition validates our efforts to empower women in the male-dominated real estate investing industry. It inspires us to continue creating opportunities for women to thrive as real estate investors."

Founded in 2018, WREIN is a learning and networking community for women real estate investors focused on helping women become financially confident and build multigenerational wealth.


Tivid TV Studios won a Silver Stevie Award for Startup of the Year among Business Services Industries.

“Tivid TV Studios is humbled to win this year's 2023 Silver Stevie Award for Startup Business of the Year. We take pride in contributing to our community, so this award honors them. It speaks volumes to have others recognize Tivid TV's efforts to create a more sustainable industry for professionals, corporations, and students alike. Thank you!”

Tivid TV Studios supplies the tools and creative space to aspiring filmmakers or content creators that lack any area of expertise or resource.


Matthew Caiola, Co-CEO, 5WPR, won a Silver Stevie Award for Communications, Investor Relations or PR Executive of the Year. 5WPR also won a Bronze Stevie Award for Public Relations Agency of the Year and a Gold Stevie Award for Communications or PR Campaign of the Year in Consumer Products Marketing.

"It’s an honor to be named a Silver Stevie recipient in the Communications, Investor Relations, or PR Executive of the Year category for the 2023 American Business Awards. In my position, I always hope to lead by example to empower leaders both within my agency and the PR industry as a whole, to continue challenging themselves. This distinction reminds me that our hard work does not go unnoticed, and I owe an enormous part of my success to my team and the agency at large, for allowing me to guide them but also for the support they provide me."—Matthew Caiola, Co-CEO, 5WPR

5WPR is a full-service PR agency that partners with brands to help them define and achieve their strategic PR goals.


Dr. Tianyi (TJ) Jiang, CEO and Co-Founder, AvePoint, won a Silver Stevie Award for Best Entrepreneur in Computer Software among organizations with 500 or More Employees.

"It’s an honor to be named a Silver Stevie recipient in the Communications, Investor Relations, or PR Executive of the Year category for the 2023 American Business Awards. In my position, I always hope to lead by example to empower leaders both within my agency and the PR industry as a whole, to continue challenging themselves. This distinction reminds me that our hard work does not go unnoticed, and I owe an enormous part of my success to my team and the agency at large, for allowing me to guide them but also for the support they provide me."—Dr. Jiang, CEO and Co-Founder, AvePoint

AvePoint is an independent software vendor of SaaS solutions to migrate, manage, and protect data in Microsoft 365.


Thomas PR won a Silver Stevie Award for Achievement in Management in Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations.

“Thanks to the Stevie Awards team and judges! We are honored to win the prestigious Stevie Award for our PR work on behalf of swisstech at CES [Consumer Electronics Show]. The Thomas PR team worked long hours to achieve the results and this level of recognition is an amazing honor.” —Karen Thomas, President, Thomas Public Relations, Inc.

With over 15 years of experience, Thomas Public Relations specializes in technology, high-tech, consumer electronics, trade shows, apps, and internet companies.


Hornet Security Inc. won a Bronze Stevie Award for Best Business Technology Pivot.

“We are delighted to have won a Stevie Award: This prestigious recognition serves to validate and motivate the work and commitment invested by our worldwide team in developing, promoting, and supporting next-gen cybersecurity, backup, and security awareness services to exceed the needs of our partners and customers. Thank you for this honor!”

Hornet Security Inc. is an email cloud security provider, which secures companies and organizations of all sizes across the world.


Shaip won a Bronze Stevie Award for Startup of the Year among Business Services Industries.

“Winning a Stevie Award this year is an exceptional honor for our organization as it signifies recognition from industry peers for our relentless dedication to innovation, quality, and customer service. This award is not just a testament to our achievements, but it also underscores the collaborative spirit, hard work, and commitment of every team member. We believe it further motivates us to continue setting new standards in our industry and deliver exceptional value to our customers.”

Shaip provides high-quality data across multiple data types (i.e., text, audio, image, video) to companies looking to build unbiased and high-quality artificial intelligence/machine learning models.

The final entry deadline for The 22nd American Business Awards is February 7, 2024, but late entries will be accepted through March 6 with payment of a late fee.

More than 250 professionals worldwide will participate in the judging process beginning in February, through mid-April. All Stevie Award placements will be announced on April 27, prior to the June 13 awards banquet in New York. 

Premier awards competition for sales and service professionals accepting nominations from organizations around the globe.

The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, has announced that ValueSelling Associates will sponsor the 2024 (18th annual) Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service for the 17th consecutive year.

ValueSelling has been a sponsor of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service since 2008. ValueSelling Associates are again sponsoring the Sales Individual Categories, which include Woman of the Year in Sales, Senior Sales Executive of the Year, Virtual and Pre-Sales Professional of the Year, Sales Representative of the Year, and Sales Training or Education Professional of the Year, among others.

Entry kits and complete details on the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are available at StevieAwards.com/Sales. The final entry deadline for the 2024 competition is January 24.

Eligible nominees for this competition include departments, teams, and professionals from around the world who work in customer service, contact centers, business development, and sales. New products and services and solution providers used by those professionals are also eligible. The 2024 awards will recognize achievements since July 1, 2021. Explore the full list of categories.

ValueSelling Associates is the creator of the ValueSelling Framework®, the sales methodology, training and toolset that aligns your revenue engine with a common language to enable sales professionals to compete on value, not price, and saves time in all selling scenarios. Since 1991, ValueSelling Associates has helped thousands of sales professionals realize immediate revenue growth and achieve results they never thought possible. They offer bespoke training to FORTUNE 1000, mid-sized, and start-up companies to drive sales results.

Maggie Miller, President of the Stevie Awards, expressed, "ValueSelling has been a steadfast sponsor of the competition from its early days, contributing to the program’s remarkable growth. Partnering once more with ValueSelling is a source of great excitement as we continue to highlight outstanding sales professionals and organizations globally. The Stevie Awards relies on dedicated partners such as ValueSelling, who recognize the importance of acknowledging excellence in the workplace."

President and Chief Executive Officer of ValueSelling Associates, Julie Thomas, said, “The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service is an excellent platform for recognizing the accomplishments of our customers and business partners. We look forward to celebrating those sales professionals who found ways to connect, secure new business, and propel their companies forward in this tough selling environment.”

Finalists will be announced on January 24, and the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be revealed during an awards banquet on April 12 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

View full details for the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service at StevieAwards.com/Sales.

About ValueSelling Associates
ValueSelling Associates, a leading global sales training company, offers a practical methodology for selling on value, not price. The ValueSelling Framework® is a proven formula that simplifies complex B2B sales, and the Vortex Prospecting™ program provides a repeatable process that increases connections and conversions to the revenue pipeline. Once trained on the ValueSelling method, organizations grow revenue and increase productivity. Since 1991, thousands of professionals around the world have chosen ValueSelling Associates for customized training, reinforcement, and coaching to drive sales results. Learn more at ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

Stevie-winner Swing Education is an online staffing marketplace that connects substitute teachers with schools.

Founded in 2015 by former K-12 educators and administrators, Swing makes it easier for schools and districts to find reliable, qualified substitute teachers when they need them most.

With over 500,000 absence days filled to date, Swing is dedicated to improving the experience of finding substitute teachers, becoming a substitute, and keeping student learning on track. Swing serves more than 2,800 partner schools across California, Arizona, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, New York, and Washington D.C.

Understanding Both Sides in Substitute Teaching
Substitute teaching jobs are tough to recruit for, manage, and fill. One complication is that quite often a teacher's absence isn’t discovered until that morning when schools scramble to post an opening. This uncontrollable and unavoidable reality, coupled with the dramatic shortage of substitutes who are qualified and ready to go, is a significant problem.

On the other side of this coin—considering this problem from the substitute teacher’s perspective—are the challenges the substitute teacher faces. Substitutes may only find out at 7:00 am that there is a job opening; they may know very little about the school or the class or perhaps have never been a substitute in that particular school. They worry about how long it will take to get paid or how long the commitment will last.

The process of how to fill short-term or even long-term teacher absences with substitute teachers has barely changed in 50+ years—even the modern communication modes of emails, text messages, and robo-phone calls are not any more effective at solving the problem in the angst-driven and uncertain process of finding substitute teachers.

How it Works
The basics of how Swing works are as follows: Schools post a request in the Swing community that instantly notifies hundreds of substitutes that have been pre-approved and screened by Swing. Substitutes register for the job and the school accepts, or “assigns,” the substitute. The schools do not need to recruit or manage their own substitute pool, although Swing can easily work alongside existing substitute programs.

Swing handles the recruitment of substitutes in the region of its partners and manages the payroll so that substitutes do not need to wait weeks or months for payment from the district as contractors. The school’s platform tracks data so that it is easy to see which substitutes are a good fit, discover new substitutes, and track successful placements.

Swing brings a 21st-century solution to a 20th-century problem. Swing leverages social communities and technology to not only improve communication but also put power back into the hands of substitutes and the schools that need them. Instead of scrambling to find anyone who will answer the phone—or, for the substitute, being completely in the dark about if there is only one opening today or 10—now both stakeholders have power: schools have the power to match the best person for a particular need, and substitutes have the power to pick the best job for their day or week ahead.

Since being founded in 2018, Swing has 2,800 school partners and 4,000 substitutes in the community and has filled 500,000 absences for teachers.

Swing Education won a Silver Stevie^® Award for Best Human Capital Management or Talent Management Solution in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards?

Stevie-winner Vodafone Oman was established through a strategic partnership between the Oman Future Telecommunication Company and Vodafone Group, one of the largest providers of mobile, fixed, broadband, and digital TV services.

Vodafone Group is a British multinational telecommunications company. With its registered office and global headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire, England, it predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.

In 2021, the company obtained a Class I License to establish and operate public mobile telecommunications services in the Sultanate of Oman, becoming the third telecom operator in the local market.My Vodafone in Oman
The My Vodafone app has been downloaded by over 2 million people across Oman. Through the app, customers can onboard themselves virtually in less than two minutes, including plan and number selection, identity verification using advanced AI and facial recognition capabilities, payment, and eSIM (and physical SIM delivery or pick-up). They also enable customers to replace their SIMs remotely, providing SIM-to-eSIM replacement within seconds.

Vodafone offers a monthly subscription model wherein customers can enable the auto-payment feature so that the user's account is charged on the plan’s renewal date without any human intervention to ensure uninterrupted service. Customers are given the ability to set an amount to be withdrawn automatically once a minimum threshold is reached.

They have also developed a feature called "Everything Is Okay (EIO)" which allows customers to check their account against any technical, financial, and network issues. Customers are presented with an issue and a way to resolve it, covering payments and renewals, account status, network, and device and SIM management.

Existing customers can digitally add up to 10 numbers under their main account in less than a minute using My Vodafone, including number selection, plan selection, payment, and SIM activation.

App Improvement & Service Expansion
To localize an international brand, Vodafone had to bring on a team of agencies that brought local insights with technological prowess.

The Vodafone Academy was an integrative program between the different agencies and Vodafone Oman that aims to build a circular talent economy that nurtures young Omani talents. The program was centered around three key pillars of marketing: media, content/creative, and social media. The program spanned six months and ultimately awarded two graduates full-time placements at the end of the program.

With fewer resources and less time in the market, it leveraged its agencies’ local and international expertise to develop a team that deepened its relationship with not only its partners but also the wider Omani community.

The app has enabled Vodafone to collect a huge amount of data points, which helps them make constant improvements to both the services and customer service.

Vodafone’s AI-enabled networks automatically detect and even pre-empt problems and threats via data analysis and create tickets for dispatch to the network operation center, saving significant time for affected customers and enhancing their experience.

Telecom operators have previously focused on selling services, i.e., voice and data. The My Vodafone app aims to offer more than that, providing other services in line with the Government of Oman’s digital ambitions: parking booking within Muscat and Nizwa in collaboration with local partners, with notifications when a reservation is about to expire; and high school grades in collaboration the Sultanate’s Ministry of Education, when students enter their seat ID to receive their grade automatically.

Entering Oman as a digital-first service, Vodafone said the speed of transformation that the pandemic brought to the world was an enabler for a winning launch and a solid foundation for the brand.

Vodafone Oman won a Bronze Stevie and three Gold Stevie Awards for Innovation in Cross-Media Marketing, Most Innovative Startup of the Year in Services, Most Innovative Advertising or Marketing Team of the Year, and for Innovation in Brand Development in the 2023 Middle East & North Africa Stevie^® Awards.

Interested in entering the 2024 Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards?

Stevie-winner Scenthound is a wellness-focused dog care franchise offering membership-based services for affordable and accessible routine care to keep dogs clean and healthy.

They use the latest tools and technology while implementing their own proprietary S.C.E.N.T. Check™ protocol (Skin, Coat, Ears, Nails, and Teeth), which offers a detailed assessment of each dog’s external health.

After many years in the pet care business, the founders spotted a gaping hole in the industry and a massively underserved market. Most dogs were not getting proper care due to many misconceptions about grooming. Scenthound is a membership-based, dog-wellness concept aiming to revolutionize the way people think about and access routine care for dogs.

Differentiated from traditional dog grooming that focuses on breed-specific styling, Scenthound provides a unique approach with its focus on routine and preventive care for dogs in five core areas: Skin, Coat, Ears, Nails, and Teeth (S.C.E.N.T.). Their Basic Hygiene service meets the essential care needs of every dog and allows them to capture the entire market of dogs, not just the 10% of popular breeds that need haircuts.

They also launched the Scenthound mobile app, which allows customers to book appointments, review their dog's monthly wellness check, and more. As part of the new app, they also announced a partnership with AskVet, a virtual vet service that allows members to chat with a vet 24/7.

Scenthound has established a subsidiary company, Scenthound Services, to focus on product development and innovation, offering a shampoo line to provide formulas that meet the hygiene needs of dogs.

In addition, they developed and implemented an Operations Performance Checklist, an audit tool to measure the impact of foundational departmental processes, cleanliness and maintenance of facilities, and team engagement. This helps them identify areas of opportunity and what to prioritize in future efforts.

Scenthound is establishing itself as the preeminent solution for routine and preventive dog care, perfectly positioned to take advantage of growing pet spending nationwide and emerging at the right time to foster rapid growth.

Scenthound won a Gold Stevie^® Award for Fastest Growing Company of the Year - Up to 100 Employees in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards?

Stevie-winner Red Access secures the hybrid workplace with its agentless browsing security platform, introducing a nondisruptive way to protect devices and browsing sessions in and outside of the office.

Over the past decade, and recently accelerated by the rise of remote and hybrid work, enterprise IT has been transformed by the growing trend of “browserization,” where the browser has emerged as the modern worker’s primary gateway to the digital world.

While a variety of security products aimed at addressing these risks have emerged in recent years, they’ve thus far proven incomplete and rife with trade-offs.

The proliferation of web apps and devices, and the adoption of digital platforms in the workplace have fundamentally changed the steps enterprises must take to protect their employees, assets, and devices against today’s browser-based cyber threats. Hence a new approach to browsing security is required.

Founded by leading experts from the Israeli Cyber Community in 2021, Red Access helps companies secure all the browsing activities of their employees on any browser, web app, device, and cloud service, enabling a better user experience and easy management without hampering productivity and without the need to install a browser or an extension.

Co-Founders, Dor Zvi (CEO) and Tal Dery (CTO) both bring extensive knowledge in threat detection and response, malware analysis, and information security, having served many years in the Israel Defense Forces technology units followed by senior research and development positions at leading tech companies.

Their unique approach addresses hybrid work security by redefining browsing security, enabling zero-day protection, seamless user experience, and agnostic security to all web applications, browsers, devices, etc.

The platform provides a fully SaaS-based agentless solution, which does not require an agent installation or a new browser adoption, so users can work from their own devices and use the applications they are accustomed to working with.

Red Access represents the next stage of evolution in secure browsing, working toward a new gold standard of frictionless and agnostic browsing security—the secure web session.

Red Access won a Bronze Stevie Award for Best Tech Startup of the Year - Software in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards^®?

Stevie-winner Big Data Minds MENA is a community platform that aims to close learning gaps and create networks for knowledge sharing in the domain of big data and other related emerging technology.

The platform can be used with big data, data engineering, data science, data management, digital transformation, industry 4.0, internet of things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) training programs to disseminate more knowledge and training to the MENA region. They have launched several technological initiatives in Jordan and the MENA region to empower women and children.

Big Data Minds MENA was founded in 2020 by Dr. Zaher Al-Sai as a community-based organization of big data and data science in the Middle East. Dr. Zaher Ali Al-Sai has a BS degree in computer science and an MBA (Hons.) in e-government Technology. She completed her PhD in Computer Science in the field of Big Data and Software Engineering. She is currently an assistant professor of Big Data at Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan.

As a female-founded organization, Big Data Minds MENA has shifted the direction of the IT organizations in Jordan to empower women in data science, AI, and emerging technologies. Big Data Minds’ first initiative was empowering women in data science by founding the Arabian Women in Data Science initiative in the MENA region and organizing many events and workshops in data science and AI, which has impacted over 5,000 women. The company volunteers to teach and empower more than 50,000 of community members, including women, teenagers, children, and students, in technology and data science.

In 2021 and 2022 Big Data Minds MENA organized the largest virtual women in data science (WiDS) Jordan workshops and data-thons in the Middle East with more than 800 attendees. WiDS Jordan is an independent event organized by Big Data Minds and the WiDS Ambassador in Jordan to coincide with the annual Women in Data Science Worldwide Conference held at Stanford University and an estimated 150+ locations worldwide.

Expanding their reach, Big Data Minds MENA is now also teaching children (8-16) years through the launch of "Kids in Data Science and AI" initiative," or "KiDS,” to empower and teach children the skills of data science and AI, including skills related to problem-solving, math, and computer coding. KiDS provides various activities for children in public schools and villages.

Big Data Minds is a visionary community that continuously seeks innovation to maintain its initiatives as a community-based organization in technology and data science. Big Data Minds is inspiring and educating community members worldwide, regardless of gender, and supporting women in the field of data science.

Big Data Minds MENA won three Gold Stevie Awards for Innovation in Technology Development - Non-Profit; for Best Thought Leadership Campaign of the Year; and for Best Innovative Achievement in Science or Technology in the 2023 Middle East & North Africa Stevie® Awards.

Interested in entering the 2024 Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards?

Stevie-winner Rootstock Software develops and implements Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software, which provides manufacturers with precise control over their key operational areas, such as inventory, order management, engineering, production planning, and financial management.

Rootstock offers the only Manufacturing Cloud ERP on the Salesforce Platform. As such, it has become the ERP solution of choice for those already using Salesforce or those planning to. By using Rootstock and Salesforce Sales Cloud together, manufacturers gain 360° visibility of their customers, supply chain, and production. They also gain the advantage of a common data platform, which eliminates the cumbersome process of data reconciliation. With everyone across the enterprise sharing a unified data set, manufacturing leaders can confidently rely on their business metrics to make decisions.

Together, Salesforce and Rootstock Software have evolved as powerful forces, closely partnered in the manufacturing industry. Salesforce delivers Manufacturing Cloud. With it, manufacturers have in-depth Sales and Service capabilities at the business level, but they also need operational capabilities. This is where Rootstock Software shines.

Manufacturing Cloud ERP Solution
Rootstock continually develops new capabilities to make manufacturers more efficient, profitable, and sustainable. A primary example was the launch of its Digital Supplier Collaboration capabilities to help manufacturers cope with supply chain disruptions. Central to this product update was the new supplier request-for-quote feature, which enables manufacturers to foster more resilient supply chains.

Facing continued market volatility, manufacturers need to be able to receive timely digital signals, so they can oversee their "plan-source-make-deliver" cycles. Rootstock provides such insights, enabling manufacturers to manage their supply chains, as well as source and collaborate with suppliers—all from within the Rootstock Manufacturing ERP solution. In essence, manufacturers have greater visibility to mitigate disruptions as they emerge.

Toward this end, manufacturers can collaborate more closely with suppliers to address global supply chain risks and coordinate strategies such as near-shoring. The way this process was handled in the past—using spreadsheets and email—is now modernized and brought into the digital age, so manufacturers stay agile.

Since Winning a Stevie Award
Since taking home their Stevie, Rootstock has made the following key announcements:

On May 2, 2023, Rootstock Software announced the launch of Enterprise Insights, their new analytics solution, with its Spring ’23 release, designed to provide manufacturers with a complete view of their business so they can chart a course toward profitability, efficiency, and value throughout their operations.

On May 17, 2023, Rootstock Software released its inaugural 2023 State of Manufacturing Technology Survey, which looked at what 508 manufacturing professionals who are director-level and above view as key challenges and technology priorities for their organizations. The findings reveal that despite inflation and other economic concerns, more than three-quarters of manufacturers (75.2%) have plans to boost their software spending over the next 12 months, with more than one-third (37.8%) planning on double-digit increases. Cloud ERP is a key strategic focus for this software investment, with two-thirds of respondents planning to upgrade their legacy ERP solutions.

On October 31, 2023, Rootstock Software announced the appointment of Robert Rostamizadeh to the newly formed position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). In this role, Rostamizadeh will set the technological direction of the company, leading product development and software engineering. With over 15 years of experience in software engineering leadership, Rostamizadeh plans to institute a more agile development methodology with the goal to enhance product quality, increase transparency, and more efficiently deliver value to customers.

On November 2, 2023, Rootstock Software announced its vision for “The Manufacturing Signal Chain.” The Signal Chain strategy was conceived in partnership with manufacturers who need real-time digital signals across their organizations, coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, to make better decisions that drive growth in an ongoing volatile market.

Manufacturers have always aimed to use streams of data to make business decisions—from sales, inventory, finance, and more. However, they utilize hundreds of enterprise systems and point solutions, so they often fall victim to adding more data to existing infrastructure without any overarching connection. Information becomes trapped in disjointed systems, data silos, and manual processes—failing to provide rapid, actionable insights. After recognizing this challenge, Rootstock established a Signal Chain approach that enables manufacturers to harness the power of their data within the context of today’s ever-changing supply and demand conditions.

Rootstock Software won a Gold Stevie Award for Best Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Solution in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards^®?

Car Pros Automotive Group has grown from a used car lot with two employees to an automotive group with over 500 employees and seven stores in two states, selling over 2,000 cars per month. According to the CEO, Stevie Award-winner Matthew Phillips, MBA, the success of Car Pros is directly related to its mission of changing lives through a high-performance, value-led dealership culture.

From Lot to Leadership
Matthew is a passionate automotive retail executive, growing the company from a used car lot with two employees into a company with annual sales of $1 billion, while at the same time breaking multiple molds in a tradition-bound industry.

Automotive retailing tends to be dominated by men, hierarchy, and traditional internal combustion vehicles. As an LGBTQ+ person, Matthew believes in empowering people, particularly under-represented groups. His 20-year journey from “lot to leadership” provides a real-world perspective on how to build high-performance workplace cultures, informing his personal brand of metric-driven accountability based on industry experience, leadership, and continued education.

He holds MBAs from Cornell University, NY, and Queen’s University, Ontario; an MA in Organizational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University; and a BA in Accounting from University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA. Matthew is also a graduate of the National Automobile Dealers Association’s Dealer Academy.

Not only is Matthew a maverick in showing the industry how it can evolve, but as a board member of the Washington State Dealers Association and of Kia’s National Dealer Council, he works from the inside to promote positive change and demonstrate that the franchised dealer system is ready to meet the needs of customers and communities now and in the future.

Powering Change
In the automotive industry, DE&I progress has been slow but steady: Hireology reports that while many dealerships say DE&I is an important issue, only 24% are aware of DE&I best practices at their dealerships — an indication of awareness but not enough action.

Matthew’s personal experience reflects this reality of evolving change toward inclusiveness and tolerance. He sees DE&I as the foundation of today’s high-performance retail operation and believes that diversity of experiences is mission critical to selling successfully: your customers are diverse, so your team better be as well.

“Inclusive leadership is about changing the paradigm,” says Matthew. “We sell cars by empowering people to sell cars. We were one of the first to provide insurance for domestic partners and adopt anti-discrimination policies. We’ve been at the forefront of training for inclusivity and have worked to make our dealerships welcoming places for everyone.” What has been most rewarding for Matthew, he says, is when his commitment to authenticity has given others the courage to be successful in their most authentic way.

Matthew continues to drive real change for the betterment of car buyers. He seeks to represent the future of automotive retail, shifting to meet the needs resulting from the adoption of technology, assessing economic realities, and broadening consumer expectations.

Car Pros Automotive Group CEO Matthew Phillips won a Silver Stevie Award for Maverick of the Year in The 2023 American Business Awards®. 

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards®?

Stevie-winner Otus is an educational technology company helping K-12 educators to harness and act on educational data to improve learner outcomes.

Otus provides educators with one platform to gather, visualize, and act on data. With an integrated suite of assessment and grading tools, educators can easily determine where students are now and use data to drive instruction and personalized learning plans forward.

Otus was created and built for teachers, by teachers. It saves educators time through the streamlined integration of assessment, performance tracking, and third-party data, while its gradebook and dashboard reports make it easier for teachers, administrators, and families to understand each student’s growth.

Since its conception in a Chicago middle school classroom in 2013, Otus has been adopted by over 2,500 schools across the United States and has delivered improved results for more than 1 million learners. Recently passing its 10th anniversary, Otus continues to improve and expand its team, its product, and its support of educators nationwide.

Developing the All-in-One Platform
Chris Hull—or “Chull” as his colleagues refer to him—is the Co-Founder and President of Otus. While the team has grown to include over 50      passionate members, Chris is still just as involved in the direction of the product and is as passionate about helping improve K-12 education as he was on day one.

Since Otus made its first sale to a public school system in 2016, the product and the company have both evolved in a myriad of ways, but Chris remains focused on putting educators first, viewing everything the company does from an educator’s perspective.

While most ed-tech solutions address one area of learning, such as assessment or grading, Otus addresses and enhances every step of the learning process. As an all-in-one, integrated platform, Otus eliminates the issue of scattered, siloed student data that plagues K-12 education, as well as the issues that come with implementing and maintaining multiple different ed-tech platforms.

With over 80,000 education apps available in the United States, educators have an abundance of options when it comes to choosing tools to help them in the classroom. Many tech giants such as Google and Microsoft have also released products that compete with Otus. For a company that just began selling to school districts in 2016, Otus has done an exceptional job of breaking into what is a vast and competitive ed-tech market.

In recent years, inflation has impacted school budgets, which has forced administrators to take a hard look at the software they use and, if need be, eliminate subscriptions to services that no longer serve them. For the year 2022, Otus had a net retention of 109.5%, which the company attributes to the quality of the product, service to users, and the reasonable price point per student.

During a time when tech companies across the board are letting employees go in droves, Otus has not only retained its staff but continues to grow its teams. This is an indication not only of the financial vitality of the company but also of employee satisfaction and their belief in Otus’ mission and vision.

As a company comprised largely of former educators, the team at Otus knows exactly what tools educators need and what quality ed-tech looks like. Their belief in the future of the company indicates that Otus is providing a service that speaks to educators and their ever-evolving needs.

Continued Evolution
Thanks to Otus’ continued commitment to listening to customer voices, the product has evolved into a comprehensive suite of integrated tools that truly benefits educators each day in the classroom.

Otus is constantly working to improve its offerings to better serve educators and students, not only through new enhancements to the platform and growth of its support teams but also by partnering with leading education organizations and integrating with other world-class ed-tech products. For example, in the last year, Otus has built new partnerships with respected ed-tech providers such as CenterPoint Education Solutions and Skyward, meaning more integrations that enhance users’ experience in the platform and, in some instances, make Otus easily accessible to users of partner platforms.

But while new partnerships and improvements to the platform can be indicators of success, there is no better source of truth than the customers themselves. According to a recent survey of Otus users, 98% say that Otus makes them more efficient educators—saving them an average of two hours every week. Additionally, Otus boasts a 98% chat approval rating and a response time of under three minutes. 

Otus is invested in the success of its users—from the district administrators and teachers to the students and families they serve. Otus says they are determined to provide a service that not only improves the K-12 education system but maximizes outcomes for the students who rely on it.

Otus's Co-founder and President Chris Hull won a Silver Stevie Award for Technology Executive of the Year; and Otus won two Bronze Stevie Awards for Customer Service Department of the Year and Company of the Year - Computer Software - Medium in The 2023 American Business Awards^®.

Interested in entering The 2024 American Business Awards^®?