Mahe Zehra Husain, aka “MZ,” is a trained mathematician, data scientist, serial entrepreneur, and artist. At the age of 31, MZ became Pakistan’s youngest woman tech CEO, leading an award-winning software house, FiveRivers Technologies (FRT) in Pakistan, dominating a heavily male-dominated space and rewriting history.

Since then she has led the company to catapult to the eight-figure mark with 400% growth in a short span of five years. From a small services firm, with a handful of employees, they now stand at 170 employees, encouraging diversity and inclusion and promoting women technologists. Very few tech firms have woman-friendly policies in Pakistan, but MZ made sure FRT didn’t follow suit. She has mentored over 124 women technologists and grew her female workforce by 50%.

FRT has become one of the top software firms in Pakistan, winning several national and international awards. They provide data science analytics, develop e-learning software, and have now ventured into virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.

Her work gained international recognition when two of their mobile applications for Blackberry ranked number one globally. Their principled work ethics and unmatched creative work caught the interest of big names like Samsung, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, First Detect, Dell, and Wateen, who became clients.

FRT’s Recent Projects
MZ launched an innovative new software product SmartWindows (patent pending), which is a desktop software utility to make Windows 10 smarter by increasing the productivity of remote workers. It has over 6,000 downloads and 145,000+ impressions on Google.

MZ’s latest startup, which has piqued the interest of the national media and local entrepreneurs alike, is PakistanCreates (PKC; PakistanCreates.com) launched in January 2022. PKC is a venture that serves to drive positive, sustainable change through technological inclusion and women empowerment. Through this startup, MZ wants to support small women-owned businesses and give back to society. She commented:

“Pakistan has an amazing and inspiring talent, and I have always wanted to highlight our local products globally. There are thousands of young creative entrepreneurs and micro-business owners, especially women, who need a platform to represent their creativity. PakistanCreates is a small way for us to contribute to this massive local industry with huge potential. Anyone can open their free e-shop on PakistanCreates. We want ideas to become potential successful businesses. To encourage maximum participation, we have kept the registration quite simple with no fees, no subscriptions, no commission, and no hidden charges.” 

Since Winning a Stevie Award
MZ is working on developing a hands-on learning book and workbook combo to teach young women entrepreneurship skills, how to manage finances, budgeting, ways to promote and market their products, how to develop their own brand, etc. It includes all of the important aspects related to business to get a better standing in the supply chain based on MZ’s personal experience and successes.

This will be the first-of-its-kind guidebook in Pakistan. MZ also plans to translate this book into the national language Urdu and the regional language Punjabi to maximize the benefit and reach.

MZ is on the Board of Alif Laila Book Bus Society (ALBBS), a nonprofit working toward literacy for young girls. She mentors these girls and has given them access to maker-space technical training, which helps them consider a career path in electronics, computers, arts, crafts, and photography.

Recently (July 2022), FRT in collaboration with ALBBS conducted relief work in Sindh and Balochistan, Pakistan, where thousands of families lost their homes and livestock to catastrophic floods. They provided dry food items to over 400 families in 16 communities. 

FiveRivers Technologies CEO Mahe Zehra Husain won a Silver Stevie Award for Best Female Entrepreneur in Business Services among organizations with 11 to 2,500 Employees in the 2022 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie Awards for Women in Business? 

Long before corporations were focusing on creating caring cultures—or even thinking about it—Jeffrey Deckman was at the forefront, educating CEOs and other senior leaders to give up the old “power and control” mindset and replace it with one that focuses upon leaders being high-level communicators, collaborators, and facilitators of their organization’s human capital.

Jeffrey Deckman has 45 years of management experience, 40 of which have been as a serial entrepreneur, having built two multi-million dollar companies in the technology sector before becoming a leading consultant on the next evolution of leadership.

He offers powerful and transformative coaching, consulting, and training programs based upon his award-winning Amazon best-selling book Developing the Conscious Leadership Mindset for the 21st Century.

Deckman has won multiple Stevie® Awards for Best Business Book and Best E-Book in both The International Business Awards® and The American Business Awards®. He also has won Innovator of the Year in The International Business Awards.

Below is an inspiring blog that Jeffrey Deckman recently published and sent to his growing following of leaders and that is now re-published here with his permission. May you find it as inspiring as so many already have!

---

3 Lessons Cancer Taught Me About Leadership and Life

Today is the 79^th anniversary of D-Day. It also marks the 7^th anniversary of my final radiation treatment in my “battle” with stage 4 cancer.

Since that day, and my second chance at life, my life has been catapulted to a whole new level. I walked my daughter down the aisle. I have become a grandfather twice! I have seen both my sons buy homes, get engaged and blossom in their careers. I wrote my book that went on to win two national and two international Stevie awards, created a leadership process that won IBA’s bronze Innovator of the Year award. I also met and married the woman of my dreams who is my best friend and my unicorn!

Life is good. I am so very thankful to still be here.

The Beginning
During Thanksgiving of 2015 my daughter saw a marble-sized lump in my neck that I had been watching for a few weeks, hoping it would go away. She is a massage therapist, reiki practitioner and an energy healer. When she saw it, she intuitively knew, as she told me later, that I had cancer, and it was stage 4.

“What’s that lump, dad?” was the sentence that started a year-long journey that forever changed my life.

After the holidays, I put the ball in motion and by February my biopsy and PET scan revealed the diagnosis of stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma. Nice call Allison!

From that moment, I knew I was going to have to both learn and demonstrate a new level of self-control and leadership that was very different than the type required of me as a father and business owner over the previous 40 years.

While much of what I had learned through my career gave me a solid foundation from which to work, this powerful experience taught me even more. Below are three of the biggest lessons I learned.

1. Develop a plan. Be creative. And choose your partners wisely.

Between February and my first day of treatments, April 18^th of 2016, which fittingly was the same day as the Boston Marathon, I developed my treatment strategy. I chose an innovative approach involving both traditional and holistic protocols. I then assembled a team of healing partners which included traditional oncology professionals, holistic practitioners, and Dr. Jody Noe - a world renowned integrative oncologist and healer who was also a Cherokee medicine woman.

2. Life doesn’t happen to me; life happens for me. Every experience is a gift.

After a long series of internal conversations and consciousness work, I came to understand that the primary force in the universe is creation and, what could be called, divine love. (If the primary force was destruction and hate the universe would never have been created in the first place and babies wouldn’t be born pure.)

Therefore, the source of anything which happens to me is a gift of love, not a punishment. With that realization, it became my job to find the gifts in the experience I was having. Seeking them would give me purpose. Finding purpose would give me courage. Embracing both would prevent me from falling into the depths of fear, which could have proven deadly.

3. Every experience is a class.

Joy was an incredibly wise “earth angel” whom I met on my journey. Joy had already lost her husband and daughter to cancer. These experiences led her to immerse herself in the study of spiritual and natural path treatments. Joy’s sage advice was that I had to learn to love the cancer. Her reasoning was that anything other than love in my system was simply another form of cancer. And I already had enough of that in my body.

It seemed like an impossible challenge. But I trusted her wisdom. Over the next few days, I struggled trying to find a way to “love the cancer.” Then I found it.

With my new understanding that everything is a gift of love the question to answer was: If the universe was using cancer as a gift of love how would it show it to me?

The answer that came was that it would appear as a teacher about the value of life and the importance of love, itself. From that moment, I committed to learn as much as possible from this powerful teacher.

As I embraced this truth, every challenge, pain, frustration, and fear became a class on love designed to help me to grow in gratitude, appreciation, and determination. The classes were often very difficult, but the payoffs far exceeded the tuition they extracted.

Conclusion
To this day, every time I am challenged, frustrated or fearful I ask myself: “What class am I in?” The moment I pose that question my stress begins to lessen and a sense of curiosity, purpose, and empowerment appears. This gifts me with a mindset which allows me to make my decisions with a clear mind and an open heart, which is the best mindset to have when the stakes are incredibly high.

In addition, I’ve learned beautiful lessons about compassion, empathy, and gratitude that I would never have without the gift of the perspective I received through my cancer experience.

Finally, I learned that if I could find the love in the cancer experience, I could find it in any experience. To this day that is the gift that keeps giving.

To learn more life changing lessons the cancer experience gifted me with I invite you to watch this interview.

www.jeffreydeckman.com

 

Stevie-winner Talenya (a Paycor company) offers the world's first AI-powered, fully-automated talent sourcing platform. Launched in 2016, Talenya was created in answer to the difficulties recruiters and talent sourcers experience in finding qualified, diverse talent in a competitive candidate market. The industry runs on time-consuming keyword search and one-by-one messaging to potential candidates.

Talenya is the first and only provider of AI technology that automates the sourcing process from search through engagement. It uses machine learning to gauge recruiters’ needs and preferences for each search, and then automatically reaches out to candidates over several channels to ask them to interview for the job opening. It also finds diverse candidates with 98% accuracy and helps level the playing field for underrepresented talent. Talenya is committed to social responsibility and creating a workforce that uplifts people of all identities equitably.

In the past year, Talenya has been recognized several times for its commitment to social responsibility. Vation Ventures acknowledged Talenya in its “Tech For Good” quarterly report for its machine learning functionality, which recognize diverse profiles with 98% accuracy and allow users to boost participation of varying underrepresented identities in their search results without sacrificing quality, and while avoiding the potential for unconscious bias. In this way, Talenya is helping to build a more equitable and inclusive workforce and helping recruiters meet diversity KPIs.

Talenya is committed to creating a more equal world with its Diversity AI, and it tries to live by these same values in its own employee base. Talenya widens the pool of potential diverse candidates by searching and engaging on a multitude of channels automatically, tapping a database of 1.5 billion profiles across the internet.

While many tools can increase a recruiter’s access beyond LinkedIn, none have as large a pool as Talenya. The Sourcing AI scours the internet not only on LinkedIn but on sites like Github, StackOverflow, and a range of others which may not be as obvious. Given the difficulty of finding diverse candidates in general, the wider pool allows for many more identities to be included in every search.

In addition, Talenya software predicts diverse talent at 98% accuracy. It is the first software to find diverse profiles by inferring skills often left off profiles by people of underrepresented groups. Other recruitment tools may allow searchers to filter by identity, but Talenya is the only solution that uses AI to understand and predict a candidate’s identity based on their skills and experience—and to understand that these candidates usually underplay their qualifications which makes them harder to find in Boolean search.

Since Winning Their Stevie Award
In the past 12 months, Talenya has grown to become a leader in a newly created category—automatic talent sourcing. Major brands around the world, such as Xerox, Logitech, and Marvell, have adopted Talenya’s technology to double their interview pipeline. 

Talenya is taking on the herculean mission of developing AI algorithms that can think and operate like a human recruiter in sourcing and engaging with talent. They will continue with efforts to perfect their platform and deliver more qualified and diverse applicants to jobs processed. 

Recently, they have been focused on enhancing the algorithms as well as the user interface that allow recruiters to “train” the software on their preferences and priorities, so that the software can find and fetch high-quality talent to interview. Talenya’s talent database is now the biggest available today and continues to climb beyond 1.5 billion profiles.

Talenya won a Bronze Stevie Award for Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year Among Organizations With Up to 100 Employees in The 2022 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2023 International Business Awards? 

Established in 2010 by a Euro-Filipino team to help foreign companies tap into the rich Philippine talent pool, Eastvantage has since grown and now provides business solutions to global companies. It enables offshore operations from its locations in the Philippines, India, Bulgaria, and Vietnam.
The management team brings a wealth of global insights and local knowledge in the areas of digital transformation, customer experience, and business support. Combining expertise with a hands-on approach to managing client relationships, Eastvantage aims to make outsourcing simple and seamless.

Eastvantage has grown steadily through the years until 2018 when the company realized it needed to strengthen its operations for it to be able to cope with the heightened requirements of its clients and the market as a whole. Thus, later that year, the company brought in Kamal Asarpota, a seasoned executive with a successful track record of delivering financial and business results with global organizations in the ITES/BPM Industry.

Supported by top management, Kamal began promoting an engaged and empowered team culture. In 2019, the company strengthened its core by improving operational efficiencies and getting the right people. The strategy established Eastvantage as a reliable partner, validated by seamless business continuity during the pandemic lockdowns.

When the pandemic struck the Philippines in early 2020, Eastvantage immediately put measures in place to minimize the impact on the company’s gains from the previous years and garnered a Silver Stevie Award for its COVID-19 response efforts.

The company continued strengthening its operations and sales team throughout 2020 and 2021. It reinforced its #everybodysells 360°+ business development cycle strategy, which covers pre-sales to operations. The strategy involves not only the sales and marketing teams but the whole operations support team, including HR, recruitment, IT, finance, and administration.

This, together with the entry of a seasoned investor in 2021 who brought in a deep understanding of scaling service operations, incentivized internal stakeholders to be aligned with company growth goals. Further, the company expanded its IT Managed Services.

These measures enabled the company to grow its existing business simultaneously with new business acquisitions, at an increased win rate of 19% compared to 5% in 2020. By the end of 2021, the company:

• had an accounts portfolio of 50 clients, a 70%+ increase from 29 clients in 2020;
• grew its headcount by 70%+, from 473 full-time employees to 815;
• exceeded its EBITDA target;
• closed the year at a 12% revenue growth; and
• earned the highest annual income in its 11 years of operations.

Eastvantage has not only survived the threats to general business stability brought about by the pandemic, but it has evidently also outgrown the startup phase. Now in the expansion stage of the business, the company has opened up additional delivery centers in the Philippines, India, Bulgaria, and Vietnam. Further, it now has a US-based Business Strategy Advisor for its diversification in North America.

The growth is expected to continue, as Eastvantage is bent on seizing opportunities by continually evolving in line with market demand. The higher focus on complex and digital services is one of the initiatives in this direction and is expected to contribute high value to the business. The direction is to further expand globally and be the Managed IT Services partner of choice.

Eastvantage won a Gold Stevie Award for Achievement in Sales or Revenue Generation in The 2022 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2023 International Business Awards?

Since 2006, Stevie-winner OfficePartners360 (OP360) has operated on the belief that simplicity is golden. This means engaging in 24/7 business process outsourcing services to help clients streamline work and focus on their core business.

OP360 has invested in resources and programs that nurture their people's potential and, thereby, support clients' success. They want to add more meaning to work by implementing strategic and impactful community extension projects.

While their business is primarily concerned with advanced technologies, they feel the human aspect makes their culture unique. Central to this simplicity is a dynamic of relationships and interactions built on shared values of engagement, credibility, transformation, empowerment, and service. Below are OP360’s recent achievements:

Credibility
They optimized the company’s intranet and social media presence (Facebook engagement grew from <200 to ∼4,800 annually) to communicate events and policy developments to employees.

Transformation
OP360 joined the Philippine Financial and Inter-Industry Pride to further strengthen equality initiatives and uplift the LGBTQIA+ workforce. In addition, they expanded HMO coverage to include common-law and same-sex partners as applicable dependents.

Growing from within, with 50% of new hires being referrals, OP360 joined the Information Technology & Business Process Association of the Philippines, which opens doors to collaborative events and upskilling & reskilling opportunities for employees. 

Service
OP360 launched the Donate-a-Day Program, allowing employees to donate a day of their basic earnings toward supporting underserved communities in Cebu. OP360 matched every donation and distributed grocery baskets, face masks, and vitamins to beneficiaries.

Empowerment
Since the pandemic began, OP360 has supported employees and their dependents by providing flexible work arrangements with a corporate telecommunication package. Paid time off and care packages were offered to employees who tested positive for COVID-19. 

Resources were mobilized to facilitate recovery and relief efforts for employees and their families impacted by Super Typhoon Odette (Rai), specifically by:

• Opening sites as temporary shelters, where packed meals and drinking water were available for free to employees and their families
• Launching the Heroes Program, which extended a one-time financial bonus to employees who resumed onsite work immediately after landfall
• Releasing a premium to all Visayas-Mindanao employees who worked during and after the landfall and additional early pay to help ease financial difficulties
• Granting 100 employees a one-time financial grant as part of the #TogetherWeRise Financial Assistance Program, which saw OP360 executives matching every dollar donated by generous clients

Engagement
OP360 has launched “common ground,” allowing employees the chance to chat with the top leadership about topics like company direction and personal hobbies. They also have initiated counseling sessions with HR and marked Wednesdays as Safety and Health Day, during which they share mental health tips.

There are organized virtual programs with professionals to foster an inclusive and safe space for a diverse workforce. They also recognize select employees for referring talented people through an all-expense-paid shopping spree.

This culture has been critical to their low annual attrition rate of 3% for all business lines combined. Additionally, their most recent employee evaluation gave them an overall score of 4.5 out of 5, which indicates that 94% of their people are satisfied with their roles, and 93% are having fun at work.

Team OP360 is fueled by recent achievements to continue doing right by employees, clients, and local communities.

OP360 won a Silver Stevie Award for Employer of the Year in Other Industries in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?

 

Gold Stevie^® Award-winner Management Dynamics Global (Management Dynamics) are leadership and team development experts, renowned for their ability to catalyze performance through teams, people, and servicing top global brands.

Management Dynamics routinely works with international businesses across a diverse range of industries and scales, building strong partnerships to inspire lasting growth, transform company cultures, and create differentiated performance.

With 25+ years of corporate human resources experience, Management Dynamics focuses on helping businesses adapt, survive, and thrive in a world of constant change by equipping teams and leaders to step up and stand out through their unique and unrivaled research-based blueprint for success. 

In the blueprint, they detail how the greatest leaders, teams, and organizations think, act, and communicate. It includes innovative and interactive in-person or virtual learning experiences that shift mindsets, differentiate performance, and fulfill potential. They leverage cutting-edge tools, methodologies, and their vast experience to build bespoke solutions across four key areas: leadership, teams, coaching, and talent management.

Management Dynamics Blueprint in Action
In 2020 a global leader in consulting and engineering commissioned Management Dynamics to attract, develop, and retain a pipeline of future-ready leaders to overcome the impact of COVID-19, a declining industry, and rising attrition rates.

Using the results of a Korn Ferry Assessment of Leadership Potential, their team designed a custom Leadership Excellence Programme to elevate the client’s business, power their progress, and pioneer their long-term success. 

They tailored the program to meet the client’s strategic needs and “Future Fit” vision of an empowered community culture, including 40% women leaders by 2030, with participants able to embrace bold ideas, new ways of working, and skills for the future. 

Management Dynamics’ approach to leadership development exceeded their client’s expectations by applying the following approach:

Employing pioneering methodology. Using the language of data, analytics, and science to prove skill gaps and associated risks to the business, they converted very technical thinkers to the value of building self-awareness, big-picture thinking, and experimentation into their leadership mindsets. As one participant commented: “The focus on self-awareness and self-management is what most businesses miss.”

Unlocking exceptional value. Where previous “cookie-cutter” in-person courses cost the client £300k+, this virtual offering unleashed 160+ Korn Ferry assessments, 365 hours of workshops, and 6,000+ hours of learning for 149 participants across 23 countries—all within 12 months and a budget of £30k. A 645% increase in participation exposed a rich global pipeline of future talent to accelerate and reinforce succession plans at all levels. 

Addressing diversity and inclusion. Virtual delivery lifted barriers to advanced leadership development for a much wider global cohort of the client’s employees. With 100% online and 90% co-facilitation, the client saved £300k+ in consultancy, travel, and accommodation; supported their 2030 goal of 40% carbon reduction; and connected a diversity of current and future leaders, including 36% women.

Inspiring long-term loyalty. Embedding pioneering, scalable talent development into a 160-year-old business highlighted that the client’s company remains an exciting place to work within an evolving industry. Engaged and empowered participants rated the program 4.7/5, surpassing the average of 4.4.

Looking toward the future, Management Dynamics noted that its rapidly growing reputation for transforming people, cultures, and organizations has catalyzed its own business performance. They are forecasting an exponential growth target for the next 5 years. 

Management Dynamics Global won a Gold Stevie Award for Leadership or Skills Development Solution Provider of the Year in the 2022 Stevie Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie Awards for Great Employers? 

 

Established in 2006, Stevie-winner SmartOSC is a premium, full-service e-commerce agency, offering simple yet effective solutions, from consulting, website development, UX/UI design to managed services.

Over the past 16 years, SmartOSC has built its reputation through a focus on e-commerce and cost-effectiveness for famous brands and e-tailers around the world, such as LG, Paypal, and Nestle. With a “people-centric” strategy, they always strive to enable employees to grow sustainably in the industry and pursue their passion with a clear career path.

Despite the difficulties of the pandemic, SmartOSC still broke records in employee relations through the implementation of its people-centric philosophy and 5 core values: Sharing, Modesty, Action, Respect, and Transparency. 

With Internal Communication, all of the employees are communicated with continuously, clearly and transparently through diverse channels, especially during the pandemic. The Emergency Response Team (ERT) was formed quickly to monitor and make sure all employees are updated with the pandemic news. Over 20 e-newsletters/month & daily announcements about the pandemic.

During the pandemic, SmartOSC was one of a few IT companies that ensured employees’ jobs and financial status. Additionally, they implemented “work-from-home” only a few weeks in early 2020, ensuring business continuity and employees’ ability to work.

By Q4 2021, SmartOSC attracted both technology and non-tech specialists, increasing the number of employees to nearly 1000 across offices in Vietnam, the USA, the UK, Australia, Singapore, Japan, and Thailand. The company’s digital presence increased in reach and talent database. Over 1 year, their LinkedIn followers increased by 30%, and the fan page SmartOSC Careers (recruitment page) followers increased by 350%.

Their online training system, “Smart Academy,” has more than 1,000 online training courses stored, with over 30,000 hours of training and 40 internal seminars. Using this available training resource, more than 30% of trainees have passed international certificates, such as PMP, ISTQB, PMI-ACP. The company provides a transparent career roadmap with clear mobility opportunities to all employees.

One of the most important things that SmartOSC feels makes them unique from other companies is their “O-S-C” culture: “Open, Self-disciplined and Continuously growing.” Employees are free to speak to the CEO or Chairman about anything, including business or personal issues. More than that, employees are enabled to set their own pace and strategy without being forced to follow a common standard. 

Their philosophy encourages employees to have freedom and autonomy, with a flexible work time policy that allows employees to be more independent, productive, and creative by fully controlling their 8 hours.

They aim to incorporate employee engagement throughout every aspect of work life, not only in the company’s diverse activities every month, such as Family Day and Summer vacation. In 2020, they launched a CSR project called: “SMART GREEN FOREST” that planted more than 6,600 trees to reforest the barren hills at Xuan Son National Park.

SmartOSC won a Bronze Stevie Award for Employer of the Year in Computer Services in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?

Registration is now open for the 6th annual Women|Future Conference, to be held virtually from August 1-2. Attending the 2023 conference is free, but attendees must register in advance to access the virtual platform and sessions.

The Women|Future Conference is a professional development, learning, and networking event that brings together a community of small business owners, executives, entrepreneurs, and women who are interested in starting a business.

In 2018, the Women Future Conference was created in conjunction with the highly successful Stevie® Awards for Women in Business program to give high-achieving women professionals, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs a place to come together, share ideas, and network.

Today, we have accomplished this and more, expanding our conference to many ambitious, forward-thinking professionals across industries and career stages. Attendees are a mix of CEOs, founders, small business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, directors, and managers, as well as women between jobs or starting a career transition who are seeking mentorship.

Reputed Stevie Award Winners Give Tips on Award Submissions
The 2023 conference agenda features two days of panels, workshops, and breakout sessions hosted by over 30 world-class speakers including CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and small business consultants.

A new feature in the 2023 edition of the program includes a workshop on “How to Write a Winning Stevie Award Nomination,” led by Denise O’Leary, MBE. Denise is a 21x Stevie Award winner and will share her experience on how to construct a winning Stevie Award entry. Denise will share insights from her years of experience in Stevie applications and provide hints on what judges really want to see.

Many 2023 speakers are actually past and current Stevie Award winners who have earned recognition in one (or many) of our eight Stevie Awards programs. Speakers this year who are also past winners in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business include:

• Viola Palescandolo, Founder & CEO, Black Platinum Gold B.V.
• Marnie LeFevre, Founder & CEO, Fempire
• Etosha Thurman, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer, SAP
• Mez Gallifuoco, Founder & CEO, The Mad Ones
• Kathleen Mitford, Corporate Vice President of Global Industry - Marketing, Microsoft
• Jennifer Harris-Kroll, Director of Growth, Anthill
• Bridgett McGowen, Speaker/Author/Publisher, Press 49, a part of BMH Companies
• Valeria Jennings, CEO, Jennings Social Media & MarTech 
• Jennifer Cloer, Founder & CEO, Story Changes Culture
• Lauren Clemett, Managing Director, The Audacious Agency
• Annette Densham, Creative Director, Audacious Agency

Speakers who have won a Stevie Award in one of our other seven awards programs include: 

• Safiya Johnson, Leadership Strategist & CEO, Safiya Group
• Ciara Ungar, Founder & CEO, The Why Group, Inc.
• Alycia Huston, Founder & CEO, The Culture Cru
• Brenda Jimenez, CEO, MENTOR New York
• Christina Helena, Public Speaking & Communications Coach, Mental Health Speaker, My Scar is Sexy

Women from cities across the United States, Canada, Australia, Asia, and Europe attend the conference year after year to be inspired, build resilience, and share insights into changes that impact their industries, their careers, and their lives. 

Below are a few of the upcoming 2023 Women|Future Conference sessions:

• From Wages to Wealth: Making the Shift from Employee to Entrepreneur
• Taking the Leap: How to Transfer Your Skills from One Role to the Next
• Funding Female Futures: Navigating the Investment Landscape and Bootstrapping Success
• Unveiling the Unspoken: Candid Conversation on Workplace Inclusivity Issues for Women in Business
• From Idea to Empire - Lessons in Branding
• The Must-Have Money-Marketing Marketing Tool…That Few Businesses Have but that Every Single One of Them Needs

To learn more about the Women|Future Conference speakers and view the full agenda, visit www.womenfutureconference.com. 

Free Registration
In order to attend the conference and access the virtual event platform, all attendees must register in advance. 

For partnership, press, and media inquiries, contact Nina@stevieawards.com.

Multiple Stevie® Award-winner mindit.io is a global company that creates enterprise applications, business intelligence solutions, and integration solutions across many industries, with proven expertise in retail, banking, fintech, and healthcare.

Their mission is to continuously mind customers’ business through outstanding services. They help clients establish roadmaps for their technological path or products and provide comprehensive implementation resources in terms of solutions and people.

Their dedicated engineers are proficient in delivering end-to-end software services with a focus on business analysis, architecture, development, integration, maintenance, and support. mindit.io has created a sustainable intrapreneurial environment where people can expand both their professional and personal perspectives.

The Women Leading Change and Growth
In the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, mindit.io took home a Silver Stevie Award for Fastest Growing Company of the Year. When asked what winning the award meant to her, Chief Executive Officer Lucia Stoicescu commented:

“Software is what we know how to build. But ultimately, we wanted to foster an environment in which people can become the best version of themselves. The moment you choose to compromise regarding the best version of yourself, you give away the power. And we want to empower people.

This award is motivation to continue, dream bigger, work harder to build upon the trust our people put in our community, and deliver upon that trust. In a fast-growing company, you need a systematic approach to growth that involves a transformation mindset and team growth.”

With decades of experience working in the technology sector (mainly retail, fintech, telecom, and MedTech), Lucia’s expertise is in driving and managing business growth, technology transformation, sourcing, operations, finance, HR, and regulatory compliance for international customers.

Two additional women on the mindit.io team were recognized in the 2022 awards program: Mona Hristachi, Co-Chief Operating Officer, won a Silver Stevie for Woman of the Year in Business Services; and Roxana Staneiu, Chief People Officer, won a Silver Stevie for Female Employee of the Year in Business.

Woman of the Year in Business Services, Mona Hristachi
Before she was Co-COO of mindit.io, Mona started her journey in 2014 working in background screening, then gained experience in various business roles like sales representative, analyst, key account manager, and project manager:

“There are many skills that I had the chance to develop in time. Still, one of the skills I got the context to explore more evolved around identifying and understanding needs. How do you ask the right questions to understand the real need to be able to provide support, and where is the case to come up with the right solutions?

Through servant leadership, you can better understand how you can help a colleague or a partner, and that’s something that I resonate with.”

Mona remarked that she was already happy to be nominated for the award and was pleasantly surprised at winning:

“For the past 8 years, my professional journey has been within the mindit.io team, exploring different roles and having a continuous learning experience. Receiving the award means that the excellent work we are doing at mindit.io is recognized.

It’s important to continue to create a community where each one contributes with their expertise and skills and learns from others while building software engineering platforms and products."

Female Employee of the Year in Business, Roxana Staneiu
Certified as a NeuroMindfulness Coach Practitioner, Roxana is a people-oriented leader whose mission is to inspire, coach, and lead teams to drive innovation and create added value.

Specifically, she helps people nourish their potential in dynamic and challenging environments, facilitates authentic experiences, and provides clear vision in fast-paced situations. “People are the epicenter of everything I do,” she explained, “be it organizational culture or key account management, my role is deeply influenced by the passion I have for building authentic connections.”

When asked if it was challenging being a woman in a predominantly male-dominated industry like software development, Roxana commented:

“Over the last decade, women constantly prove that they can code, they can come up with innovative solutions, can be in top management positions, can run businesses, they can be visionary leaders.

I feel we don’t need to prove ourselves anymore and it’s high time to be recognized for the value we all can bring. I’m aware there are still some old socially desirable standards that are imposed on women, but I feel we came a long way, and every time we put our focus on results, passion, hard work, ideas, and innovations, not on gender or stereotypes, we all make another step towards a better society.” 

Since Winning Their Stevie Awards
mindit.io has since been recognized in Romania for its unique benefit called minditNomad. Through minditNomad, they have their own minditNomad homes located throughout Romania, in the mountains and at the seaside, where employees can work from or have a vacation with their friends and family without having to worry about accommodation costs, not having Internet, or not having the right equipment. They believe in working from anywhere and that a change of scenery is essential from time to time. 

Irina Arsene, mindit.io Founder, was also awarded the first-ever "Inspiring Woman of the Year" Award at the 2023 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Gala!

In addition to these achievements, mindit.io has also been officially certified as a Great Place to Work® with 97% of their employees answering "yes" when asked, "Taking everything into account, do you consider mindit.io a great place to work?"

mindit.io has also managed to continue with 40% year-over-year growth in 2022 and more than 250 employees. They plan to reach the 1000-people milestone by the end of 2025.

mindit.io won a Silver Stevie Award for Fastest-Growing Company of the Year. Mona Hristachi, Co-COO, won a Silver Stevie for Woman of the Year in Business Services; and Roxana Staneiu, Chief People Officer, won a Silver Stevie Award for Female Employee of the Year in Business in the 2022 Stevie Awards for Women in Business. 

Interesting in entering the 2023 Stevie Awards for Women in Business? 

 

DHL Global Forwarding, Freight has been named the winner of two Gold, two Silver, and three Bronze Stevie® Awards in the seventh annual Stevie® Awards for Great Employers. In six categories, ranging from diversity and inclusion to employee engagement and workplace health & wellbeing, DHL Global Forwarding, Freight impressed the jury with its commitment to its employees. The certification attests to DHL's achievement in implementing HR best practices, fostering a positive work environment, and encouraging its employees' personal and professional development.

Executive Vice President of Human Resources at DHL Global Forwarding & Freight, Harm Otten, said: “I am proud to announce that DHL Global Forwarding, Freight won seven 2022 Stevie Awards for Great Employers in six different categories. A big thank you to all our colleagues and their teams who have contributed to this amazing achievement, and above all, congratulations!”

In the Achievement in Leadership Development for Women category, DHL Global Forwarding, Freight won the Gold Stevie Award with its "Shift Up A Gear" program. As part of this program, the air, ocean and overland transportation freight specialist, together with other Deutsche Post DHL Group divisions, has identified female employees from around the world who have the potential to progress to Director or higher level. Through the program, the company aims to achieve at least 30% women at these higher levels by 2025. 

Another Gold Stevie Award went to DHL Global Forwarding Middle East & Africa in the "Reward & Recognition Strategy" category. They proactively recognized and acknowledged their employees' talent, success, and contribution to the company through two highly anticipated initiatives: “MEA Got Talent” and the Employee of the Year Conference. The jury commended the company for developing a creative, systematic approach to recognizing and rewarding talent that supports employer brand strengthening and talent retrofitting.

Part of the Deutsche Post DHL Group (DPDHL), DHL Global Forwarding has been the expert in freight forwarding since 1815. Their air, ocean, and overland freight forwarding services include standardized transport as well as multimodal and sector-specific solutions, together with individualized industrial projects.

DPDHL is one the world’s largest employers, with a workforce of some 590,000 employees. In five divisions and 220 countries and territories, people are busy working in more than 1,000 different occupations.

DPDHL continues to offer attractive working conditions to some 590,000 employees into 2023 – as confirmed by the recent certifications from the Top Employers Institute. A total of 125 country organizations in 70 countries achieved Top Employer certification. For the first time, the Deutsche Post DHL Group as a whole was awarded Top Employer status in Europe. As in the year before, DHL Express and DHL Global Forwarding, Freight achieved Top Employer Global status, placing them among the best employers in the world.

DHL Global Forwarding, Freight won two Gold, two Silver, and three Bronze Stevie Awards in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers in categories including Achievement in Leadership Development for Women, Best Reward & Recognition Strategy; and Achievement in Workplace Health & Wellbeing. 

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?