By popular demand, the Stevie Awards have announced a general entry deadline extension for Middle East & North Africa Stevie ® Awards sponsored by RAK Chamber, UAE. Entries will now be accepted through February 24. Details are available at http://MENA.StevieAwards.com.

The Middle East Stevie & North Africa Awards are the region’s only awards to recognize innovation in all its forms through the workplace. The awards are open to all organizations in 17 nations in the MENA region: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

All individuals and organizations - public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small - may submit any number of nominations to any number of the categories.

There are no entry fees in this awards program. Organizations may submit as many nominations as they’d like, without cost. Instead, Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners will pay a “winners fee” for each successful nomination.

Winners of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Awards in the competition will be announced on March 24, 2021, and celebrated during a gala event in Ras Al Khaimah at the Waldorf Astoria on May 15.

There are two new category groups for 2021. The COVID-19 Response categories will recognize the contributions of individuals, groups, and organizations that have worked valiantly over the past months to keep us safe, healthy, employed, and informed. The Achievement categories will recognize singular innovative achievements in areas such as customer satisfaction, growth, international expansion, and more.

Nominations citing innovative achievements will be accepted and judged in both Arabic and English, in more than 100 categories across the following category groups:

• Apps & Websites
• Achievements
• Annual Reports & Other Publications
• Company/Organization
• Corporate Communications & Public Relations
• COVID-19 Response
• Customer Service
• Human Resources
• Live Events
• Management
• Marketing
• New Products & Services
• Technology

Winners of the 2020 edition of the awards included Al Dhafra Region Municipality, BEKO, Birevim, Boehringer Ingelheim, Çelebi Aviation Holding, Cisco Systems, Coca-Cola Içecek, DHL Express, Dubai Health Authority, Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue, Mohsin Haider Darwish LLC, RAK Transport Authority, Virgin Mobile, Vodafone and many more.

The 2021 competition will be judged by more than 150 professionals around the world.

Interested in entering the 2021 Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards?

In 1990, Jane Johnson launched a technology consulting business; and, like most entrepreneurs, she eventually decided to sell it.

Then came the proverbial “wake up call”: just because you want to sell your business does not mean you will. Most U.S. entrepreneurs - 85% - decide at some point to sell and only 15% can do so.

Enter Johnson, who in 2013 inaugurated Business Transition Academy (BTA), the first U.S. business dedicated to educating business owners on how to prepare themselves and their businesses to sell - at the right time, to the right buyer, for the best price and without the anxiety, poor advice and high fees that usually come with it.

As Johnson knows, the missing link is education and a strategic exit plan.

“Without a plan, success on your terms is unlikely and consequences can be pretty serious. It’s not unusual for that free time you’ve dreamed of to be replaced by a job working for someone else because you didn’t get enough for your business.”

It was Johnson’s experience selling her own company that inspired her to spend her life helping others avoid the pitfalls of exiting. In Johnson’s case, the business broker she had hired withheld information during the negotiation so that she and her partners would sell quickly for a lot less than the business was worth.

Johnson fired the broker; the sale was ultimately successful; and Johnson’s passion to help owners avoid this and many other pitfalls was ignited.

Enter BTA, which stands alone in taking a “holistic” approach to a business sale at a time when the norm is for owners to hire multiple experts – a broker, wealth manager, attorney and/or CPA - each of whom handles one aspect of it. All BTA exit plans are multi-faceted; and if you are working one-on-one with Johnson, there’s a quarterback to execute the plan for you. If you need an expert, Johnson will tell you and if necessary, recommend the best one(s).

And while the norm is often to get a fast commission, Johnson takes the time to recommend whatever you need. Many times – and especially during COVID-19 – owners need to rebuild their businesses before they can sell on their terms and timeline. Johnson is there for you throughout the process, even if that means five years from start to closing your deal.

As for that future filled with free time, Johnson knows that your life choices are a critical and possibly the most important part of your exit planning. For that reason, every BTA client begins by answering questions related to their exit goals. If you choose to retire, do you know what you want to do next? “Without answering this fundamental question,” emphasizes Johnson, “you can easily wind up with seller’s remorse.”

And, if you are in a family-based business, Johnson will ask you this to prevent serious “damage” that may take place down the road: do you know how to split the assets between adult children who are in the business and those who are not so as to avoid the “sibling strife” that often results, and can sometimes linger for generations? Johnson does.

BTA has a 100% completion rate. Every client can construct a strategic plan that results in a sale – to either insiders or an outside third party.

And at a time when many owners cannot afford to pay the usual $20,000 or more in advisory fees an exit can cost, Johnson had the foresight (right before COVID) to launch the country’s first digital platform aimed at giving owners everything they need – an “exit education” and the templates - to construct a strategic exit plan.

The first level of membership – 100% free-of-charge - helps you, in six steps, understand everything you need to do to exit; the next gives you what you need to put together your own exit plan. As Johnson says, “I care about owners – especially now when opportunistic buyers are ‘dialing for dollars’ in search of businesses to acquire for pennies-on-the-dollar.” During COVID, sign-ups for the free level soared.

As 2021 dawned, Johnson added another crucial program to the digital platform: an interactive “Expert” level that gives small groups of owners everything they need to plan and execute their individual strategic exit plans under the watchful eyes of Johnson and BTA transition mentors who have successfully gone through the process themselves - to advise and answer questions.

This new CEO peer-group offering features live webinars three times/month with Johnson centerstage teaching best practices, answering owners’ questions and interviewing innovative entrepreneurs who have successfully sold their businesses to insiders as well as to external third parties.

You may be wondering – as Johnson admittedly does every day - how is it possible in 2021 that the entrepreneurs who make up this country’s innovative business landscape know so much about business and so little about the one thing they will all seek to do one day – Exit?

With Johnson at the helm, those days are on their way to fading away.

For more information on exit planning and BTA’s educational memberships, please visit BusinessTransitionAcademy.com. Visit the home page for a free copy of Johnson’s Book “Cashing Out of Your Business” and upcoming live webinars showcasing the six steps to exiting well and achieving your goals.

Jane Johnson won a Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Services in the 2020 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

Interested in the 2021 Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

Winners in the 15th annual Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, recognized as the world's top customer service awards and sales awards, were announced today. Stevie Award winners will be celebrated at a virtual awards ceremony on April 14^.

The complete list of Stevie Winners by category is available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

More than 2,300 nominations from organizations in 51 nations were considered in this year’s competition. Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners were determined by the average scores of more than 160 professionals on nine specialized judging committees. Entries were considered in 136 categories for customer service and contact center achievements, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year; 62 categories for sales and business development achievements, ranging from Senior Sales Executive of the Year to Sales Training or Business Development Executive of the Year to Sales Department of the Year; and categories to recognize COVID-19 response, new products and services and solution providers.

Sales Partnerships Inc of Broomfield, CO, USA won 14 Gold Stevie Awards, the most of any organization this year. Other top winners of three or more Gold Stevies include IBM, Armonk, NY USA (11); DP DHL, worldwide (10); ValueSelling Associates, Rancho Santa Fe, CA USA (9); Druva, Sunnyvale, CA USA (6); UPMC Health Plan, Pittsburg, PA USA (5); Cinch Home Services, Boca Raton, FL USA (4); Paylocity, Schaumburg, IL (3); Princess Polly, Los Angeles, CA USA (4); Support Services Group, Waco, TX USA (3); and VXI Global Solutions LLC, Los Angeles, CA USA (3).

Winners of two Gold Stevie Awards include Achievers, Toronto, ON Canada; Carbonite (an Opentext Company), Boston, MA USA; Cisco Systems Inc, San Jose, CA USA; Datasite, Minneapolis, MN USA; EFG Companies, Irving, TX USA; FIS, Jacksonville, FL USA; Kucukoglu Holding, Istanbul, Turkey; Learning Pool, Londonderry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom; RAIN Group, Boston, MA USA; Purpol Marketing Limited, Chippenham, United Kingdom: and SoftPro, Raleigh, NC USA.

Other organizations winning four or more Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Awards include Allianz Global Assistance, Richmond, VA USA; Assurant, Atlanta, GA USA; Broadvoice, Los Angeles, CA USA; DigitalOcean, New York, NY USA; IndiGo, Gurgaon, Haryana, India; Linode, Philadelphia, PA USA; Mailchimp, Atlanta, GA USA; Nationwide Title Clearing, Inc., Palm Harbor, FL USA; Nuance Communications, Boston, MA USA; OneCause, Indianapolis, IN USA; Optima Tax Relief, LLC, Santa Ana, CA USA; POWERHOME SOLAR, Mooresville, NC USA; Pushpay, Redmond, WA USA; SmartLinx, Iselin, NJ USA; Spinnaker Support, Greenwood Village, CO USA; TransPerfect, New York, NY USA; TTEC Holdings, Inc, Englewood, CO USA; VIZIO Inc., Irvine, CA USA; Vodafone Turkey, Istanbul, Turkey; WNS (Holdings) Limited, Mumbai, India; and Yapi Kredi Bankas, Istanbul, Turkey.
The top 10 most-honored organizations in the competition will receive Grand Stevie Award trophies. Those winners will be announced the week of February 15.

Beginning today through March 5, the general public may vote for their favorite providers of customer service in the People’s Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Customer Service. Voting is open at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com. Winners of the People’s Choice Stevie Awards in multiple industries will be determined on March 8.

One category in the awards will continue to accept entries through February 26.  It is the Sales Partnerships Award for Ethics in Sales, which will recognize organizations for best practices and achievements in demonstrating the highest ethical standards in the sales industry.  Entry requirements for this category are outlined at https://stevieawards.com/sales/nominate-2021-sales-partnerships-ethics-sales-award.   Winners in this category will be announced March 22.

Sponsors and supporters of the 15th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include Sales Partnerships, Inc. and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

We're almost rid of 2020 -- one of the toughest years on record for organizations of all types. Nothing this year has gone as planned.  Many of the goals set early in the year have shriveled in the dust.  Many of the year's achievements sprang anew from necessity and ingenuity.

Usually around this time of year organizations finalize their PR and marketing budgets for the following year.  Many organizations are budgeting and planning to enter any number of business awards competitions in the new year, because they know that awards are cost-effective tools for a variety of purposes, with brand building and employee relations chief among them.

Now is the perfect time to deep dive and reflect on what you and your organization have achieved in 2020, despite the obstacles.   Stories of success despite the odds and hurdles are just the kind that often impress Stevie Awards judges.

But here are the three reasons why you and your organization won't win a single award in 2021 - plus the #1 reason it won't matter a whit even if you do.

1. You Don't Enter
On occasion when we suggest to someone that they should nominate their organization in one of the Stevie Awards competitions, their response is: We don't believe in nominating ourselves for awards.  We plan to do such great work that awards will just be given to us.

Really? we want to reply. Which award are you hoping will make a beeline to your door?  A Nobel Prize? A MacArthur Genius Award?  Get real. 

Hope is not a strategy. If you don't believe that winning awards can help to burnish your organization's reputation, provide a low-cost reward to your employees for their good work, and provide one more incentive to your executives and workers to excel, we could persuade you otherwise, but at least that's your opinion.  But if you do believe that winning awards can offer these benefits, why on earth wouldn't you plan to pursue them?

Sure, it can take hours to prepare entries, and entry fees for a few awards programs can run to several thousand dollars, but the work and the cost are minor compared to the benefits of winning - and leveraging - a prestigious award.

2. You Aren't Smart About Picking Your Competitions
While we think our Stevie Awards competitions are the best there are, we acknowledge there are many awards programs worthy of your attention around the world for corporate awards, PR awards, marketing awards, IT awards, web awards, HR awards, and so on.  Picking those that are right for you and your organization is important.  And picking the categories within those competitions is also key.

When someone calls the Stevie Awards to enquire about whether their organization might be a fit for one of our competitions, we ask them two questions: one, what do you want to be recognized for?  And two, is it important to you in which category you might be honored?  Their answer to the first question is important, because that will tell us which competition, and which category(s), will be a fit for them.  The answer to the second question is also pivotal, because that will tell us whether we should recommend only the most popular (i.e. "prestigious") categories or can recommend secondary categories to them as well.

3. You Don't Tell Your Story Well
It's our experience that most organizations aren't very good at formally summarizing and articulating their achievements in an engaging way.  Storytelling is a vital part of corporate - and career - success.

When someone says to us, I'm not sure we're ready to enter the Stevie Awards, I don't know that we've achieved enough yet, we ask them to give us their elevator speech, their one-minute summary of what they do and what they've achieved.  Without fail their elevator speech is captivating.  It seems that most people have honed their ability to put into a few words the essence of their capabilities and achievements.  But few people can translate that pride and excitement into a longer document that's well written, well structured, and supported with examples, work samples, and the like. 

Until the day when we can transmit our thoughts to one another via telepathy, the written word will continue to be the way to communicate data-intensive information.  So if you can't write well, you don't stand much chance of winning many if any awards.  If you don't write well, hire or contract with someone who does to write your awards entries for you.

Even if you do enter the right categories in the right competitions, and prepare and write your entries extremely well, and win a raft of prestigious awards, they won't mean a thing if you don't translate those wins into meaningful tools, by

* Publicizing your wins to the media and stakeholders
* Congratulating and celebrating your employees for their recognition
* Using the resources provided by awards organizers, such as winners' logos, to create a long-term association between your products and your brand and their mark of excellence. 

The first step to participating in any of the eight Stevie Awards programs in 2021 is to request the entry kits for one or more of them.  Start here

The entry deadline is rapidly approaching for the 15th annual Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service on Thursday, November 12. These are the world’s premier awards for sales and customer service professionals, teams, and organizations.

Entry kits and complete details on the competition are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

Eligible nominees include departments, teams, and professionals from around the world who work in customer service, contact center, business development, and sales. New products and services and solution providers used by those professionals are also eligible. The 2021 awards will recognize achievements since July 1, 2019.

Late entries will be accepted through January 13, 2021 with payment of a late fee. Finalists will be announced in mid-January, and the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be revealed during a gala awards banquet on March 5 (health and safety conditions permitting) at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service feature more than 150 categories for:

• Sales awards
• Customer Service awards
• Business Development awards
• New Product awards
• Solution Provider awards
  
  

Entrants may submit any number of nominations to any number of categories.

New this year, for all categories the submission requirements have been simplified, offering the choice to submit a short video or brief answers to several directed questions.

New categories for 2021 include six free-to-enter COVID-19 response categories that will recognize outstanding efforts by business development, customer service, and sales professionals to address the pandemic's impact on their organizations, teammates, customers and communities.

2021 will see the return of the People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer Service, a popular feature of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service in which the general public may vote for their favorite providers of customer service, from among all finalist nominations in the Customer Service Department of the Year categories.

Winners of the 2020 edition of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service included American Airlines, Barclays, Carbonite, Cisco, Clarabridge, Cricket Wireless, Cvent, Delta Vacations, DHL Express, GoDaddy, Mailchimp, OneWest Bank, SAP, Wells Fargo Treasury Management, VIZIO Inc., and more.

The 2021 competition will be judged by more than 150 professionals around the world.

About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and the new Middle East Stevie Awards. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

The entry period for the 7th annual German Stevie® Awards is in full swing. These awards for German-speaking Europe offer organizations in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Belgium the opportunity to apply for global recognition of their recent achievements in a wide variety of categories.

Applicants through December 3, 2020 - the first of two entry deadlines - will pay lower Winners Fees for any of their successful entries.

New for the 2021 competition are COVID-19 Response categories, to recognize the contributions of organizations and individuals to keep us safe, healthy, informed, fed, and supplied during the pandemic.

For complete information on the awards visit www.StevieAwards.com/GSA.

Organizations of all sizes, public and private, for-profit and non-profit, and individuals from the business world, are invited to participate in the 7^th annual German Stevie Awards. 

Maggie Gallagher, President of the Stevie Awards, says: “This year we invite all German, Austrian, Swiss, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Belgian businesses and innovators to submit nominations of their achievements and successes and to compete in this German-speaking business competition."

A variety of categories are open for German-language businesses. They include:

• Awards for companies and institutions,
• Management Awards,
• Entrepreneur Awards,
• Customer Service Awards,
• Human Resources Awards,
• IT Awards,
• Marketing Awards,
• Product Development Awards, and
• Public Relations Awards.

A large selection of categories of the German Stevie Awards also honor outstanding achievements in the field of company-related media and publications. Examples of this are the awards for live events , annual reports and publications , app developments , videos and websites.

New this year are categories for COVID-19 Response awards, in which individuals, organizations as well as campaigns in the the areas of marketing and public relations and products and services are recognized. “This year we would particularly like to honor those who have bravely worked to ensure that customers and employees remain healthy and informed. Many organizations and companies have been and are severely affected by the pandemic and we are pleased to honor all those who have heroically stood up for society, the continued existence of their organization and the health of their employees with the new category, "explains Maggie Gallagher.

The categories include:

• Medical Hero on the Frontline
• Medical Hero on the Backline
• Delivery Hero of the Year
• Education Hero of the Year
• Media Hero of the Year
• Most Exemplary Employer
• Most Innovative Work from Home Plan
• Most Innovative Redesign of the Workplace
• Best use of Social Media for COVID-19 Related Information
• Important Medical and Technical Innovations

Achievement Awards categories have been added for the first time this year. In these categories, various achievements are recognized and honored on behalf of the entire organization. Organizations can submit their achievement nominations in areas such as customer satisfaction achievement, human resources performance, science or technology achievements, and many more.

In response to the current situation caused by COVID-19, all services and projects that have been carried out since July 1, 2018 may be submitted. This is the first time that the Stevie Awards have extended the performance period to a two and a half year time frame. According to Maggie Gallagher, the extension of the service period is intended to support organizations that are acutely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

All companies and organizations can submit any number of nominations free of charge. Participants who submit their applications by the first deadline, December 3, 2020 will benefit from a discount of 25 euros on the winners' fees for each Stevie-winning nomination.

If you miss the deadline on December 3, you can submit nominations through January 20, 2021. Judging committees will then determine the Gold, Silver and Bronze award winners.

On May 7, 2021, the Gold, Silver and Bronze award winners will be honored at a festive award ceremony in Berlin. 

The winners of the German Stevie Awards 2020 included Crowdconsultants 360 GmbH, public link communikcation & consulting, Truffls GmbH, Deutsche Telekom Services Europe SE, Francotyp-Postalia Holding AG, Johannesbad Hotels Bad Füssing GmbH, Deutsche Post DHL Group, Sarah N. Will and Dennis M. Will Immobilien GbR and Wolters Kluwer Germany.

You can find an overview of all the winners of the German Stevie Awards 2020 at https://stevieawards.com/gsa/gewinner-der-german-stevie®-awards-2020.

The German Stevie Awards are part of the Stevie® Awards, which host the renowned International Business Awards® and receive more than 12,000 entries from over 70 countries in a total of eight competition programs each year.

Press photos of the Stevie Awards trophies and the German Stevie Awards logo can be found at https://stevieawards.com/gsa/photos-and-logos . We will be happy to provide you with additional press photos of previous winners etc.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in the 2020 (17^th annual) Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, an international competition, were announced on October 2, 2020. The awards shine a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs, employees and organizations run by women.

Winners of five Grand Stevie Award trophies, the highest honor in the competition, were announced today.

Grand Stevie Award trophies are presented to five organizations that submitted the best body of entries to the competition, in their own names or in the names of one or more clients. Winners were determined by the number of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Awards won in the competition, with three points earned for each Gold Stevie win, two for each Silver win, and one-and-a-half points for each Bronze Stevie win. The Grand Stevie Award winners for 2020 are:

1. The Audacious Agency, Gold Coast, Australia, with 69.5 award points. The agency also was among the Grand Stevie winners in 2019
2. DP DHL, worldwide (27 points), is among the Grand Stevie elite for the third year in a row
3. IGNITE Worldwide, Brier, WA USA (22.5 points)
4. Melissa Sones Consulting, New York, NY USA (20.5 points) was also among the Grand Stevie honorees in 2019
5. Tavuun Welfare Association, Lahore, Pakistan (15.5 points)

More than 1,500 nominations from organizations and individuals around the world were submitted this year for consideration in categories such as COVID-19 Response, Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Startup of the Year, among others. More than 180 business professionals working in seven specialized judging committees determined the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners.

Visit http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women for a complete list of Stevie winners by category. Winners will be celebrated during a virtual ceremony on December 9.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business event will be complemented by the third annual Women|Future Conference, a two-day networking and learning event for female founders, business owners, entrepreneurs and industry leaders, to be held virtually on November 12-13. Registration is just $99, or $49 for current students with an active student ID. Details and registration are available at www.WomenFutureConference.com.

• -HGC Global Communications is a telecom operator group that provided extensive COVID-19 relief to customers and communities
  
  
• -They distributed free face masks, refurbished computers, and cloud capabilities to thousands of people.

About HGC Global Communications

HGC Global Communications is a leading fixed-line operator that owns extensive infrastructure in Hong Kong and overseas and offers a wide portfolio of products and services. HGC provides other operators with telecoms infrastructure, while acting as service provider to corporations and households alike. 

HGC believes telecommunications operators should take one step further to contribute to society. Here’s how they do it. 

Managing Operations & Supporting Customers

As isolation from social distancing is increasing, so is internet data usage. HGC saw a double digit bandwidth consumption increase. Prior to this surge, HGC had increased their backbone capacity, network resilience, and reliability to support a skyrocket in usage. HGC is also well-prepared for the long-term by securing critical components as part of their supply chain management and planning They spontaneously created special teams to provide instant support, maintenance, and installations to customers.

Support for Staff at HGC Group

Apart from being the first telecom operator in Hong Kong to announce flexible work-from-home arrangements, HGC also introduced other safety measures including regular deep cleanings and sanitations of offices, remote monitoring across impacted offices via home/office IT systems, and delegating more authority to in-country staff to facilitate emergency support. HGC also arranged hotels within walking distance of operation centers to help essential service supporting teams to perform their important duties. They have also offered all staff (around 2,000 people) with four months supply of medical masks. 

Giving Back

HGC has offered meaningful assistance to the community by being the first telecom operator in Hong Kong to distribute free essentials to the public. This includes onsite delivery of masks to elderly citizens living alone and distribution of free refurbished computers to schools and students to support e-learning. HGC has delivered free unified communications and cloud connect services to corporate customers to help with extreme emergencies. 

HGC Global Communications won a Gold Stevie for Product & Service Categories - Business Technology Solutions - Infrastructure as a Service and a Silver Stevie for COVID-19 Response Categories - Most Valuable Corporate Response in the 2020 International Business Awards®. 

Interested in The 2021 International Business Awards®? 

Winners were announced today in the 2020 People’s Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite Companies, a feature of The International Business Awards®, the world’s only international, all-encompassing business awards program which is now in its 17^th year.

The worldwide public vote was conducted the past two months, with the highest number of votes deciding the winners in a variety of industries. More than 43,000 votes were cast. All Stevie Award winners in the Company of the Year categories of this year’s International Business Awards were eligible to be included in voting for the People’s Choice Stevie Awards.

Winners of the crystal People’s Choice Stevie Awards will be honored for their awards at The International Business Awards virtual awards ceremony on Tuesday, 1 December. Tickets for the event are now on sale.

The winners of peer-adjudicated Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Awards will be presented with their awards along with the People’s Choice Stevie Awards. Stevie winners were selected from more than 3,800 nominations received from organizations and individuals in more than 60 nations.

The winners of the 2020 People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Companies are:

-Advertising/Marketing/PR: Purpol Marketing
-Aerospace & Defense: Modest Tree
-Business or Professional Services: CAREERISTS AND TALENTANK
-Computer Services: KoçSistem
-Computer Software: VOMO
-Consumer Products: Makers Nutrition
-Consumer Services: Mayen
-Diversified Services: Backwoods Promotions Inc.
-Energy & Utilities: Dubai Municipality
-Financial Services: Cebuana Lhuillier
-Food & Beverage: Empire Eagle Food Co., Ltd.
-Health Products & Services: flowhub Software GmbH
-Hospitality & Leisure: Kindersley Hospitality Endeavors
-Insurance: USHEALTH Group
-Internet / New Media: SiyonaTech
-Manufacturing: Makers Nutrition
-Materials & Construction: Viettel Construction Joint Stock Corporation
-Media & Entertainment: STREET SCIENCE
-Non-Profit / Government: The Pahang State Foundation
-Other Industries: Makers Nutrition
-Real Estate: Filinvest Alabang, Inc.
-Retail: Georgio’s Bottega
-Transportation: Whale Logistics

The Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, which shine a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations run by women, have announced the 2020 winners today.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business is an international competition produced by the creators of the prestigious International Business Awards® and American Business Awards®. The Stevie is widely regarded as the world’s premier business award.

This year’s Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be honored at a virtual awards ceremony on Wednesday, December 9. More than 400 women and their guests from around the world are expected to attend the presentations.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business event will be complemented by the third annual Women|Future Conference, a two-day networking and learning event for female founders, business owners, entrepreneurs and industry leaders, that also will be staged virtually, this year on November 12-13. Registration is just $99, or $49 for current students with an active student ID.

Details and registration are available at www.WomenFutureConference.com.

More than 1,500 nominations from organizations and individuals around the world were submitted this year for consideration in categories including COVID-19 Response, Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Startup of the Year, among others. More than 180 business professionals working in seven specialized judging committees determined the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners.

Among the many extraordinary organizations and women who have been recognized as Stevie winners, the following organizations stand out as those with four or more winning nominations: 8x8 to Educate (Currumbin, QLD Australia), AlterContacts (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Dee is for Digital (Marbella, Spain), DevelopHer (Dallas, TX USA), DHL Express (worldwide), Families Without Borders (Moraga, CA USA), Helen Zahos, Humanitarian Nurse (Australia), IGNITE Worldwide (Brier, WA USA), Jeunesse Global (Lake Mary, FL USA), John Hancock (Boston, MA USA), Mentor (New York, NY USA), New American Funding (Tustin, CA USA), Purpose DRV’N (Woodbury, MN USA), REMAP Network (Toronto, ON Canada), Saski Collection (Gold Coast, QLD Australia), Spectrum Support Ltd (Southport, Queensland Australia), Tavuun Welfare Association (Lahore, Pakistan), The Financial Literacy Youth Initiative (Cranston, RI USA), Toft Group (San Francisco, CA USA), Wolters Kluwer (multiple cities), and Xandr (Boston, MA USA).

The 2020 Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflect a diverse group of large and small organizations from around the globe. Notable Gold Stevie Award winners in this year’s competition include:

• Julianna Yau, Founder, Ampala Education, Hong Kong - Woman of the Year - Business Services
  
  
• Jacqueline Guichelaar, Senior Vice President and Group Chief Information Officer, Cisco, San Jose, CA USA - Woman of the Year – Technology
  
  
• Katherine Relle, Private Equity Portfolio Manager, JPMorgan Chase & Co., New York, NY USA - Female Employee of the Year – Business
  
  
• Michelle Arscott, Founder and Mentor, The International Life Coach, Nairobi, Kenya – Mentor or Coach of the Year – Health/Wellness
  
  
• Project SMILE, NCR, Philippines – Most Valuable Non-Profit COVID-19 Response
  
  
• EggLife Foods, Chicago, IL USA – Best New Product of the Year – Consumer Products
  
  
• LinkedIn Corp, Sunnyvale, CA USA – Most Valuable COVID-19 Corporate Response
  
  
• Burger King, Miami, FL USA – Communications or PR Campaign of the Year – Food and Beverage

Stevie Award-winning nominations were submitted by organizations in Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam.

Visit http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women for a complete list of Stevie winners by category.

Winners of five Grand (best of show) Stevie Award trophies, and in three HCL Technologies-sponsored categories for women in technology, will be announced the week of October 12.