Shining a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs and organizations run by women, winners in the 2017 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business  were announced on Friday, November 17.

See the full list of winners here.

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 considered to be the world’s premier business award.

With more than 500 businesswomen and their guests in attendance, the awards were announced at a gala dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Nations represented at the event include Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Germany, Iceland, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, U.S.A., and the United Kingdom.

The presentations were broadcast live worldwide.

More than 1,500 nominations from organizations and individuals in 25 nations were submitted to the awards this year for consideration in categories including Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Startup of the Year, among others. More than 170 professionals around the world participated in the judging process to determine the Finalists and then the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements.

Grand Stevie Award trophies were presented to the 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. The Grand Stevie Award winners are:

•         FIS, Jacksonville, FL USA (#1)
•         Pink Elephant, Burlington, ON Canada (#2)
•         Jeunesse Global, Lake Mary, FL USA (#3)
•         Clariti Group, Brisbane, QLD Australia (#4 tie)
•         Accenture, Chicago, IL and New York, NY USA (#4 tie)

Notable Gold Stevie Award winners from this year’s competition include:

• Therese Tucker, Founder & CEO of BlackLine, Woodland Hills, CA USA - Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Services
• Martha Herrera, Corporate Director of Social Responsibility of CEMEX, Mexico City, Mexico - Most Innovative Woman of the Year – Industry
• Chargeback Gurus, McKinney, TX USA - Company of the Year – Business Products – More Than 10 Employees
• Good Food Enterprise Co., Ltd, Taipei, Taiwan - Startup of the Year - Consumer Services Industries 
• Huda Ali Al-Husaini, Head of Training and Studies for Jordan Engineers Association, Amman, Jordan - Employee of the Year - Government or Non-Profit
• Little Medical School, St. Louis, MO, USA – Best New Product or Service of the Year - Consumer Services
• Nissan North America, Franklin, TN USA - Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Marketing - Consumer Products
• Inga Hlín Pálsdóttir, Director of Creative Industries for Promote Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland - Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –11 to 2,500 Employees
• Allison Grafton, President and Partner of Rockwood Custom Homes, Calgary, AB Canada - Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Canada
• Sarah Lance, Founder of Sari Bari Private Limited, Kolkata, India - Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Asia, Australia or New Zealand
• Katlin Smith, CEO of Simple Mills, Chicago, IL USA - Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Products –11 to 2,500 Employees
• Michelle Visco Bauyon, CEO of The Alpha Enterprise, Cabuyao, Laguna, Philippines - Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Products –10 or Less Employees
• Jess Tomlin, President and CEO of The MATCH International Women's Fund, Ottawa, ON Canada - Most Innovative Woman of the Year - Government or Non-Profit

The 2017 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflect a diverse group of large and small organizations from around the globe. Organizations that won more than one Gold Stevie Award include Accenture, BioSafe Technologies, Inc., Clariti Group, Envolve, Inc., FIS, Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, GingerMay PR, Jeunesse Global, Pink Elephant, Sari Bari Private Limited, Science Exchange, and The Author Incubator.

For a complete list of Stevie Award winners and more information, visit http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

Entries for the 2018 edition of the awards will open in May.

With more than 1.2 million titles available on Apple and Android devices, the problem video gamers face today isn’t the lack of choice ‒ it’s having more than they can handle.

Enter ANDi. The one-and-a-half-year-old UK firm that recently launched a “personal mobile gaming assistant” Gameway that helps users find new games based on their preferences and provides a single, convenient platform from which to launch them.

The London-based company says it takes the typical player anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to find a new game. And after all that effort, 72% of the games get deleted after two uses. 

By leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning, ANDi is hoping that its Gameway app will lead to better matches, in a fraction of the time it usually takes to find a game.

“Data is collected from the games our users swipe, install and play,” says Benjamin Woolf, ANDi’s co-founder and CEO. “Machine learning algorithms process the data and display the right games to the right people at the appropriate times.” The company calls the feature “Tinder-For-Games,” a nod to the popular dating app.

Woolf, a graduate of Leeds Business University, says the the software can recommend games in under a minute, and with greater success. When using ANDi, people keep games for 25% longer, on average, than competitors.

An untapped market

The direction the company took was, its founders admit, somewhat accidental.

When Woolf and friend Sam Koch, who has a computer science background, volunteered together at a 2015 TechCrunch convention, they talked about the idea of creating a new mobile game together.

But when they visited the Google Play store to see what was already on the market, they found themselves swimming in a sea of choices. With that amount of selection, zeroing in on a particular type of game was virtually impossible. What people needed, they believed, was a more efficient way to find what they were looking for.

In a matter of just a few months, the pair was able to cultivate a team and put out the first prototype. Woolf says the community user base has grown by more than 15% month-over-month since being released.

Fostering collaboration 

The company’s speed-to-market is the result of a “work hard, play hard” approach. Product development centers on intense two-week “sprints,” in which the team discusses a new feature, designs it and then carries out a test so it can analyze results afterward.

The founders also carve out time for team-building. Employees regularly get together for team lunches where they can air out their concerns. Once a month, staff members will huddle around a video game console and hold friendly competitions.

“All this builds collaboration and fearless positivity, which allows all members individually to want to give their all,” suggests Woolf.

Already, ANDi’s gaming assistant is shaking up the industry, he says. “The larger game studios, publishers and other media sites are concerned how this could equalize the market for the small niche game developers and medium-sized companies who are not able to gain the same face-time due to financial restrictions,” he explains.

Thanks to its innovative solution, the company has recently earned multiple high-level honors. Among them: “Most Innovative Mobile Gaming Application 2017” by Softech and “Best Free Gaming App” at the TMT Global Excellence Awards 2017.

ANDi adds to its trophy case with the Bronze Stevie® Award received for “Startup of the Year - Consumer Products Industries” at this year’s International Business Awards.

“Winning an award as prestigious as the Stevies was a huge inspiration to our team,” says Woolf. “To be recognized by others in the global business community for our hard work is something we very much appreciate.”

The 2017 (14th annual) Stevie® Awards for Women in Business - the world's top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run - will be presented this Friday, November 17 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.  More than 525 nominees and their guests from more than 20 nations will attend for the announcement of the Grand, Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners.

The presentations will be broadcast live, beginning at 7:30 pm ET.

Here are the organizations that as of this writing will be represented at the event on Friday.

ActionCOACH Turkey
air events global
Albert
Allegis Global Solutions
ALOM
Amanda Hamilton Interior Design
AMN Healthcare Services Inc.
Amobee
Anchor Water Damage & Restoration
ARIIX
AT&T
Athene Solutions LLC
Bank Leumi USA
BBC Systems Inc. dba JVZoo
Bendalls Group
Beverly's Birthdays
BioSafe Technologies Inc.
Bishops Services Inc.
Business Tech Ninjas
CableLabs
Cake & Arrow
Care.com HomePay
CEMEX
Central Exchange
Chacka Marketing
Chargeback Gurus
Clariti Group
Coast Professional Inc.
Completely Yours Events
corecubed
Cosmique Global Inc
Cyber Human Capital
Delta Dental
Dignity Health
Dinner A'Fare
District of Columbia / Office of the Chief Technology Officer
Dr Pepper Snapple Group
Dr. Susan Harrison
DT Callis Seafood LLC
Durée & Company Inc.
Dynamic Dialog, Inc.
EHR Concepts
Emprint
engage2learn
Estee Lauder Inc.
Extreme Reach
EY
Fabric Innovations
FedEx Corporation
Fighting Golf
FIS
Flourish Nutritional Medicine
Forcepoint
Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
Full Sun International Co. LTD.
Galileo Research and Strategy Consultancy
GCG
GingerMay PR
Global Listings Limited
Global Upside Inc.
Glotel
Good Food Enterprise Co. Ltd
Goodwin Group PR
HCL
Heal
HealthEquity
Hemsworth Communications
HGS
HM Health Solutions
HR Authority Ministry of Interior Manama Kingdom of Bahrain
iCIMS
ICON plc
IEEE
Impact PR & Communications Ltd.
Improving
InAuth
Inspired Results Inc.
Institute of Women
JBJ Soul Kitchen
JDA Software
Jetlore
Jeunesse Global
JND Legal Administration
Jones Publishing (Citywealth)
Julie Cortes
Kaizen Technology Partners
Kenandy
Kindred BioScience
Kit Out Your Crib
KSJ & Associates
Learning Links Foundation
Lighthouse Worldwide Solutions
Little Medical School
Live Infinitely
Live Marketing
LoveBug Probiotics
Luckie & Company
Madwire®
MapR Technologies
Margaritaville Holdings
Maria Shireen
MarkLogic
Merck & Co. Inc.
NBCUniversal Inc.
New Directions for Women
Northrop Grumman
NRPR Group
Nu Skin Enterprises Inc.
Oncor Electric Delivery
One Purse One Planet
Other World Computing
Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc.
Panasonic
Paradigm Design Group
Pencil9
PeopleScout
Pink Elephant
Plan International Canada
PlanGrid
Pop2Life
Proforma 4D Marketing
Promote Iceland
Publicity Genie
Rahab's Daughters
Randa Habelrih
Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems
REACH, LLC
RealtyMogul
Recipe4Change P/L
Red Hat
ReSound
Romanoff Consultants
RV Rental Connection Inc.
SABIC
SAP
SAP SE
Sari Bari Private Limited
School District of Palm Beach County
Selling Energy
Sharon Merrill Associates
She Prosperity
Shire Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Simpson Healthcare Executives LLC
Socialfly
Songpa-gu
Space Kidz
Spotted Inc.
Staples Inc.
STARLINKS PR and Events
Stewart A Xerox Company
Strategati LLC
Susan Davis International
Swiss Post Solutions
Tavuu Welfare Association
TeamPeople
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited
The Alpha Enterprise
The Freelance Exchange
The Giggling Pig
The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR)
The Juniper Center
The Mane Choice
TIAA
Transitions in Progress LLC
Travelzoo
Triple A Financial Services Pty Ltd
True Value Company
Turner
Turner/CNN Digital
Ultimate Business Propellor
UnitedHealthcare
University of Wisconsin Health
ValueSelling Associates
Verizon
Vistra Energy
WDS Marketing & PR
Widows of Opportunity
Williams Law Group LLC
Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.
Woodcliff Realty Advisors LLC
YouEarnedIt
Ziegler
ZingBox

The 2018 edition of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business will open for entries in May.  Join the mailing list and the 2018 entry kit will be emailed to you as soon as it is available.

Helping leading global companies turn strategy into results takes careful consideration and extensive experience. However, making that process fun, powerful, and lasting, to make an impact on the people and their careers can be one of the most challenging hurdles to overcome. BTS is a global professional services firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden with 500 professionals in 33 offices on six continents, inspiring new ways of thinking, building critical capabilities, and unleashing business success. Jessica Parisi, President & CEO of BTS USA, has been named the winner of a Bronze Stevie Award The 2017 International Business Awards for the Woman of the Year category.

The Industry Gold Standard

As a management consulting company, BTS always strives to focus on working with leaders at all levels to help them make better decisions, convert those decisions to actions, and deliver results. Hannah Reeve, the Associate Marketing Manager at BTS, comments on the recent attention BTS has received due to their history of success.

“BTS has had a record year, with tremendous growth and significant improvements to the bottom-line, and continues to set the industry gold standard in terms of innovative, scalable, impactful client work. This expertise and impact is widely recognized, with BTS USA being named both a 2017 Top 20 Leadership Training Company and a 2017 Top 20 Sales Training Company for the first time ever, and our Changr and Pulse digital tools winning Gold and Silver Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, respectively.”

Some of the services BTS offers include:

• Assessment centers for talent selection and development
• Strategy alignment and execution
• Business acumen, leadership and sales training programs
• On-the-job business simulations and application tools.

They partner with nearly 450 organizations, including over 30 of the world’s 100 largest global corporations. Some of their major clients include: Microsoft, SAP, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Volvo Group, Citigroup, Salesforce, Tencent and Novartis.

The Best Work of Their Lives

BTS winning a Stevie Award has been a symbol of international recognition of Jessica Parisi's powerful influence and positive impact on BTS and their client organizations globally. Hannah Reeve believes it is, “an honor that does nothing but bolster the reputation of both BTS and Jessica in the public eye, and has been incredibly beneficial in getting increased attention to Jessica's achievements as a leader and insightful point of view.”

Jessica Parisi has since been interviewed by magazines such as Entrepreneur..

As a woman CEO in a male-dominated industry, Jessica Parisi has demonstrated remarkable growth, achievement, and passion for her work. Throughout her 18-year career at BTS, Parisi has pioneered turning strategy into action through the use of customized business simulations and other experiential learning techniques for leading Fortune 500 clients.

Jessica also evolved BTS USA from a female to male consultant ratio of 18% to 82% and 44% to 56%. Engaging with every individual throughout the organization on a personal level, Jessica embodies the “Multiplier” leader and sets the direction for the organization as she strives to provide all employees the opportunity to “do the best work of their lives and have fun while doing it.”

No Fear Needed to Disrupt an Industry

The learning and development space is changing tremendously, with increased emphasis on virtual learning formats, digital technology, and equipping people with the skills and mindset needed to lead through transformation.

“Clients across industries are all combating enormous change and shifts in their spaces” says Reeves, “More and more are turning to programs that will help their people learn the leadership skills, innovation capabilities, and strategic agility required to be successful moving forward.”

At their core, BTS believes people learn best by doing. For 30 years, they’ve inspired new ways of thinking, building critical capabilities and unleashing business success.

Jessica Parisi wants people to know that, "it's not scary to do something different and new – it's exciting. BTS has a history of being disruptive, and I want us to continue that. It’s so much more fun when we are the disruptor.”

It is two minutes and fifty-three seconds of simple, but remarkably effective storytelling.

A silver-haired man, dressed in a dark sport coat, walks through the streets of Norman, an unpretentious American town in the heart of Oklahoma. As he slowly meanders down the city streets, he recites a poem in his measured, slightly raspy voice.

The first verse describes a frazzled gentleman who, upon visiting a friend, begins to open up about his latest difficulties. If not for its business slant, like worries over “negative cash flow,” it would be easy to confuse the nuanced lines for those of Robert Frost.

Eventually, the friend he’s come to see changes his fortunes. Now, he has systems “designed with vision and purpose” that provide better insight into his operations. He and his wife start doing more travelling, thanks to generous dividend checks.

Watch McMahon's video here.

So it is that McMahon Marketing helped its client, a local business coach, address one of its biggest challenges: a lot of prospects simply don’t know what these coaches do, or why they need one.

“Small business owners feel isolated and stressed and believe others are thriving while they’re failing,” says CEO Korey McMahon, whose U.S.-based agency produced the video ad. 

McMahon says the spot’s success shows that there’s a viable way to address those challenges. “The message is: Others have done it. You can too, and here’s how.”

The resulting work, entitled “The Owner & The Coach,” earned McMahon’s agency a Gold Stevie Award for best Service Sales Video in The 2017 American Business Awards.

A compelling message

A big part of the ad’s appeal is its stripped-down, authentic vibe. It stars the client himself, Martin Holland, who intones a poem he originally wrote while taking his dog for a walk.

In it, Holland, who works for Las Vegas, America-based ActionCOACH, finds a way to demystify his industry, turning the business owner-coach relationship into a uniquely personal interaction.

“The thing about coaching is people don’t know what it is,” Holland told his hometown newspaper, The Norman Transcript. “Or if they do, they have misbegotten ideas about what it is. We were trying to show before and after of the stresses small business owners go through and how their lives change.” 

McMahon saw Holland’s rhyming verse as the perfect way to get his client’s message across. With a budget of just $1,000, he enlisted a local film director, Cooper Williams, to turn it into an ad.

“We created something that we felt like was top quality, that we were really proud of,” McMahon told the newspaper. “We took a shot, not really expecting to win anything because of the nature of the competition and the quality in the Stevie awards. It was very exciting for our team and all of the hard work that they do.”

Making an impact

Already, the video has been having a big effect. Holland says he recently spoke with two business owners in northeast Oklahoma who are perfect examples. The husband saw the need for a coach to help revitalize the company, but his wife was hesitant.

Upon seeing the video, that immediately changed. “She said, ‘I get it now. I’m all in.’”

The spot is also a huge shot in the arm for McMahon Marketing, a five-year-old inbound marketing agency with a staff of just seven full-time employees. Despite their lean budget, they were proud to win the Gold with several multinational firms with billions of dollars in revenue as their competition.

“It’s so important for not only our credibility, but also the talent we recruit,” says McMahon. “I feel we have the most talented team around, and this is just validation that we are creating nationally recognized videos and marketing services,” he said.

Marc Wileman might be known for making slime and firing rockets before crowds of excited children. But for “Mad” Marc, as his young audience members like to call him, it’s not just about creating a spectacle. The real goal is changing the way school kids feel about science.

Since founding Sublime Science nine years ago, his Leicester-based company has become one of the most popular birthday party and event companies in England, reaching more than a million youths.

The shows are part exhibition—think smoke ring blowers and lightning experiments—and part hands-on laboratory for the kids. Participants may find themselves turning everyday ingredients into a sweet confection or learning about physics through a wild “tornado race.”

According to Wileman, a safety-first mentality in the U.K. has gone a step too far, in many cases keeping younger students from having a more personal encounter with science.

“Children today aren't even allowed to do their own science experiments and wind up thinking science is just theory,” says the entrepreneur, whose firm recently earned the Gold Stevie® Award in The 2017 International Business Awards for Company of the Year in the Consumer Services segment.

Humble beginnings

If anyone can appreciate the importance of an early love for science, it’s Wileman. His passion started when he read the novel George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl in primary school. By age eight, he was performing experiments on his own.

Years later, he went on to study science at the University of Toronto and later at the University of Nottingham in the U.K., where he earned a First Class Master’s Degree in physics. Upon graduation, he found himself working for an Australian education organization, teaching kids all over New South Wales about physics from the back of a pickup truck.

Soon the recent grad, then just 22 years old, was thinking about building a similar program in his native England. However, despite his passion for science and education, he admits being short on business experience—and money.

“I founded Sublime Science on personal credit cards and a £1,750 loan from the Prince's Trust,” he says. “I had to move back to my parents' house and run the entire company, as well as storage and sleeping, out of one room.”

Those challenges aside, it became clear early on that Wileman had a winning formula. “Thankfully, the children loved the experiments and word-of-mouth began to spread,” he recalls.

In time, he obtained the capital his fledgling business needed, thanks in no small part to a pitch on the BBC show, Dragons’ Den. Through the appearance, he garnered an investment from two of the “dragons,” enabling Wileman to take the company to a new level.

A successful formula

Since then, he has put on countless birthday parties and school workshops throughout the U.K. and has grown his staff to eight employees.

“We create unforgettable experiences and sneak in the learning when the children are having too much fun to notice,” he says.

Wileman has even written a book, Don’t Eat Your Slime, that shows kids how to conduct their own experiments at home, like how to make bubbling volcanoes and create a musical instrument.

As a result of his efforts, Sublime Science has amassed a litany of plaudits, including the Queen's Award for Enterprise and a Great British Entrepreneur Award for Best Service Business. The firm even received a congratulatory letter from 10 Downing Street, home of Britain’s prime minister.

In October, the organization added the Gold Stevie Award, presented during a gala in Barcelona, Spain, to that illustrious list.

“It’s been an awesome boost for the team and a great way to spread the word about managing to reach one million kids,” Wileman says.

The Stevie® Awards has issued a call for entries for the 2018 (fifth annual) Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the only business awards program to recognize innovation in business throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region. 

The early-bird entry deadline is November 29. The final entry deadline is February 7, 2017, but late entries will be accepted through March 14 with the payment of a late fee. Complete entry details are available at http://Asia.StevieAwards.com.

The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are open to all organizations in the 22 nations of the Asia-Pacific region: Large and small, for-profit and non-profit, public and private. The awards focus on recognizing innovation in all its forms, wherever it is achieved in the workplace. Entries are accepted in seven languages.

• Annual Report Awards & Other Publication Awards
• Customer Service Awards
• Company/Organization Awards
• Human Resources Awards
• Information Technology Awards
• Management Awards
• Marketing Awards
• New Product Awards
• Corporate Communications, IR, and PR Awards
• Website Awards and Smartphone and Tablet App Awards
  …and more

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

New awards categories introduced for 2018 include Award for Innovative Management in Government, Award for Innovative Management in Non-Profit Organization or NGOs and Award for Innovative Management in Public Enterprises.

Asia-Pacific Stevie Award winners will be announced on April 18. Winners will be celebrated and presented their awards during a gala banquet on June 1 in Hong Kong.

Scores of professionals from throughout the region will participate in the judging process to determine the Stevie winners.

Some of the Asia-Pacific region’s most innovative organizations have won Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards in the past four years including ABS-CBN Corporation, Bangkok Health Research Center, Delta Air Lines, Freelancer.com, GE Indonesia, Globe Telecom, Hong Kong Tourism Board, Huawei, Maras Group, MetLife Asia Ltd., MSLGROUP China, Ooredoo, PT Petrokimia Gresik, Samsung, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Singapore Power, Sony, Telkom Indonesia, Xiaomi, and more.

Integrating clients’ needs with a targeted solution while developing a mutually beneficial partnership can be a challenge. Meet Trowbridge & Trowbridge, LLC (T&T), a Stevie® Award-winning, women-owned and -managed small business headquartered in the Washington D.C. area. Its innovative IT solutions include cloud computing, cybersecurity and unified communications services to the federal civilian, defense and health markets. The company has empowered cloud computing, information assurance and unified communications. That’s why it won the Gold and Silver Stevie Award for Best Support Staffer and Bronze for Best Support Team in the 2017 American Business Awards.

Center-stage talent

Not just another federal integrator, T&T provides agile, leading-edge technology solutions and support for the DoD and Civilian agencies. Tyrone Bachus is the Senior Director of Communications & Quality of T&T, and he’s excited about the spotlight on them and what it means to them.

“The impact was huge to raise the visibility of our quality initiative, which won two awards, and the extraordinary efforts of our Quality Manager who won the gold and silver, and was certainly part of our bronze award.”

T&T has been a longtime winner in the Stevie Awards—they were one of the first teams to win gold for Support Team with RS Information Systems.

It’s never ‘not interesting’

In the realm of government contracting, it's never a dull moment. With the changes in economy, the president and the focus on new agendas, service quality is more important than ever to keep the company on the right course. Bachus comments on what’s important to focus on.

“Quality is baked into the culture of our company, but with rapid growth comes an increasing influx of new staff, so it's imperative that they become part of our culture of quality as quickly as possible.”

They also make sure to encourage team building with quarterly cooking competitions and happy hours.

“If you see coworkers as people and not employees, you'll treat them with more respect and have a little more fun,” Bachus continues. “We also foster a culture of community enrichment and participate in at least one volunteering event as a group each year.”

Vibrant, dynamic and women-owned

T&T is a great example of a women-owned business providing amazing value in their community. Coming from an EDWOSB and growing through strategic hiring of intellectual capital, Bachus tells of the internal thought process that plays a big role in how they decide what needs to be nurtured and what needs to go.

“An exponential growth trajectory has forced us to focus on our staff and their growth and development. Multiple industry awards for culture, growth and Inc. 5000 placements have kept us in the public eye.”

As they continue to try and increase their expectations, communication is key among their staff. This comes in the form of an employee newsletter, monthly CEO and Values posts on their employee portal and quarterly all-hands meetings.

British television viewers may recognize her as the one-time “Muse of Marketing” on Sky News or for her appearances on BBC’s version of The Apprentice. But countless business executives know her in a more personal light – as a trusted advisor who helps refine their marketing strategy and guide their expansion into new markets.

For the past three decades, the art of bridging cultural barriers has been Allyson Stewart-Allen’s passion. As the founder and CEO of International Marketing Partners, she’s helped more than 200 businesses leverage new opportunities in the United States and internationally.

As an American-born California native who has called the United Kingdom her home for nearly 30 years, Stewart-Allen brings first-hand experience to the international business challenges her clients face. “My goal is that, by helping people bridge cultural or organizational divides, they and their organizations are happier and more able to fulfill their purpose,” she says.

In addition to her work as a consultant, Stewart-Allen has also been active as a public speaker and as mentor for the Mayor of London’s International Business Programme. In addition, she co-wrote Working With Americans, a book designed to educate foreigners on America’s business culture.

This year, she’ll don another title – Judging Committee Chair of the Marketing Awards categories in The 2017 International Business Awards. It’s a role where she can draw on her expertise to not only select winning companies, but provide input that other entrants can draw on as the move forward.

“The Stevie Awards are one of the few business competitions that are truly international, providing judges with a great opportunity to compare the achievements of businesses from a global, rather than local, perspective” she says.

An emphasis on ‘localization’

“I have always been fascinated by how businesses operate, particularly in the areas of leadership, sales and marketing,” saysStewart-Allen.

After attending the University of Southern California’s  Marshall School of Business as an undergrad in the early 1980s, she earned her MBA under the tutelage of Peter Drucker, one of the most influential business thinkers of the past half century.

She went on to work for multiple blue-chip advisory firms – PwC, PA Consulting Group and Hay Management Consultants – before establishing International Marketing Partners in 1991. There, she’s surrounded herself with a group of marketing and business development specialists who bring experience in a variety of industries.

Stewart-Allen and her team have counseled dozens of businesses, including the likes of Burberry, HSBC, NBC Universal and SAB Miller. Her firm provides market analysis as well as insights into foreign business cultures that companies can leverage to attain better returns on their marketing investment.

“I am a hands-on CEO, so I define what my clients require and work with the Board and their operational teams to meet the agreed objectives, which could mean running a workshop one day, talking to a CEO about the strategy for international growth, running leadership courses or undertaking market research,” she explains.

An improved understanding of overseas markets helps ensure that clients avoid a one-size-fits-all strategy that may not work in every corner of the globe. “As a result of more local approaches and effectiveness, my clients achieve increased brand loyalty, employee loyalty and stakeholder engagement,” Stewart-Allen notes.

In the age of social media, she says, the stakes are even higher when organizations step outside their comfort zone. “It can bring a company’s mistakes to the consumer’s attention within minutes and thereby detrimentally affect the company’s brand, reputation and ability to bounce back.”

Leading the panel of judges for the marketing awards is another avenue for Stewart-Allen to help companies get it right. “My goal is to help businesses operate profitably in an increasingly global environment, at a time when the future is hard to predict,” she says.

The 14th Annual International Business Awards, the world's top honors for achievement in the workplace, will be presented on Saturday, October 21 at the W Hotel in Barcelona, Spain.  More than 420 executives from organizations in over 30 nations will attend to celebrate the 2017 Grand, Gold, Silver, Bronze and People's Choice Stevie® Award winners.  The event is sold out.

Download a copy of the program book that will be distributed at the event.

Here's a list of the organizations that will be represented in Barcelona.

AHL Park Shopping Center
Albert
Aliseda Inmobiliaria
Anadolu Gayrimenkul
Arkas Holding
Arvato
ASDA'A Burson Marsteller
Australian Innovative Systems Pty Ltd (AIS) Company
Bayer Türk
Bell Helicopter
Bon Choix Couture
Borusan Holding
CallidusCloud
Capgemini
Carbonite  Inc.
Carrefour Icerenkoy Shopping Center
CEFIC
Cisco Systems
Contempo Property Holdings Inc.
CSS Corp
davero dialog GmbH  
Deutsche Telekom Services Europe GmbH
DHL Express  
Diligent Corporation
Dogus Holding A.S.
Dogus Otomotiv Servis ve Ticaret A.S.
Domino's Pizza
DRD Fleet Leasing
Dubai Electricity & Water Authority
Dubai Smart Government Establishment (SDG)
Eff Creative Group
Enerjisa
FEEDBACK FIRST by Huibert Evekink with Steven Becker
Festival Walk
Financial Voyages LLC
FIS Payments
FTI Consulting
Gangnam District Office
Garden of Words
Gebze Centre Shopping Mall
Generali Global Assistance  
Gina Din Group
Güven Varlik Yönetim A.S.
HANAROADCOM
HansaWorld Ltd.
HOMAG Group AG
Hotel Soulhada
Iconic Digital
Ideal H+K Strategies
IDO
IETT General Directorate
IGA Havalimani Isletmesi A.S.
ING Bank
intelliAd Media GmbH
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality
J2 Global  - two orders
KEPCO KDN
KEPCO Nuclear Fuel Company (KNF)
KoRail
Korea Airports Corporation (KAC)
Korea Sports Promotion Foundation Cycle and Motorboat Racing Association
KOSHA
K-water
Lansons
Laservision Mega Media
LLORENTE & CUENCA
M800 Limited
Magnet20
Malatyapark Shopping Centre
Manatee Holdings Ltd.
Manila Electric Company (MERALCO)
Manisa Industrial Park
MATRIXX Software
Medical Electronic Systems
Megazone
MicroHealth  LLC
Ming Yung Enterprise Co. Ltd
mobile.de GmbH
MOL Media
Natal Joint Municipal Pension Funds/KwaZulu Natal Joint Municipal Provident Funds
National Institute of Ecology
NetRefer
NICE
NMC Healthcare
NNG
Noguchi Porter Novelli
Odea Bank A.S.
Ooredoo Group
OPET
Palladium Atasehir Shopping Centre
Palm City Mersin Shopping Center.
PAN AMERICAN ENERGY
PGi
Pontica Solutions
Prime Development
Pronet
Property Exchange Australia Ltd
PSP Pharma Ltd  
PT Bank Ganesha Tbk
PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (Persero) Tbk
PT Petrokimia Gresik
Q5 Partners LLP
RAK SME
RapidValue Solutions
Reklam5 Digital Agency
Resolute Forest Products
Rheinbrucke Consulting
SABC Pension Fund
sahibinden.com
Seoul Institute of the Arts
Seoul Metropolitan Government
Shine Bid Services
SOOHYUN Inc.
Spartan Value Investors
Sports 1 Marketing
Strategic Public Relations Group
Sublime Science
Switching-Time  
Syncron
Tata Consultacy Services (TCS)
Telkom Indonesia
Tezgahçilar
UAE Exchange
Union National Bank
University of Limerick
VakifBank
Vestel
Viettel Group
Visteon Corporation
Vitamin Marketing Services
WardrobeTrendsFashion
Weber Shandwick
WP Engine
Yerra Solutions
Ziehm Imaging GmbH
Ziraat Bank
ZOOM International

Entries for the 2018 edition of the IBAs will open in early February.