Newest Stevie Awards Program to Recognize the Best in Business in 22 APAC Nations

The Stevie® Awards today issued a call for entries for the 2014 (first annual) Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the first business awards program to recognize achievement in business throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region.  Information about the program is available online at http://Asia.StevieAwards.com in seven languages, including Chinese, English, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay and Thai.

The Stevie Awards are widely considered to be the world’s premier business awards programs, conferring recognition for achievement in the workplace in programs such as The International Business Awards, The American Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and the Stevie Awards for Women in Business.  The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are the first new Stevie Awards program to be created in seven years.

The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are open to all organizations in the 22 nations of the Asia-Pacific region:

Australia
Brunei
Burma
Cambodia
China (PRC, including Hong Kong)
East Timor
Fiji
Indonesia
Japan
Laos
Malaysia
Mongolia
New Zealand
Philippines
Republic of China (Taiwan)
Samoa
Singapore
Solomon Islands
South Korea
Thailand
Tonga
Vietnam

Entries will be accepted and judged, in all seven languages featured on the web site, in the following 18 categories:

• Technology Company of the Year
• Manufacturing Company of the Year
• Services Company of the Year
• Government or NGO Organization of the Year
• Fastest-Growing Company of the Year
• Exporter of the Year
• Management Team of the Year
• Customer Service Leader of the Year
• Technology Executive of the Year
• Manufacturing Executive of the Year
• Services Executive of the Year
• Government or NGO Executive of the Year
• Woman of the Year
• New Technology Product of the Year
• New Consumer Product of the Year
• New Consumer Service of the Year
• New Business Product of the Year
• New Business Service of the Year

The early-bird entry deadline for the 2014 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, offering discounted entry fees, is 6 November. The final entry deadline is 4 December. Late entries will be accepted through 21 January, and Stevie Award winners will be announced in mid-February. 
 

Judging for the competition will be conducted in two rounds.  The first round of judging will determine Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners on a national level in each category.  Those winners will be announced in mid-February.  All of the Gold Stevie Award winners will then compete in the second round of judging for the right to be named the Grand Stevie Award winner in their categories for the entire Asia-Pacific region.  Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie winners will be honored, and Grand Stevie Award winners announced, at a gala awards banquet in the region in late March.

Judging committees for the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are currently being formed.  Those interested in participating in the judging process are encouraged to apply now. Stevie Awards competitions typically feature more than 200 executives around the world as judges.

The Stevie Award trophies, made by the company that makes the Oscar and other major international awards, are among the world's most coveted prizes.

To learn more details about the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, visit our Frequently Asked Questions webpage.

 About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in five programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. 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 www.StevieAwards.com, and follow the Stevie Awards on Twitter @TheStevieAwards.

The Receivables Exchange of New Orleans, Louisiana USA won a Stevie Award for Management Team of the Year in the management awards categories of The 2011 American Business Awards. The ABAs are open to all organizations in the U.S.A.  The 2012 edition opens for entries in October.

The Receivables Exchange, founded in 2007 by Nicolas (Nic) Perkin and Justin Brownhill, allows businesses to sell their receivables to a global network of institutional investors and access working capital in as little as three days. With remittance terms now as much as 180 days, The Receivables Exchange is a welcome financial tool for small and mid-sized businesses, particularly in the current economic climate.

Working in the Dark

Although the concept for The Receivables Exchange seemed straightforward, there was no blueprint for making the Exchange work. The closest model, the New York Stock Exchange, had nearly 200 years to get everything right. Even building a team was difficult, since Justin Brownhill and Nic Perkin needed to find specific talent for a business model that didn’t exist.

According to its two founders, building the company was like walking through a dark, windowless room: they had no reference points, and could not see the walls. There were moments when it seemed that the Exchange would not come to fruition, but Justin and Nic persevered.

Nic’s idea for The Receivables Exchange was to provide growing companies with business financing. His experience in starting and growing companies led him to conceptualize new and faster means of getting working capital. Where Nic envisioned the idea of modernizing accounts receivable, Justin conceptualized the market model: standardization, transparency, centralization, and competition. Justin drew from his years of experience in exchange strategy and trading technology to structure a marketplace where accounts receivable could be funded and traded like other assets on an electronic platform.

A Competitive Marketplace

The result is a real-time, online, competitive marketplace for accounts receivable that gives companies the ability to generate cash quickly and as competitively as possible.  The normal turn on a transaction is approximately 1 day at a 1 percent cost of capital.

“The ‘Management Team of the Year’ award is a testament to the ongoing commitment, innovation, and hard work of our entire Receivables Exchange team,” said Justin and Nic. “Recognition from the nation’s premier business awards program affirms the tremendous value our employees are contributing to make The Receivables Exchange the truly innovative working capital marketplace it has become.”

A Challenge to the Old Guard

Because the Exchange was pioneering a working capital solution for small and
medium-sized businesses, the old guard saw them as a threat. Some of the factoring industry associations blackballed The Receivables Exchange from working with many of its members, whom the Exchange had counted on to be among their clients.

Needing the half of the equation that would buy receivables, Justin and Nic found an entirely new and unconventional set of institutional buyers. Because these buyers had never purchased receivables before, the Exchange needed to take the extra step of educating them on the value of receivables and how it would benefit them.

Explosive Growth

Since the early days of struggle, the Exchange has grown its business to now
have the best of Wall Street investors. Fortune 100 companies were so impressed with The Receivables Exchange that they the requested that the Exchange set up the Commercial Receivables Paper Market for their receivables. Although these larger cash-rich companies have access to other means of liquidity, they came to the Exchange as they recognized the value in an online receivables marketplace with a diverse pool of investors.

Participation by these corporations is validation that the Exchange is changing the landscape of business financing, and it has quickly become a mainstream cash management tool for companies of all sizes.

The Receivables Exchange saw 466% growth in 2010. This nearly five-fold rise indicates that businesses are embracing the Exchange’s online marketplace as a method of managing cash flow and are taking advantage of this unique opportunity.  Quite an accomplishment for a market built from scratch only a few years ago.

The Receivables Exchange LLC is a subsidiary of the New Orleans Exchange (NOE).

About the Co-Founders

CEO & co-founder Justin Brownhill’s entrepreneurial spirit was instilled at a young age at his father’s knee. On Wall Street, Justin was one of the youngest, most successful bankers at Salomon Brothers, UBS, and DLJ, where he worked on over $100 billion in M&A transactions and some of the industry’s largest underwritings.

Brownhill earned a Bachelor of Commerce with distinction from the Faculty of
Management at the University of Calgary, Canada. In 1994 he helped start Minds Matter, a NYC-based volunteer organization, which helps disadvantaged inner-city high school students prepare and get selected for higher education
opportunities.

At the age of 15, president & co-founder Nic Perkin cleared $500 per week walking dogs. He bought stocks with the money to help to pay for college and went on to receive a Master of Science in Finance from the London Business School and a Bachelor of Arts from Tulane University. 

As head of Global Business Development of Massive, Inc., a provider of software and services, he spearheaded the company’s North American strategic initiatives to host advertisements within video games. In 2010, Nic was nominated to serve as the Vice Chairman of the Louisiana Innovation Council, which was ratified unanimously by the Louisiana State Legislature and approved by Governor Bobby Jindal.

About The Receivables Exchange

The Receivables Exchange is a first-to-market, real-time, online marketplace for working capital financing that provides a game-changing solution for both small and large U.S. companies. The Exchange connects a global network of accredited Buyers to businesses (Sellers) in search of flexible, affordable, and continuous access to working capital. Buyers get direct access to a $17 trillion new investable asset that comprises the largest asset class in the U.S. credit markets. Sellers gain prompt and highly cost-effective access to the capital they need, without onerous constraints.

This week we've been recognizing the contributions of the more than 200 professionals worldwide who participated in the judging process for The 8th Annual International Business Awards, the world's premier business awards program, and today we acknowledge the participation of those on the Management Awards judging committee, which included

Allyson Stewart Allen, Director, International Marketing Partners, London, United Kingdom
Esther Oh, Deputy Director, Commercial Services, CITIC Pacific Mining Management Pty Ltd, South Perth, WA Australia
Valerie Ondes, CFO, High Frequency Economics, Valhalla, NY USA
Janine Popick, CEO & Founder, VerticalResponse, San Francisco, CA USA
Jacqueline Teo, General Manager, Programme Management Office, FOXTEL, Putney, Australia
Han Tjan, VP-Corporate Communications, Daimler, New York, NY USA

The committee was chaired and formed by Yvonne Howie, CEO, The CEO Institute, Neutral Bay, NSW Australia.

The average scores of the members of this committee determined the 2011 Stevie Award winners in categories such as Management Team of the Year, Executive of the Year, and Chairman of the Year.  The full list of honorees in these categories is online, but some notable Stevie Award winners this year include:

• The management team at iolo technologies, Los Angeles, CA USA
• Fujio Cho, Chairman, Toyota Motor Corporation, Aichi, Japan
• Catherine A. Lesjak, Chief Financial Officer and Executive VP, Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA USA
• Mukesh D Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited, Mumbai, India
• Jose Ignacio Sanchez Galán, CEO, Iberdrola SA, Bilbao, Spain
• Mugheer Al Khaili, Director General, Abu Dhabi Education Council, Abu Dhabi, UAE

The awards will be presented at the 2011 IBA awards presentations in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, 11 October. Tickets are now on sale.

What do you think of the list of honorees in the management categories this year?