The New Product and Service awards categories in The American Business Awards are some of the most competitive. Not only will they be judged by the committee below, many of the categories will also be included in a worldwide public vote for the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products. The categories include all product management, product development, product engineering, manufacturing, etc. functions. New products and services released in the U.S.A. since January 1, 2015 are eligible to be nominated.

The Information Technology awards categories include all information technology, software, and web development,  teams, departments, and professionals.

Today we would like to thank the New Product and Service / IT Awards judging commitee. Their review will determine the Stevie Award winers in these categories.

It's not too late to submit your 2016 American Business Awards nominations. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations -- public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. The 2016 awards honor achievements since the beginning of 2015.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

Meet the judging chair and committee:

Chair:

Derek Gerry, Director, Strategic Accounts
C-4 Analytics, Saugus, Massachusetts, USA

Derek Gerry is Director, Strategic Accounts at C-4 Analytics, a provider of customizable full service digital marketing solutions in Boston. A skilled content and search optimization strategist with a deep appreciation for Saul Bass, Ken Nordine, and the fundamentals of marketing communication, Derek has been part of the team at C-4 Analytics since 2010. In his capacity as Director of Strategic Accounts, Derek has developed and implemented campaigns in the health care, consumer retail, energy, and automotive sectors.

Derek has spent nearly 20 years creating content and marketing campaigns for online audiences, working for some of the United States’ top companies, including Standard & Poor’s, Harcourt Brace, and IAC.

Derek is also an accomplished broadcaster who hosts a weekly news and commentary show in Boston, and he has appeared on several talk stations in the Boston area.

Committee:

Pamela Clark, Founder & Executive Director
New Heights Educational Group, Defiance, Ohio, USA
Pamela Clark is the Founder/Executive Director of the New Heights Educational Group (NHEG). NHEG is an educational 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Defiance, Ohio. Ms. Clark has been assisting families with their educational needs for 12 years. She is married and has two grown married children and one grandchild, all of whom reside in Defiance, Ohio. Throughout the years, the NHEG organization and Ms. Clark have received several business awards and other forms of recognition from the Stevie Awards. Ms. Clark is honored and happy to help judge this year's American Business Awards.

Michael Gale, Partner
Pulsepoint Group, Austin, Texas, USA
Michael is a partner at PulsePoint group. He is a recognized industry expert in integrated technology marketing, having founded Strategic Oxygen in 2001, which is widely seen as one of the technology industry’s primary data toolset for marketers. The company was sold to Forrester Research in 2009. He has worked directly on over 500 global programs and campaigns for major technology brands since 2001. The long-term engagements covered marketing re-structuring architectures, a scorecard, and a marketing audits process (with industry norms), as well as marketing thought leadership initiatives.

Stuart John, CEO
SJ Strategy, Santa Monica, California, USA
Strategic Product Management Leader with experience of launching global products in the mobile industry, extensive team mentoring experience and a software architecture background.

Stephen Lavin, Senior Vice President Corporate Information Technology
Outerwall Inc., Bellevue, Washington USA
Stephen and his teams innovate, develop, and operate performance driven, low cost business products and technology service solutions for the Outerwall family of companies; redbox, Coinstar, and ecoATM. Stephen also drives corprorate technology R&D, strategy, and execution for new adjacencies.

George Lin, Chief Information Officer
CallidusCloud, Dublin, California, USA
George Lin currently serves as the Chief Information Officer of CallidusCloud, the global leader in cloud based sales, marketing, learning and customer experience solutions. Previously, George was CIO of Dolby Laboratories, Advent Software, EMC Software Group, a Division of EMC and Documentum. George is a recipient of three industry awards.

Ajoy Mallik, SVP, Emerging Tech and Innovation at SYNTEL
Follow[the]seed, Saratoga, California, USA
I co-founded Follow[the]seed, a set of funds using data driven technology to invest in consumer and enterprise grade disruptions across Australia, US, Israel, and China. I am also involved in an ambitious project at a mid cap company, setting up a Business Unit in Innovation, to take the company to its next level in growth and prominence.My large cap public company senior executive roles have covered companies from India’s premier brand (TATA), to Cognizant. Each of my public company roles involved being the "map"? between the entrepreneurs and innovators.

Bruce Masterson, CEO & Co-Founder
Respect Care, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA
Bruce has 20 years experience growing multiple start-up and early stage ventures on top of 12 years experience as a senior executive with the Reuters Group, Plc in Chicago, London and New York. Bruce earned an MBA from the University of Chicago, w and a BA in Economics from MSU.

Catherine McQuaid, Consultant
CMassociates, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Catherine Mcquaid is a Big Game Hunter in the Urban Jungle. Her clients are business services firms who want to become suppliers to the Fortune 1000.

Feroz Merchhiya, CTO -Director of Technology
CIGA, California Insurance Guarantee Association, Glendale, California, USA
Mr. Merchhiya is an accomplished award winning technology leader with over eighteen years' experience; He has a strong interest in business and enterprise technology. A practitioner of integrated program and portfolio management approach that looks at infrastructure rationalization road maps aligned to application consolidations, process standardization and efficiency improvement strategies.

Carlos Minetti, President, Consumer Banking
Discover Financial Services, Riverwoods, Illinois, USA
Carlos Minetti is the President of Consumer Banking for Discover Financial Services and has also served as the Chief Risk Officer and EVP, Cardmember Services. Prior to Discover, Mr. Minetti was the SVP of Card Operations for American Express. An engineering graduate of Texas A&M and Booth School of Business.

Judy Mod, Founder, CEO, Chief Adoption Officer
RevenueSphere, LLC., Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Today, as the Founder, CEO and Chief Adoption Officer of RevenueSphere and Social Gastronomy (for-profit) and the Founder and President of the Social Executive Council and futurewired (non-profit), Judy is helping senior executives understand and address the new complexities this is creating and the foundational changes that are needed to bridge the widening gap between the innovation and the adoption. Judy has 30+ years of experience in driving top line revenue in multiple areas (CEO, sales, business development, channel, strategic alliances, marketing, consulting).

Rajesh Mudiakal, Senior Consultant
Ernst & Young India, New Delhi, India
Rajesh Kumar Mudiakal is a Senior Consultant in IT Advisory with Ernst & Young, India. He has an overall Experience of 19 years in areas like IT, Manufacturing and Project Management. He has completed M.S in Mechanical Engineering from University of Bristol in UK and an Executive Certification in Strategy Consulting (Driving Strategic Impact) from Columbia Business School, US and was a commonwealth Scholar. He has expertise in the areas of Project Management, Program Management, Strategy Consulting, Risk Management, Agile project Management and SAP Consulting.

Govindraj Muthyaly, CEO
Cashpundit Inc., Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Govindraj is a CPA and has more than 25 years of finance, accounting, and IT experience. He has worked as a controller and a CFO of many multi-million dollar companies. He is the CEO of Cashpundit Inc., a startup that he founded to help businesses manage their cash flows.

Paul Patton, Senior Manager, R & D and Regulatory
Delta Faucet Co., Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
As a voice of the customer, he ensures products brought to market offer relevant innovations for end-users. Products developed under his guidance have received prominent industry awards including ADEX and Stevie Awards. He also actively interacts and works to influence legislation for federal, state and 40,000+ local jurisdictions.

Ken Phelan, CTO
Gotham Technology Group, New York, New York, USA
Ken Phelan is a founding partner and Chief Technology Officer of Gotham Technology Group. Founded in 2001, Gotham has grown to 87 million dollars in annual revenue, and serves many of the world’s largest organizations with integrated solutions in virtualization and security. Ken's blog can be found at: http://blog.gothamtg.com/author/kenphelan/.

John Sidell, Managing Principal
SCApath LLC, University Place, Washington USA
John Sidell is an award winning entrepreneur and Supply Chain technology pioneer. Since the late 80's he's be a leader in the application software and Management Consulting market. He has build and sold multiple companies over the last 15 years and is a recognize speaker for conferences and industry events.

Wayne Sleight, COO
97th Floor, Lehi, Utah, USA
Wayne Sleight is the COO of 97th Floor, an award-winning, full-service digital marketing agency with locations in Utah and California. He has been a featured speaker at marketing conferences in North America and Europe. In 2015, Utah Business Magazine recognized Sleight as a '20 in their 20s' business leader.

Milo Sprague, Chief Technology Officer
Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, USA

Shoab Syed, Systems Support Management
SJS Solutions, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Rajani Veeramacha, President
E Center, Inc., Newtown, Pennsylvania, USA

Daryl Wieland, Risk Management Practice Lead
IT Cadre, Ashburn, Virginia, USA
Daryl Wieland is IT Cadre’s Customer Financial and Risk Management Practice Lead where he provides trustworthy insights by helping organizations move their risk exposure within their risk appetite.

Kirsten Wilkinson, EDI Analyst
AmerisourceBergen, Frisco, Texas, USA
I have been honored to have had a successful career in Customer Service Management and IT in the consumer goods manufacturing industry. I have recently entered the pharmaceuticals industry which I have found to be very challenging and exciting. I am happily married and we have a seven year old son.

New Product and Service categories include:

Products & Services

P01. Business-to-Business Products
P02. Business-to-Business Services      
P03. Consumer Electronics
P04. Consumer Products
P05. Consumer Services
P06. Financial Services
P07. Hardware - Computer
P08. Hardware - Networking
...and many more. See all of them here.

Software

P30. Software - Asset Management Solution
P31. Software - Big Data Solution
P32. Software - Business or Competitive Intelligence Solution
P33. Software - Cloud Application/Service
P34. Software - Cloud Infrastructure
P35. Software - Cloud Platform
P36. Software - Cloud Storage & Backup Solution
P37. Software - Collaboration/Social Networking Solution
P38. Software - Content Management Solution
P39. Software - Corporate Learning/Workforce Development Solution
P40. Software - Electronic Commerce Solution
P41. Software - Financial Management Solution
...and many more. See all of them here.

Content
These categories recognize products, technology and services created by, or for, Media, Publishers and Information Services Providers.

P65. Content - Advertising or Campaign Management Platform
P66. Content - Aggregation Platform
P67. Content - Business Directory
P68. Content - Business Information Solution
P69. Content - Content Analytics Solution
P70. Content - Content Marketing Solution
P71. Content - Content Rights and Delivery Solution
P72. Content - Crowd Sourced Information Solution
P73. Content - eCommerce & Billing Platform
P74. Content - Financial & Market Data Information Solution
...and many more. See all of them here.

Education
These categories recognize applications, products and services from developers of educational software, digital content, online learning services, and related technologies across the K-20 sector.

S01. Education - Arts & Creativity Solution
S02. Education - Career and Workforce Readiness Solution
S03. Education - Classroom Management Solution
S04. Education - Collaborative Social Media Solution for Educators
S05. Education - Cross-Curricular Solution
S06. Education - Education Cloud-based Solution
S07. Education - ELL/World Language Acquisition Instructional Solution
S08. Education - Game-based Curriculum Solution
...and many more. See all of them here.

Information Technology categories include:

N01. Information Technology Department of the Year

N02. Information Technology Team of the Year

N03. Information Technology Executive of the Year

N04. Technical Professional of the Year: for non-executive technical professionals including software developers, web developers, technical writers, etc.  There is no entry fee for this category