The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, has issued the call for entries for its 2018 (15^th annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Entry kits and complete details on the competition are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

The awards are produced by the creators of the prestigious American Business Awards® and International Business Awards®.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor the achievements of working women in more than 90 categories, including Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Mentor or Coach of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award, Achievement in Equal Pay, Women Helping Women, Employee of the Year, Woman-Owned or -Run Company of the Year and Innovator of the Year. All female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run, worldwide, are eligible to be nominated.

The final entry deadline is August 22, but late entries will be accepted through September 28 with payment of a late fee. Finalists will be announced on October 4, and the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie winners will be revealed at a gala awards dinner at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel in New York on November 16, 2018.    

Most categories require the payment of an entry fee for the submission of a nomination, but several categories require no fee, including most of those honoring women in the non-profit and governmental sectors, Female Employee of the Year and the Startup of the Year categories.

Marty Stanley, President of Dynamic Dialog and a 2017 Silver Stevie winner, said of her win: “Winning a Stevie Award is really fabulous because 18 years ago I left the corporate world to start out on my own, and I wanted to start coaching. People would ask me “Can you really make a living doing that?” so receiving the Stevie Award for Executive Coaching and Coach of the Year is testament to my personal success. The Stevie Awards raise the bar for every industry so women can keep making a difference in all organizations.”

Other winners of the 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business included, among others: 

• Amy Tiller, Co-Founder and President of Growth, Inspired Results, Portland OR, USA
• Inga Hlin Palsdottir, Director of Visit Iceland and Creative industries, Promote Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
• Marsha Couch, CFO, Creating Lodging Solutions, Lexington KY, USA
• Kerry Small, Head of Customer Service Operations, Vodafone PLC Group Enterprise, Newbury, United Kingdom
• June Howards, SVP Financial Services and Chief Accounting Officer, Aflac, Columbus, GA USA
• Galileo Research and Strategy Consultancy, New York, NY USA
• Simple Mills, Chicago, IL USA
• Tavuu Welfare Associate, Karachi, Pakistan
• She Prosperity, Auckland, New Zealand
• Sari Bari Private Limited, Kolkata, India
• Microsoft, Redmond, WA USA
• Travelzoo, New York, NY USA

The 2017 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflected a diverse group of large and small organizations around the globe. The 2018 Stevie Awards for Women in Business will be judged by more than 200 leading professionals around the world, and nominees will have access to all of the judges’ comments and suggestions about their nominations: an invaluable resource.

Vision, discipline, and going against the grain are three principles Bonnie Worthington embraced as she set out to establish RV Rental Connection, an online site allowing RV owners to rent their vehicles to prospective vacationers.

The online enterprise based in Chico, California in the United States is a team of three, led by Worthington as founder and CEO, and operates in 30 U.S. states and Canada. The site offers multiple styles of recreational vehicles, from pop-ups, to trailers, and multiple-bedroom motorhomes.

RV owners are able to begin with a free trial to test the success of the rental exchange program before making the decision to sign up for a monthly, no-contract subscription. RV Rental Connection even makes insurance coverage recommendations for renters and rentees with an emphasis on excellent customer service.

Worthington’s creative brand idea culminated with the tagline, “Rent the RV. Own the Experience.” The innovative business model has earned her recognition with The Stevie® Awards for Women in Business in four categories: Startup of the Year and Company of the Year, with 10 employees or less, Female Entrepreneur of the Year, and Maverick of the Year.

Not only was Worthington surprised with the award, but she was also in awe when she realized she would stand next to successful business women from around the world (from companies such as Microsoft and Verizon) at the November 2017 Stevie Awards in New York City.

“Our team has worked very hard this year to provide great value to our RV Rental Listing Members and website visitors who want to rent an RV from a private owner,” Worthington says. “We couldn’t have won these awards without our loyal RV rental owners and dealers who believed in us as a startup and have hung in there with us as we grow and prosper.”

This budding CEO champions the discipline to integrate strategy and to implement it towards achieving goals. Worthington told her local publication ChicoER that she was not afraid to operate a little differently from the rest of the vacation business and online marketplace, positioning RV Rental Connection as a “disruptor to disrupters.” This is what earned her the Maverick of the Year award.

In her lifetime, Worthington has won awards in academics, writing, golf, and competitive horseback riding. She is committed to staying fit and “keeping her mind sharp” with reading, math exercises, and other mind games. She remains dedicated to success, believing if she is driven to achieve, she will.

International restaurant franchise Church’s Chicken® celebrated 65 years in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. this year. Founded in 1952 by George W. Church, Church’s Chicken serves signature small-batch, hand-breaded chicken, honey-butter biscuits and All-American sides. Church’s Chicken, and its international sister company, Texas Chicken, have 1,650 locations in 23 global markets with sales exceeding $1.2 billion annually.

Church’s Partners Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which provides assistance and scholarships to the employees and franchisees of Church’s Chicken, Texas Chicken, their families and their communities.

Laura Reese, Church’s Senior Director of Media, Digital and Public Relations, won The Gold Stevie® Award for Most Innovative Woman of the Year in Franchising in the 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Reese used her specialized expertise from career experience at Nielsen and with private advertising firms to creatively advance the Church’s brand, furthering reach in their communities.

Jennifer Chasteen, Church’s Vice President of Brand Strategy and Activation, won The Stevie Silver Award for Female Executive of the Year for Consumer Products in a business with over 2,500.

When Laura was promoted in 2017, she went through a deep dive of the Church’s brand. She asked herself – who are we? What do we do? What does it mean? And most importantly, why does it matter? Together with her digital agency partners, she examined the archetypes most linked with the brand: Nurturers and Everyman. This lead to a “principles of authentic participation” for the brand’s digital presence, and ultimately resulted in her biggest find – It’s in Church’s DNA to help build communities and people through its food. With the data on her side, she launched a daring new digital campaign, “Church’s Loves Community,” a video/short film campaign which would require the utmost collaborative effort from everyone on her team. Laura brought partners and team members together to strategize a launching plan, designate the platforms to be used, spend, timing, targeting, communication plans, success objectives and measurement.

Fast forward to the present, the Church’s Loves Community series has created four amazingly well-received films – Church’s Loves San Antonio, Church’s Loves Compton, Church’s Loves St. Louis, and the most recent film which debuted in August, Church’s Loves Atlanta. The latest film gained a highly-coveted launch on Nowness.com, a site with five million viewers that serves as the go-to global video channel for screening the best in culture based films. The film boasts a 4.8/5 rating on Nowness, and has gone on to be showcased at the 2017 BronzeLens Film Festival in Atlanta. Millions of views have been garnered, recognition earned on industry trades, and it has reached success on social media channels through short teaser content on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Under Laura’s direction, the Church’s Loves Community series has been connecting consumers everywhere with the essence of the Church’s brand – through their values of progress, unity, hard work and resilience, Church’s continues to bring communities together. Pioneering an innovative new role for a 65-year old brand can be seen as a daunting task, but if the Church’s Loves Community series is any indication of the brand’s future, we can be excited for the changes which are still to come.

“Both women are bringing a level of commitment and dedication to the Church's brand and its values of Stepping Up, Doing the Right Thing, Celebrating Differences, Working Together and Showing We Care,” says Hector Munoz, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Church's Chicken.

Church’s Chicken has made a commitment to honoring female professional business leaders who have impacted the international market for this legacy American restaurant.

The male dominated construction sector isn’t usually known as a place where women enjoy a level playing field with their peers—but when it comes to shaping the industry’s future, females are taking on a key role.

One of these leaders is Jessica Pollack, a head consultant and trainer with the U.S. technology firm PlanGrid. Her mission: getting everyone on the jobsite, from laborers to project managers, to build more efficiently and cost-effectively.

The San Francisco-area-based company she works for has become a force in the industry in recent years, offering a mobile app that’s been used on more than 500,000 projects around the world.

The construction productivity software allows employees to manage blueprints, specs, photos, RFIs and field reports right from their phone or tablet, enabling increased collaboration on the jobsite. To date, it’s been used in more than 70 countries by prominent corporations like DPR, Granite, NVIDIA, Target Corporation and Tutor Perini.

Pollack’s job is to help users discover a new way of managing projects—one that saves valuable time and effort on the ground. Through webinars and on-site learning sessions, she helps make sure her predominantly male audience gets the most of the software.

“I love my job,” Pollack writes on the company’s blog. “I get to meet other construction professionals around the world and introduce them to the magic of PlanGrid.”

PlanGrid is part of an all-too-rare breed in Silicon Valley: a tech company where women are empowered to take on leading roles. The outreach is led by CEO Tracy Young, a female entrepreneur who co-founded the organization in 2011.

Throughout its short history, PlanGrid has put women in a number of key roles, priding itself on a varied workforce in an industry not especially known for its diversity.

Pollack, who’s been part of the team since 2015, has made the most of her opportunities. In recognition of her important teaching role in the construction industry, she recently won the Gold Stevie Award in the 2017Stevie Awards for Women in Business for “Female Employee of the Year” in the Computer Software category.

“It will definitely show women that they can succeed in construction and technology,” Pollack said at the event, held November 17, 2017, in New York City.

Finding her passion

Pollack didn’t see herself landing in either of these industries when she enrolled in Smith College, an all-female liberal arts school in Massachusetts. At the time, she wanted to become an event planner, a career that she thought would make good use of her interpersonal and organizational skills.

That all changed after she took her first architecture course and switched her major to architecture then took an internship with Turner Construction after her junior year. She was offered the chance to work on the new Terminal 2 at San Francisco International Airport. “It was then that I realized I wanted to work in construction,” she says.

At Turner, she was fortunate enough to find a number of female role models, including some in key management spots.

“It has been truly empowering to work as a woman in the construction industry,” she says. “Going from an all-women’s college to a male-dominated construction industry allowed me to become the independent, vocal and determined woman I am today.”

Pollack would later take a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to help build a premier hotel and casino in Macau, China. She insisted, though, that the company use PlanGrid, a software solution she first used at Turner.

“When my time in China ended, I wanted to stop by the PlanGrid office to thank all the wonderful people who helped me succeed,” she recalls. “By the time I visited, I was already interviewing with construction companies around the Bay Area, and PlanGrid asked me if I would be interested in working on their team instead.”

“At first, I was hesitant to switch careers and leave the general contracting world, but it was clear that PlanGrid was a supportive company. It felt like the whole team was family.”

In her role with PlanGrid, Pollack is teaching a new crop of project engineers and tradespeople how to achieve the same efficiencies she realized as a user of the app.

“My knowledge and expertise saves people (and projects) time, money and paper,” she says. “It’s a good feeling.”

Syeda Amna Nasir Jamal knows things could have ended up very differently. Faced with the untimely death of her father, a young Jamal suddenly held the reins of the family textile business in Pakistan. Though she had started to work for him at age 13, it wasn’t exactly a role for which she was prepared.

“After the death of my father, there were difficult challenges in our lives,” Jamal says. “We had plenty of setbacks and disappointments.”

Instead of losing hope, she pushed forward. Jamal would have a hand in virtually every aspect of the business, from marketing to human resources, providing the steadying force it needed.

“I overcame obstacles by being shrewd,” she concedes. In time, she would create her own agricultural and textile trading firm, the Karachi-based SAN Enterprises.

Despite her successes, Jamal wanted to do more. She found herself wanting to help the next generation of Pakistanis in overcoming their own obstacles ‒ be it poverty, a lack of education or gender biases ‒ to achieve success in life.

With that goal in mind, she set up a free school for underprivileged children on the SAN premises. Rather than being a distraction, she says the project had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the business. Jamal contends that it’s been a way to attract the sort of employees she values ‒ those wanting to make a positive change in the world.

“Initiatives for social good are one of the ways that you can show a job candidate what it is like to work at your company,” says Jamal. “Candidates want to know they work for a company whose values are aligned with their own.”

Eventually, Jamal created an NGO called the Tavuun Welfare Association so that she could make an even bigger impact within the city and nationwide. Through Tavuun, she’s helped set up a second school in the high-crime Lyari district of Karachi, which promotes academic achievement and civic engagement among women.

“Pakistani society has traditionally been patriarchal, where a female child is often regarded as an ‘unwanted’ being,” Jamal says. “Due to cultural and religious practices, gender discrimination and socioeconomic disparities are very visible.”

As the organization has developed, it’s taken on numerous other projects as well. Among them: a free clinic where low-income residents can receive medical care and a program that provides blankets and other necessities to disaster victims.

Changing hearts and minds

Alongside her work on the ground, Jamal is hoping to bring broader awareness to these issues in Pakistan. She’s created a policy and research organization that shines a light on the downtrodden in Pakistan and often writes for local news outlets on education, health and gender-related topics.

“Unfortunately, human rights is a concept that is still trivialized in the sub-continent,” she explains. “That’s why the current generation of young people has grown up without developing a sense of collective responsibility for social change.”

Changing those ingrained attitudes is a significant task, to be sure. For inspiration, Jamal says she turns to the ancient proverb: “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

What she has done so far is nothing short of extraordinary. For her tireless efforts, Jamal won Silver for “Female Innovator of the Year” at the Stevie® Awards for Women in Business in November, 2017. Her NGO, Tavuun Welfare Association, earned the Bronze Stevie for “Organization of the Year.”

Jamal says the recognitions will only help bring more attention to the organization and the causes that she’s trying to remedy. She’s also confident it will boost the morale of her staff and help make it easier to recruit and retain workers.

“Confidence begins with faith, self-determination and dedication to success,” she says. “Winning is an amazing feeling because it says that I am capable of bringing something special to the table.”

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.

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.

World’s Top Honors for Women Professionals to Be Presented in New York on November 17

Finalists were announced today in the 14th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, the world’s top honors for women entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are produced by the creators of the prestigious American Business Awards and International Business Awards. The Stevies are widely considered to be the world’s premier business awards.

This year’s Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be announced at an awards dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City on Friday, November 17. More than 500 women and their guests from around the world are expected to attend the presentations, which will be broadcast live on Livestream.

More than 1,500 entries were submitted this year by organizations and individuals around the world for consideration in more than 90 categories including Executive of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Startup of the Year, Women Helping Women and Women-Run Workplace of the Year.

Organizations with multiple finalists in a variety of categories include, among others: ARIIX (Bountiful, UT, US), Clariti Group (Brisbane, Australia), FIS (Jacksonville, FL, US), Forward (New York, NY, US), Jeunesse Global (Lake Mary, FL, US), Oceans 2 Earth Foundation (Brisbane, Australia), Pink Elephant (Burlington, ON, Canada), Simpson Healthcare Executives, LLC (Old Lyme, CT, US), Songpa-gu (Seoul, South Korea), Tavuu Welfare Association (Karachi, Pakistan), The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) (Lawrenceville, NJ, US), Tropic Skincare (London, United Kingdom), Vaco Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA, US) and ZingBox (Mountain View, CA US).

Nominations were submitted by organizations in 25 nations including Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Germany, Iceland, India, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.

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

Finalists were chosen by more than 170 professionals worldwide serving on five specialized judging committees.  Jurors’ average scores will also determine the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the finalists, which will be revealed at the November 17 event in New York.

Jill Liberman, Founder of Choose Happy, LLC, in Boca Raton, Florida, USA,has been named the chair of the jury for the individual Entrepreneur categories of the 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the world's top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run.

The final entry deadline for the awards is September 20.  Complete details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

Jill Liberman is a motivational speaker, former radio talk show host, entrepreneur, and published author. She has more than twenty years of television experience, including reporting for national entertainment news shows such as Entertainment Tonight, E! Entertainment, and Showbiz Today.  She was an active member of the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) and a judge for the nationally televised Cable Ace awards. She hosted the number one rated talk show on WAXY radio and co-hosted the television pilot “Thicke and Jill” with actor Alan Thicke.

American Pride, Jill's first book, was published in 2004 and has been nationally featured on television and radio shows, and in magazines. Jill's story was featured on Lifetime Television as one of the country's most inspirational women. The White House has a copy of her book displayed in the lobby. Choose Happy, her most recent book, has helped inspire people as it spreads the powerful message that happiness is a choice. Jill travels the country as a keynote motivational speaker.

“It is a pleasure to serve as Chair on the Individual/Entrepreneur Awards Judging Committee,” commented Jill. “I am proud to be a part of such a coveted competition and organization that celebrates and recognizes the accomplishments of women in business.”

ElsaMarie D’Silva, Founder & CEO of Red Dot Foundation (Safecity) in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, has been selected to chair the jury for the Company/Organization categories of the 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the world's top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run.

The final entry deadline for the awards is September 20.  Complete details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Women.