Shining a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations run by women, winners in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business were announced on Friday, November 11.

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 nominated professional women and their guests in attendance, the awards were announced during a gala event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 2022 competition attracted nominations from 27 nations.

The presentations were broadcast live via Livestream.

More than 1,500 nominations from organizations and individuals around the world 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 200 business professionals working in seven specialized judging committees determined the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners.

Grand Stevie Award trophies were presented to five organizations that submitted the best body of entries to the competition, in their own names or in the names of one or more clients. Winners were determined by the number of Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Awards won in the competition. The Grand Stevie Award winners are:

• The Audacious Agency, Coombabah, QLD, Australia (#1)
• IBM, Armonk, NY, U.S.A. (#2)
• Megaphone, Melbourne, Australia (#3)
• Melissa Sones Consulting, New York, NY U.S.A. (#4)
• Global Press Institute, Washington D.C., U.S.A. (#5)

The 2022 Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflect a diverse group of large and small organizations from around the globe. Notable Gold Stevie Award winners in this year’s competition include:

• Sandrine Pons, Regional Vice President, Head of Solutions Sales & Innovation, SAP, Paris, France, for Women Helping Women – Business
• Ann Kaplan, Las Vegas, NV U.S.A, for Woman of the Year - Accounting and Finance
• Susan McLaughlin, Senior Innovative Media and Creative Operations Manager, Vanguard, Malvern, PA U.S.A, for Woman of the Year - Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations
• Fatima Sultan Al-Kuwari, Group Chief Human Resources Officer), Ooredoo, Qatar, for Female Executive of the Year – Business Products –More Than 2,500 Employees
• Shama Hyder, CEO and Founder, Zen Media, Plano, TX U.S.A., for Most Innovative Woman of the Year - Social Media
• Stephanie Wernick Barker, President, Mondo, New York, NY U.S.A, for Female Thought Leader of the Year - Business Services
• Gehad Hamdy, Founder, Speak Up, Giza, Egypt, for Social Change Maker of the Year - Gender
• Michelle John, Founding Director, PEGS, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, United Kingdom, for Woman of the Year - Government or Non-Profit
• Kelley Higney, Founder & CEO, Bug Bite Thing, Port Lucie, FL U.S.A, for Best Female Entrepreneur – Consumer Products –11 to 2,500 Employees
• Allison Grafton, President and Founder, Rockwood Custom Homes, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, for Best Female Entrepreneur in Canada

Organizations that won more than one Gold Stevie Award include Anheuser-Busch InBev, Babylist, Brandless, Bug Bite Thing, Caroline Kennedy Group, Everise, Flock DC, Global Press Institute, Halkbank, Harman International, LickYourPhone Media, Luma Brighter Learning, Megaphone, Primrose Schools, Rockwood Custom Homes, Rubi Laboratories, Sidus Space, and The Tambellini Group.

HCLTech, the global technology company delivering industry-leading capabilities centered around digital, engineering and cloud, powered by a broad portfolio of technology services and products, sponsored awards in four categories called HCLTech Women in Technology Awards. Among notable Stevie winners in those categories are:

• Monica Williams, Senior Vice President - Digital Products and Content Distribution, NBCUniversal, for New Normal Digital Transformer
• Karen Oerter, Director of Information Technology, Land O’Lakes, for New Normal Digital Transformer
• Abby Knowles, Vice President Global Technology Solutions, Verizon, for Leading Through Uncertainty
• Susan Doniz, CIO & SVP of Information Technology & Data Analytics, The Boeing Company, for Leading Through Uncertainty
• Tia Ballard, Head of Cloud and Automation, Sempra, for Leadership in Next Gen Technology
• Constance Metcalfe, Associate Vice President – Enterprise Infrastructure Transformation, Canadian Tire Corporation, for Excellence in Transforming Business

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

The Stevie Awards staged the fifth edition of its Women|Future Conference virtually on November 8-10 in conjunction with the Stevie Awards for Women in Business. More than 250 women shared three days of programming highlighted by a keynote presentation by Rashmi Verma, head of D&I at Hugo Boss.

Entries for the 2023 (20th) edition of the awards will open in May. The 2023 awards ceremony will be held at the Marriott Marquis in New York, NY USA in November.

This Friday, November 11 we'll stage the 19th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada USA.  This is the second time (first in 2007) that we'll stage the world's top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run in Sin City, and the first live awards event for this program since 2019.

Finalists were announced in August.  All Finalists know that they'll win Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award status, but the placements among the Finalists won't be revealed until Friday evening's event, which will be broadcast live.

We're expecting more than 270 nominees and their guests from around the world to attend.  Here are the organizations who've already booked their place (as of November 7).

Ackerberg, Minneapolis MN USA
Amazon Web Services, Annapolis, MD USA
Ann Kaplan, Las Vegas, NV USA
Antoinette Oglethorpe Ltd, Cranfield, Bedfordshire United Kingdom
Anthill, Chicago, IL USA
Arrow Digital, Australia
ASCIRA Global, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Aspire, Phoenix, AZ USA
Autism Mates, Australia
AvantGarde, LLC, Round Rock, TX USA
BabyQuip, Santa Fe, NM USA
BH Compliance LLC, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
Big Deal Media, Barrington, IL USA
Blue Bean Media, Australia
BlueSky Personnel Solutions, Mississauga, ON Canada
BOBA CHiC, Taichung, Taiwan
Borusan Otomotiv İthalat ve Dağıtım A.Ş, Istanbul, Turkey
Brand and Buzz Marketing, Boston, MA USA
Brandless, Lindon, UT USA
C. Light Technologies, Boston, MA USA
Carestream NDT, Oakdale, MN USA
Cognizant Technology Solutions, Teaneck, NJ USA
Designs by Nature Gems, Toronto, ON Canada
Dharana Digital, Surry Hills, NSW Australia
DHL Global Forwarding, Freight, Bonn, Germany
Digital Air Strike, Scottsdale, AZ USA
Domo Inc., American Fork, UT USA
EHR Concepts, Villa Rica, GA USA
Endurance Financial, Melbourne, VIC Australia
Equus Workforce Solutions, Louisville, KY
FD Global Connections, Sydney, Australia
Forcepoint Customer Success Organization, Austin, TX USA
Franchise Fame, London, United Kingdom
GAF Energy, San Jose, CA USA
Gillian Jean Creative LLC, Los Angeles, CA USA
Global Press Institute, Washington, DC USA
Help at Home, Chicago, IL USA
Honey Digital, Australia
How Many Elephants, Alresford, Hampshire United Kingdom
HRSI and HRCI Company, Alexandria, VA USA
HZ, a division of BCW, LLC, Rockville, MD USA
IBM, Armonk, NY USA
IMA Financial Group, Denver, CO USA
Interim HealthCare Inc., Seattle, WA USA
Jacobs, Greenwood Village, CO USA
Jane, Lehi, UT USA
Karen Mangia, Williamstown, NJ USA
Lafonn LLC, Cypress, CA USA
Luma Brighter Learning, Mount Pleasant, SC USA
mindit.io, Bucharest, Romania
Mintlist, Vancouver, BC Canada
MSP Photography Pty Ltd, Wagga Wagga, NSW Australia
Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures, Washington, DC USA
Nurch PTY LTD, Chermside Brisbane, VIC Australia
Office of the Chicago City Treasurer, Chicago, IL USA
Online Courses Australia, Brisbane, QLD Australia
Partnership for Inclusion Leadership, Arlington, VA USA
PBG Consulting, LLC, McLean, VA USA
PlayWise Partners + ToyMonster, Los Angeles, CA USA
Population, San Francisco, CA USA
Psychnexus, Australia
Pyx Health, Tucson, AZ USA
Radicle Science, San Diego, CA USA
ResultsCX, Fort Lauderdale, FL USA
Rock Paper Coin, Portland, OR USA
SAP, Palo Alto, CA USA
Seahorse Diamond Beach, Australia
Sēd, San Diego, CA and New York, NY USA
Sidus Space, Cape Canaveral, FL USA
Silicon Valley Innovations, Sunnyvale, CA USA
Sleepm Global, Inc., Toronto, ON Canada
Stacey Ashley Consulting, Australia
STEM PUNKS, Australia
Stress Free Super Mums, Australia
Teneral Cellars, Somerset, CA USA
The Alpha Enterprise, Cabuyao, Laguna Philippines
The Audacious Agency, Australia, Sunshine Coast, QLD Australia
The Flora May Foundation, San Clemente, CA USA
The Ginger Companies, Miami, FL USA
The HR Chique Group, Jacksonville, FL USA
The Makeup Artist Guild Asia Pacific & Beauty Boss Business, Sydney, NSW Australia
The Tambellini Group, LLC, Irvington, VA USA
This Girl Walks Into a Bar, LLC, Los Angeles, CA
TLN Worldwide Enterprises, Inc. DBA: The Leading Niche, Washington, DC USA
TOP Minds, Bucharest, Romania
Top Score Writing, Palm Beach Gardens, FL USA
Trust Relations, Williams, AZ USA
USAFacts, Bellevue, WA USA
Vaco Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA
Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement (VIDA), Mercedes, TX USA
Vanguard, Malvern, PA USA
Washington Capital Partners, Falls Church, VA USA
XSOLIS, Nashville, TN USA

Entries for the 2023 edition of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business will open in May.  Get your entry kit for the 2023 awards.

Finalists were announced today in the 19th 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®, among other business awards programs. The Stevies are widely considered to be the world’s premier honors for achievement in the workplace.

This year’s Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists will be revealed during an awards banquet at Caesar’s Palace Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on Friday, November 11. More than 500 women and their guests from around the world are expected to attend the presentations, which will be broadcast via Livestream.

More than 1,500 nominations were submitted this year by organizations and individuals for consideration in more than 100 categories including Executive of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Startup of the Year, Women Helping Women, and Women-Run Workplace of the Year. Nominations were submitted by organizations in 27 nations including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Kuwait, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Among the many extraordinary organizations and women who have been recognized as Finalists, the following stand out as those with four or more Finalist nominations:

Advancing Women in Tech (Seattle, WA USA); Autism Mates (Sydney, Australia); Brandless (Lindon, UT USA); Caroline Kennedy Group (Melbourne, Australia); Consolidated Edison Company of NY, Inc. (New York, NY USA); C-Strategies (Chicago, IL USA); Everise (Plantation, FL USA); Hatch Inc. (Palo Alto, CA USA); Global Press Institute (Washington DC, USA); Harman International (Stamford, CT USA); Inspiring Vacations (Melbourne, Australia); IBM (Armonk, NY USA); Megaphone (Melbourne, Australia); Tavuun Welfare Association (Lahore, Pakistan); Sweet Peanuts (Queensland, Australia); The Tambellini Group, LLC (Irvington, VA USA); and Vanguard (Malvern, PA USA).

Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 200 professionals around the world, organized in seven juries. Their scores will also determine the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie placements from among the Finalists, to be announced on November 11.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business event will be complemented by the fifth edition of the Women|Future Conference, to be held virtually on November 8-10. The conference is for women professionals looking to gain unique perspectives from industry leaders, build resilience, network, and prepare for change. The conference addresses the most pressing business issues of tomorrow, from trends in social media marketing and workplace DEI to the next generation of technology, overcoming adversity, and the future of work. Conference registration is just $99 ($39 for students) and is available at http://www.WomenFutureConference.com.

In 2020, Stevie Award-winner Rona Jobe founded LVL-Up Strategies, a minority- and woman-owned small business based in Arlington, Virginia. She now serves as the CEO, working to propel small businesses to grow their potential by offering clients strategic advisement, operations design and implementation, marketing plans and execution, and business development guidance.

Jobe’s vision for LVL-Up Strategies is to help small businesses break the generic mold of how to grow their business. Instead of following a pattern from another business or figuring it out as the business grows, Jobe works to analyze each of her client's goals and current structure to define long-term strategies and customized next steps for success.

In addition, Jobe has a passion for supporting the careers of military and Department of State spouses. LVL-Up only employs military and Department of State spouses, so that they have the opportunity to grow their careers in an often unpredictable and stagnant work environment. This symbiotic connection of talented and driven individuals is critical to the company’s success.

LVL-Up Strategies already embraced a fully remote workforce prior to the pandemic. They have continued this success by creating and implementing a remote onboarding and training program for incoming staff, which has led to growth in staff, revenue, and client base in just one year.

Since earning the Bronze Stevie Award for Most Innovative Woman of the Year - Business Services, LVL-Up Strategies has developed the LVL-Up Five Step Process for working with small businesses; the LVL-Up CEO Entrepreneur Roadmap, which guides individuals from “solopreneurs” to full-time CEOs; and the LVL-Up Remote Staff Onboarding Process. These tools have been the foundation to developing customized client tools and programs, and have ultimately led to further growth for the young company.

Rona Jobe won Bronze Stevie Award for Most Innovative Woman of the Year - Business Services.

Interested in submitting a nomination for the 2022 (19th Annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

Stevie Award-winner Jenni Steele is the Vice President of Marketing at Niagara Corp., a manufacturer of water conservation products and the leader in high-performance, water-saving toilets. Niagara has revolutionized the utility industry with a reputation as the premier resource for conservation. In three years, Jenni has restructured her team efficiently in order to launch several product lines and automate marketing activities while strengthening client services and events. Jenni is dedicated to Niagara’s conservation mission and is valued by her team for her guidance. As climate change and record droughts present a strain on the water supply, it is more essential than ever to bring solutions and messaging to the marketplace.

In order to carry out Niagara’s goals, the team launched a new suite of products with the intention of making powerful water-efficient technology and products that are available to residential and commercial facilities to save the world’s water and the owner’s money through utility bills. These new products were also designed specifically with features and benefits for builders, remodelers, and plumbing professionals. Jenni listened closely to these building professionals who install, repair and specify toilets to learn what details are important to them when installing. 

Additionally, Jenni spent more than a year teamed up with executive leadership to help build a new wholesale program. Their goal was to launch the product lineup filled with the features that pros want and to sell them exclusively to the wholesale channel. Through Niagara’s new program, the company is committed to providing attractive products and services to wholesale distributors, plumbers, and trade partners in the industry.

Since earning her Stevie Award for Female Executive of the Year – Consumer Products, Jenni has been able to restructure the marketing department, successfully launched several new product lines, enhanced overall client services, modernized digital integration, and automated marketing activities, all while also strengthening Niagara’s event marketing and online retailing. She also helped Niagara earn a national water conservation award from the EPA.

In addition, Jenni played a lead role in spearheading the launch of over 100 new toilet SKUs across four product suites. The line of new products was designed to help wholesalers serve the needs of their plumbing professional clients by offering fixtures with advanced technology and high performance for those looking for a wide variety of water-efficient products. She also created a campaign strategy that included virtual media meetings with Niagara’s executive team. Over the twelve meetings that were held, Steele and Niagara’s leadership demonstrated and shared critical aspects of Niagara’s four new full product lines, designed specifically with features for building, remodeling, and plumbing professionals. The campaign resulted in more than 53 million impressions to an audience of builders, contractors, plumbers, and facility managers. Jenni continues to be an invaluable resource to her team and Niagara as a whole through her dedication to sustainability.

Jenni Steele won the Bronze Stevie Award for Female Executive of the Year – Consumer Products –11 to 2,500 Employees.

Are you interested in submitting a nomination in the 2022 (19th Annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

Lisa Utzschneider is the CEO of Integral Ad Science (IAS), a digital media company that works to ensure that ads are viewable by real people in safe and suitable environments. Lisa focuses her team to bring greater media quality and transparency to digital advertising and has been able to differentiate IAS as an independent, trusted partner for both buyers and sellers of digital advertising. IAS practices contextual targeting and supply path optimization in order to bring high quality products to their customers. 

Lisa helped set the company’s core values of “We Are One Team” and “We Are Customer Obsessed.” Under Lisa’s leadership, IAS has expanded its product innovation and data-driven insights, closed two key acquisitions, become a public company, and continued to foster a strong company culture. Since 2019, Lisa also guided the IAS team through two acquisitions on Admantx, expanding the company’s contextual offerings and making the Total Visibility product an IAS brand that brings greater transparency to programmatic buying and supply path optimization.  

Additionally, Lisa successfully led IAS through the pandemic, transitioning to a remote work environment while continuing to focus on overall business growth. To ensure transparency and collaboration, Lisa instituted regular live global Town Halls to provide important updates on wins and progress across IAS, while creating a forum to answer tough questions from employees. She also launched a Fitbit Challenge for IAS employees to step their way toward healthy habits while working from home. Lisa also addressed the Black Lives Matter protests head-on by mandating unconscious bias training, establishing an employee match program for social justice organization donations, and recognizing Juneteenth as a company holiday. She has also been a mentor and supporter of elevating more women to leadership positions across industries.

Since winning a gold Stevie® Award in the 2021 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business for Female Executive of the Year, Lisa has honed the company’s mission to be the global benchmark for trust and transparency in digital media quality for leading brands. The digital ad market is expected to reach $526 billion in global spending by 2024, and under Lisa’s leadership, IAS will continue to play a critical role in shaping the future of digital media quality across high-growth segments including CTV, programmatic, social platforms, and international markets. The company also continues to lead in developing and collaborating on ad fraud and brand safety and suitability guidelines, as well as further industry standards. 

The company’s continued growth during Lisa’s tenure underscores her strong leadership and the value that IAS delivers as a digital media quality company, ensuring its customers, which include Verizon, L’Oreal, HP, Hulu, Nestle, Volkswagen, and Coke, make every ad impression count. As one of about 30 women to successfully lead her company through an IPO this past year, during one of the busiest IPO seasons on record, Lisa is also committed to paying it forward by continuing to support other female leaders across the technology industry and supporting diverse talent.

Lisa Utzschneider won a Gold Stevie Award in the 2021 Stevie Awards for Women in Business for Female Executive of the Year – Business Services –11 to 2,500 Employees.

Interested in submitting a nomination for the 2022 (19th Annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

Stevie Award-winner Rebecca Bendikov is the Head of Marketing at Lumination, an immersive technology company, where she works to inspire and educate teachers on how to incorporate emerging software and technology into the classroom through storytelling and building community. Doing so will in turn contribute to the development of students' abilities in an evolving technological landscape. Rebecca’s work represents her great passion for forming the “sparking the lightbulb moment” in young Australian women and girls when introducing them to careers in STEM.

Prior to her Stevie Award nomination, Rebecca’s job was to develop a marketing strategy for the Lumination Learning Labs built by Lumination. The Lab is a space where students engage with emerging technologies to solve real-world problems across all classroom subjects, covering topics like waste management, climate change, accessibility, and sustainability – all vital issues in today’s world. Rebecca developed the marketing collateral for the Lab, including a highly successful testimonial video, brochures, a website, as well as several Symposium events designed to bring school principals and decision makers into the space to foster brand awareness and develop networks with schools.

Rebecca took the Lumination Learning Lab from concept to reality. Due to Rebecca’s marketing work, the Labs are being incorporated by Lumination in all new government schools across South Australia.  Her achievements are significant as she was new to the industry and still managed to adapt effectively and encapsulate the learning outcomes to reach a broad variety of teachers across South Australia. Now, many students across South Australia are to benefit from being exposed to new technologies and experiences. Since earning her Stevie Award, Rebecca has continued her amazing work and taken the role of Head of Education Programs at Lumination, building a team supporting teachers as they integrate the use of immersive technology into their lesson plans. 

Rebecca Bendikov won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Executive of the Year in Asia, Australia or New Zealand.

Interested in submitting a nomination for the 2022 (19th Annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

Christine Tao is the co-founder & CEO of Sounding Board, a Silicon Valley startup redefining how organizations develop their leaders. Her rapid career growth to executive management in the tech sectors of Silicon Valley became her inspiration for founding Sounding Board. As she began to manage larger teams and became responsible for revenue growth, it became clear that she needed a “sounding board” to coach her on the development of her leadership skills. After receiving valuable mentorship in leadership development, Christine was driven to make this coaching accessible to people at all levels. Traditionally, leadership coaching has only been available to C-Suite executives, but with the advent of Sounding Board’s most recent innovations, coaching has become available and affordable to all levels of an organization in order to rapidly scale and upskill employees at a critical time when companies are needing to escalate at a more rapid pace.

Christine achieved significant milestones that led to the acceleration of growth at Sounding Board and set the company on course for strong valuation for the future. First, she developed and supported the engineering and product leadership to create Group Coaching, a new product offering that has rapidly attracted new business and expanded the spend of existing clients wanting a more impactful leadership coaching program for teams. Additionally, Christine built the board of directors and advisory board for Sounding Board to include influential leaders and investors in the learning and leadership development industry. This helped to prepare the company to start fundraising to bring the company past its start-up level.

Since earning a Silver Stevie® Award in the 2021 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business for Female Executive of the Year, Christine has scaled Sounding Board in revenue exponentially, surpassing budgeted expectations. She hired heads of engineering and finance, and built out a strong infrastructure to design new products launching in early 2022. Additionally, Sounding Board’s coach network scaled rapidly to meet and exceed the demand from enterprise clients around the world. 

Christine has also supported her team to transition from SMB-centric clients to Enterprise companies using Sounding Board’s services for their companies with 5,000+ employees. This development fueled revenue growth during the pandemic and completed a record of meeting or exceeding stated gross revenue goals. Additionally, she led the company’s efforts to create an innovative AI-enabled tech platform that is the first-to-market. This program is designed to coach leaders for measurable business impact. 

As a female co-founder of Asian descent, Christine has broken several glass ceilings in not only completing a Series A funding round at a rapid pace, but also being part of the only all-female-founded, female-led, and all-female board of directors within the leadership development industry.

Christine Tao won a Silver Stevie Award for Female Executive of the Year in the 2021 Stevie Awards for Women in Business: Business Services – 11-2500 Employees.

Interested in submitting a nomination for the 2022 (19th Annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

In 2016, Zoe started her freelance writing business. She built her business part-time while working as a social media assistant at the Daily Mail and a communications assistant at Forensicare. She then transitioned to full-time business ownership as a copywriter and editor in July 2021. Now, she works to help businesses find the perfect words to engage their audiences. As a chronic pain and mental health advocate, she still regularly writes and shares stories to combat the stigma of disability. Specifically, she has worked with organizations like Women With Disabilities Australia, Reach Out, SANE, Endometriosis Australia, and more, creating content that makes a difference in the lives of disabled people.

It’s not about the finances for Zoe, but the impact of her words. Since advocacy is integral to her business, her stories are more to her than just works, but a sign that she is helping someone in their hour of need. She chooses to run her copywriting business in a way that sets her apart from others, accommodating employees and clients who deal with daily health struggles.

Since winning her Silver Stevie Award, Zoe has appeared on a number of podcasts, where she has spoken about her commitment to advocating for chronic pain and mental illness acceptance. Additionally, she presented at the 2021 National Young Writers Festival in Australia, including the panel on Journalism and Trauma: Keeping Safe in an Unsafe World. Zoe has also been continuing to develop her journalism workshop, where she shares the impacts of journalism, how stories stick with readers, and practical advice on how to best support ourselves and others through the storytelling process.

Zoe Simmons won the Silver Stevie Award in the 2021 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business for Young Female Entrepreneur of the Year.

Interested in submitting a nomination for the 2022 (19th Annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

Convertyourfollowers.com was created to serve one major purpose; to educate brands and individuals on how to convert their social media followers to customers. Sophie saw that even major brands failed to convert fans to sales, so she set up convertyourfollowers.com to educate the world and help business owners improve their sales. 

The proven process was first tested on a giveaway collaboration with BALMAIN and a celebrity entrepreneur. Within 24 hours, they received 950 email subscribers which were then retargeted with email marketing campaigns. Sales of the entrepreneur's beauty brand were up by 38% that month with no cost. The process was so successful that Shark Tank's Kevin Harrington said, “This is such a niche and unique business model which I think is a lifeline for businesses.” 

Sophie is now shattering glass ceilings by educating business owners and individuals on how to implement this process themselves to cut out the costly marketing middlemen. Typically, this service would cost thousands of dollars a month, but her goal is to help business owners save their businesses or ensure that they thrive rather than survive the aftermath of COVID. She has won multiple awards for her pro bono efforts to support business owners throughout the pandemic.

Since winning the Gold Stevie Award for Company of the Year, Sophie started to launch her book, How to Convert Your Social Media Followers to Customers. Additionally, Sophie has been featured on billboards in Times Square as an example of an inspirational immigrant who launched two patented technology brands in the past year. Following the success of the BALMAIN campaign, she integrated a $200 voting poll plugin on the celebrity entrepreneur's website and launched a monthly makeup contest to tap into her army of influencers for her makeup and beauty brands. The influencers used their own social channels to ask for votes from their followers, driving 63,000 unique visitors to the celebrity entrepreneur's blog within 24 hours. Many of these visitors gave their email addresses and were retargeted via marketing campaigns which saw sales of her brands increase by 70% the following month. 

Convertyourfollowers.com won Gold for Company of the Year – Business Products – 10 or Less Employees at the 2021 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business.

Interested in submitting a nomination for the 2022 (19th Annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business?