Friday, November 15 brings the staging of the 16th edition of the Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, the world's top honors for achievement for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run.  

More than 550 nominees and their guests, judges, and others will convene in the Broadway Ballroom of New York's Marriott Marquis Hotel for the announcement and presentation of the Grand, Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Awards.  

More than 1,500 entries were submitted this year by organizations and individuals in 25 nations, 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.  Finalists in the competition were announced on October 3.

The presentations will be broadcast live via Livestream.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business event will be complemented by the two-day educational and networking event, the Women|Future Conference, also at the Marriott Marquis Hotel on November 14-15. Tickets for both the conference and the awards dinner are still on sale.

Here is the list of organizations that will be represented at Friday's awards dinner.

5W Public Relations, New York, NY
Access One, Chicago, IL
Adrea Rubin Marketing, Inc., New York, NY
Alessia Falsarone, New York, NY
Angles & Insights, Newport, RI
AnswerConnect, Portland, OR
Arco + Associates, Ballwin, MO
Arctic Fox Hair Color, San Marcos, CA
Ashira Prossack - Multi-Generational Workplace Expert, New York, NY
Aspire, Phoenix, AZ
Assiduus Distribution Pvt Ltd, New York, NY
AT&T, El Segundo, CA
Award Winning Accelerator, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia
Bahwan CyberTek, Natick, MA
Bank Leumi, New York, NY
BCM One,New York, NY
Bitvore, Irvine, CA
Black Dress Circle, St. Louis, MO
BlackLine, Woodland Hills, CA
Bluewater Media, Clearwater, FL
Brainchild Studios, Milwaukee, WI
BTL Group Limited, Shipley, United Kingdom
C-4 Analytics, Wakefield, MA
Canadian Cancer Society, Toronto, ON, Canada
Candice Benson, Bedford, NH
Canine Comprehension Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Caroline Kennedy Group, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Carson Group, Omaha, NE
Catalyst International, Waterford, Ireland
CAULIPOWER, Encino, CA
CBK Partners, New York, NY
Center for Deliberate Growth®, Mission, KS
CentralReach, Pompano Beach, FL
Children of Conservation, Atlanta, GA
Cisco Systems, Inc., San Jose, CA
Clerk & Comptroller, Palm Beach County, FL
Coast Professional, Inc., West Monroe, LA
CollegeFindMe, Cambridge, MA
Concentrix Corporation, Tempe, AZ
Curo Compensation, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
DarcMatter, New York, NY
DASTrader, Las Vegas, NV
Digging Deep, Cham, Switzerland
Diligent, New York, NY
Dream Catalyst Pte Ltd, Singapore
DRT Strategies, Inc., Arlington, VA
Dubai Health Authority, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
East of Ellie, an events co., Shelton, CT
Elite Tek Solutions, Overland Park, KS
Empire Eagle Food Co., Ltd, Taichung City, Taiwan
Entercom, New York, NY
Enthuse Marketing, New York, NY
Experian Marketing Services, Costa Mesa, CA
FACULTYNY LLC, Brooklyn, NY
First Advantage, Atlanta, GA
Florida Autism Center, Lake Mary, FL
FoundHer Community, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Forest Hills Financial Group, New York, NY
Forrest Performance Group, Fort Worth, TX
Game On, Bradenton, FL
Global Press Institute, Washington, DC
GoHealth Urgent Care, Atlanta, GA
Graziano Associates, Fairfield, CT
Growth Acceleration Partners, Austin, TX
Harman International, Stamford, CT
HGS, Bangalore, India
Hired, San Francisco, CA
HP Inc., Singapore
Humana Insurance, Louisville, KY
Hunter Plastic Surgery, Charlestown, NSW, Australia
Huntington Learning Center, Oradell, NJ
iAmLife, San Diego, CA
IBM Manufacturing Solutions Pte Ltd, Singapore
IBM, Armonk, NY
Improving, Dallas, TX
INVNT, New York, NY
IRIS GLAM, Chennai, India
iTalent Digital, San Jose, CA
It's a 10, Coral Springs, FL
Jagathi Gururajan, Winchester, MA
Keto To Go, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Kiddicutter, Australia
Kurrajong Kitchen, Sydney, Australia
LBR Insight, Philadelphia, PA
Lendio, Lehi, UT
LexReception, Seattle, WA
Lockheed Martin, Iselin, NJ
Lora DiCarlo, Bend, OR
Luma Brighter Learning, Mount Pleasant, SC
MAD-learn LLC, Atlanta, GA
ManpowerGroup Solutions, Milwaukee, WI
Meli Studio, Sydney, Australia
Merritt Group, McLean, VA
MD Management Limited, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Microsoft, Redmond, WA
Mission Control Communications, San Francisco, CA
Motional Multimedia, Wildwood, MO
myWorth, New York, NY
National Association of Women Business Owners, Washington, DC
NationsHearing, Plantation, FL
Newday Media JSC, Hanoi, Vietnam
New Family Organization, Tel Aviv, Israel
Nicor Gas, Naperville,IL
Nuro, Mountain View, CA
PacStar, Portland, OR
Paysafe, Montreal, QC, Canada
Pennsylvania's Department of Banking and Securities, Harrisburg, PA
Picote Solutions, Porvoo, Finland
Plastic Specialties dba PSITops, Salt Lake City, UT
PNC, Tampa, FL
PointClickCare, Mississauga, ON, Canada
Portfolia Inc, Woodside, CA
Pride Cheerleading Association, Salt Lake City, UT
PT. TELKOM INDONESIA, Jakarta, Indonesia
Publicis Sapient, Miami, FL
Purpol Marketing Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire, United Kingdom
Quantum Leaps Inc., Arlington, VA
RedSeal, San Jose, CA
ReMAP Network, Toronto, ON, Canada
Ripshot Enterprises, Toronto, ON, Canada
Safal Partners, Houston, TX
Sage Restoration, Overland Park, KS
Scaling Retail, Los Angeles, CA
School District of Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, FL
ScriptDrop, Columbus, OH
Selligent, San Jose, CA
SkyStem, New York, NY
Soar Aviation, Melbourne, Australia
Solv by Concentrix, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
SOSi, Reston, VA
Spartan Invest, Birmingham, AL
Sportsdigita, Minneapolis, MN
SpotX, Broomfield, CO
Springbuk, Indianapolis, IN
Sprint, Overland Park, KS
Story Rock Star, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Susan G. Komen Chicago, Chicago, IL
Sutherland Coaching and Consulting, St Johns, Antigua
Swiss Post Solutions, New York, NY
Sydney and West Painting and Rope Access Pty Ltd, Winmalee, NSW, Australia
Tangible Words Ltd., Ottawa, ON, Canada
TBWA\Istanbul, Turkey
TetraVX, Chicago, IL
The Audacious Agency, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia
The Bespoke Collection Australia, Sydney, Australia
The Makeup Artist Guild Asia Pacific Pty Ltd, Sydney, NSW, Australia
The Malvern School, Glen Mills, PA
The Painefree Group, LLC, St. Louis, MO
The SheFactor, Denver, CO
The Whitney Reynolds Show, Chicago, IL
Thomson Reuters, New York, NY
Titus, Ottawa, ON, Canada
TourRadar, Vienna, Austria
Trace3, Irvine, CA
Unison, San Francisco, CA
UpSpring PR, New York, NY
Vaco Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Valor Global Phoenix, AZ
Versant Health, Baltimore, MD
ViON Corporation, Herndon, VA
Vitalware, Yakima, WA
Vivid Spring Solutions, Noblesville, IN
Vydia, Holmdel, NJ
Wambi, LLC, Philadelphia, PA
Welfont, Tampa, FL
West Insurance & Financial Group, Kalamazoo, MI
WeUsThem Inc., Halifax, NS, Canada
Wolters Kluwer's ELM Solutions, Houston, TX
Women's Business Development Center (WBDC), Fairway, KS
Y Media Labs, Atlanta, GA

Entries for the 2020 edition of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business will open in May.

World’s Top Honors for Women Professionals to Be Presented in New York on November 15, with Second Edition of Women|Future Conference

Finalists were announced today in the 16th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the world’s top honors for women entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run.

This year’s Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists will be announced at an awards dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City on Friday, November 15. More than 600 women and their guests from around the world are expected to attend the presentations, which will be broadcast live on Livestream.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business event will be complemented by the two-day educational and networking event, the Women|Future Conference, also at the Marriott Marquis Hotel on November 14-15.  Tickets for both the conference and the awards dinner are now on sale.

More than 1,500 entries were submitted this year by organizations and individuals in 25 nations, 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.  

Among the many extraordinary organizations and women who have been recognized as Finalists, the following organizations stand out as those with five or more Finalist nominations: 8X8 to Educate, Tallai, QLD, Australia; B Floral, New York, NY, USA; DHL Express, worldwide; Glass of Learning, Toronto, ON, Canada; Harman International, Stamford, CT, USA; Jeunesse Global, Lake Mary, FL, USA; Oceans 2 Earth Volunteers, Kenmore East, QLD, Australia; Sleepm Global, Inc., Markham, ON, Canada; Tavuun Welfare Association, Karachi, Pakistan; and Turkish Airlines, Istanbul, Turkey.

Nominations were submitted by organizations in Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Kuwait, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

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

Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 150 professionals around the world, organized in seven juries.

HCL America is a sponsor of the 2019 Stevie Awards for Women in Business

Interested in receiving a Stevie Award in 2020?

The seven judging committee chairs for the 2019 Stevie Awards for Women in Business have been announced. Judging will take place from August 26 - September 30. 

Nominations are still being accepted through August 21 and late entries will be accepted through September 18.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

Natasha Bansgopaul is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of the FinTech Platform, DarcMatter. She is a part of the founding team of both DarcMatter and Konstellation, and co-founded and launched Konstellation, DarcMatter’s blockchain consulting and development division, to leverage blockchain technology to continue to accelerate further efficiencies in the asset management marketplace. Natasha was recognized as Female Entrepreneur of the Year and Female Executive of the Year-Business Service up to 2,500 Employees in the 2018 Stevie Awards for Women in Business. In addition to her various awards and accolades, she is also a distinguished international keynote speaker, presenting at financial services, FinTech, and blockchain conferences throughout Asia and the United States.

Individual/Executive Categories:

Lori VanDyke, Director Client Engagement  

Access One, Chicago, IL

 

Lori has been in the customer service industry for over 20 years, with an emphasis in telecommunications and technology-based industry for the past 14 years. She worked
at US Cellular for eight years and during that time worked within various departments, including the Quality Assurance department, which monitored the interactions with customers to coaching and leading the front line customer service and technical support teams.
 
Lori has worked at Access One for the past six years and currently focuses on overseeing the front line for Access One. Additional duties are creating the onboarding plans for new employees and consistent training for career development for team members. In addition, she assists with training customers with Access One’s call center application service and to go on site to assist with onboarding.

 

Company/Organization Categories:

Angela Hughes, CEO

The Welsh Air Ambulance Charitable Trust, Llanelli, Wales, United Kingdom

 

Angela Hughes was the first employee of the Wales Air Ambulance Charity (WAAC) in 2002. She was previously Finance Director and then European HR and Quality
Manager in the construction and technology industry. As a cancer survivor, at the age of 34, Angela embarked on a new career in fundraising using the transferable business
skills of finance, quality and HR. There was no business plan, no office, no staff, and limited funds. In 2019 WAAC now has 4 offices, 4 airbases, 18 shops, a café, and a heliport. This busy heliport in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, was a pioneering opportunity for WAAC to take on a new venture to generate funds for the lifesaving cause.

 

WAAC is the largest air ambulance charity in the UK. Through a creative, community-
focused strategy, Angela has led the charity in raising more than £101 million to keep
the 4 air ambulances flying for Wales. This has transformed pre-hospital care in Wales.
’The Welsh Model’ is becoming a familiar term as organisations worldwide engage with
WAAC to replicate its model, including the USA, New Zealand and Ireland. Angela has
been recognised nationally and internationally through winning 17 awards, including 2
lifetime achievements, 4 Silver, and a Gold Stevie Award. Angela states “Although I do
not normally seek recognition for my role, these awards have been poignant moments
to reflect on how far we’ve come and they drive me to be the best I can, serving Wales,
saving lives.”

Angela’s recommendation for applicants to this year’s Women in Business Awards is as
follows: “The Stevie Awards have several categories applicable across the world to all
organisations. By selecting the category carefully you can create a niche and generate
good news stories that make you stand out from your competitors. If you exploit the
short-term and long-term benefits of winning a Stevie Award, then all the credibility of
your accomplishments can contribute to improved competitiveness or increased support for non-profits such as ours.”

 

New Product and Service Categories:

Natalia Michael, Founder

No Nasties Kids & Roar Success, Peregian Springs, QLD, Australia

 

Natalia Michael is a multi-award-winning Australian entrepreneur. She is the owner of No Nasties Kids and SLiCK KiDS natural children's brands, and the co-owner of Roar Success, a platform for women in business. No Nasties Kids and SLiCK KiDS products are sold across the globe with distribution and licensee partners in nine countries and growing.

Communications & Marketing Categories:

Hai Yen Le, General Director

Newday Media JSC, Hanoi, Vietnam

 

Hai Yen Le, General Director of Newday Media JSC, is the Leader of Hanoi Young
Women Entrepreneurs Club (HYWE), Vice-chairwoman of Vietnam Media &Tourism Club, and Vice-chairwoman of Hanoi Network of Women Entrepreneurs. After 4 years working in PR at FPT, the largest corporation in technology & science in Vietnam, she started her own business in event management at the age of 27. Within 8 years, from a small business with only 1 employee and $1,000 of operating capital, Newday Media JSC has grown to become an expert in the field with 37 full-time employees and a turnover of over $1 million per annum. The company has a healthy growth rate of 20% every year and has created and directed many successful national festivals working with a number of established businesses and organisations.

Newday Media JSC under Hai Yen’s direction has received multiple certificates and
accolades from local governments and clients and the business goes from strength to
strength. In addition to running her own company Hai Yen believes it’s important to
share her knowledge and experience and is now a senior member of Business Network
International.

Hai Yen was born and raised in Hanoi. Finishing her studies at Hanoi College of Art,
she obtained a degree in Music & Culture Management from the University of Culture Studies.

Media Categories:

Natalie Runyon, Director, Enterprise Content

Thomson Reuters, New York, New York, United States

 

Natalie Runyon has over 20 years of experience working and volunteering for multinational corporations, non profits, and the US Government–Thomson Reuters, Goldman Sachs, and the Central Intelligence Agency.

 

Currently, she is the director of enterprise content for talent, inclusion, and culture within the brand marketing function of Thomson Reuters. Before her current role, she ran the strategy and operations team supporting key account programs within the Legal business. Before that, she ran global security in the Americas for 3 years. As a volunteer leader, she has led strategic leadership and change initiatives on the global and local levels for business resource groups at Thomson Reuters.

Natalie is a conference speaker and an author of articles for the Legal Executive
Institute , The Glass Hammer , Security magazine , and CSO Online . Natalie was
named one of top 20 under 40 in Security Director News in 2013. She also serves on
the board of She Should Run , a non partisan nonprofit focused on building the pipeline
of women to run for elected public office in the US; and the board of Middle Church , a
faith institution in the East Village dedicated to nurturing souls, advocating for social
justice, and standing up for those within marginalized communities.

She earned her MBA from The George Washington University and her BS Degree in
International Trade and Finance from Louisiana State University. She completed an
Organization Development & Leadership certificate from NYU in April 2016 and is a Certified Leadership Coach and Certified Protection Professional. She currently resides in New York City with her husband and two sons.

Achievement Categories:

Vicky Marrack,  Co-Founder & CFO

Tangible Words, Ottawa, Canada  

 

Vicky is Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer of Tangible Words, a Sales & Marketing Growth Agency. Under Vicky's leadership, the company has grown into a 10-person agency. Tangible Words helps organizations who need to grow their revenue by $1 million or more by increasing customer lifetime value, getting net new profitable leads, and building repeatable, predictable sales processes.  

Vicky's determination to help her staff achieve greatness for their clients while living their best life led to Tangible Words winning the Gold Stevie Award for Achievement in Promoting Work-Life Balance in 2018. In the same year, and in recognition of the results Tangible Words gets for their clients, Tangible Words also won The Hubspot Integrations Innovation Award and a Gold Quill Award of Merit for Communication Management.

On being asked to Chair this year’s Achievement Awards Committee, Vicky told us:
“These Awards are an important recognition for women all over the world. It was a
highlight of our company’s year winning a Gold Stevie Award for Achievement in the
2018 Women in Business Awards. I am very happy to contribute in 2019 as a participant in recognizing the achievements of other women in business.”

Generous employee benefits can be very attractive to sought-after talent, and these benefits can also keep employees happy and satisfied at work. For smaller businesses, though, providing them is easier said than done.

This challenge often forces entrepreneurs, freelancers, and gig workers to avoid businesses that aren’t able to take on those responsibilities. However, there’s something many of those companies don’t know: They can afford benefits that rival those offered by Fortune 500 companies; they can become RewardJet members.

RewardJet was the dream of two partners who wanted to help hardworking entrepreneurs. As entrepreneurs themselves, they saw a huge, underserved market and an opportunity to truly make a difference in the lives of millions.

Look and You Shall Find

The future looks quite bright for RewardJet as new partnerships will see them expanding globally over the next two years. From two men with a dream to a multinational platform, RewardJet is poised to change the world of company benefits.

“One founder’s wife works for a Fortune 500 company,” says cofounder Kevin Dory, “and the perks she gets through her company are often not nearly as good as the ones we offer through RewardJet.”

The founder and his wife realized how good these offers were when they planned a weekend getaway to Miami and were able to save hundreds of dollars on their hotel room, which wasn’t bad for a short trip.

RewardJet is not, however, just another perks site offering discounts. They want small businesses and independent workers to feel as if they have the power of thousands of people in their corners, even if they’re only a team of two.

“RewardJet advocates for the millions of people who drive our economy yet still don't have health care, retirement plans, or any of the other perks and benefits large companies offer.”

Trying to Fulfill All Kinds of Needs

Employees and employers are increasingly searching for personalized perks and benefits, but millennials and Gen X customers don’t always look for the same thing. These kinds of changes in workforce demographics require employees to adapt and to adjust their benefit offerings constantly.

“What we are really passionate about is the ability to provide access to health care for a huge number of people who otherwise would not have health insurance,” says Dory. “This is life changing, and this is why we exist.”

The company offers a wide range of health services, which start at $10 per month for a single person and go to less than $90 per month for fully ACA-compliant health insurance. Depending on the plan selected, the individual will have access to over 900,000 providers and will get a real prescription drug plan (not a discount card), with only a $10 co-pay for generics and huge discounts on brand-name drugs.

RewardJet also recently teamed up with Goldman Sachs to make it easy for members to save for retirement.

Small businesses across the United States can now make the decision to offer benefits and, most importantly, can choose the offerings that are desirable for potential new hires.

Sara Wolkwitz, Vice President of Partnerships at RewardJet, recently won the Bronze Stevie® Award for Female Executive of the Year in the Business Services category of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

Interested in winning a Stevie Award for Women in Business?

From Google and Amazon to PayPal and Uber, companies in the U.S. technology sector are some of the most dynamic, fastest-growing businesses in recent memory. However, not everyone shares equally in the industry’s success.

According to a recent survey by Silicon Valley Bank, only 56 percent of tech start-ups have one or more women in an executive position, and a mere 40 percent of those organizations have at least one woman on their boards of directors.

Some professionals aren’t waiting for the industry to catch up, though, opting instead for a more proactive approach. One example is A23 Advisors, a boutique consulting firm based in San Francisco, California, United States. The company consists of an all-female team of experts focused on travel technology, hospitality, e-commerce, ad tech, and fintech.

Founded by former Travelocity and Switchfly executive Cady Wolf, the firm helps companies streamline their operations, refine their strategic marketing plans, and develop their thought leadership positions—all without adding permanent staff members.

At A23 Advisors, the goal is to help consultants provide that expertise without sacrificing work-life balance, which many professionals must give up when working for a tech start-up.

“Members bill at their own selected rates, determine their own work schedules, and actively cull their networks for prospective new clients,” says Serenity Thompson, managing director at A23 Advisors.

Thompson says the firm caters to a talent base that often can’t find such equilibrium elsewhere in the tech sector.

“Families with children at home need to be there on sick days and game days,” says Thompson. “Moms who do it all need flexibility in work and in life so they can stay healthy and happy.”

Creating a “Family-First” Culture

Work-life balance isn’t something the tech industry has historically thrived on. In a 2015 survey of senior-level women working in Silicon Valley, 40 percent said they felt pressured to talk less about their families in order to be taken more seriously, and 52 percent of respondents cut short maternity leave so it wouldn’t adversely affect their jobs.

Women don’t have to face those pressures at A23 Advisors, where a family-first ethos permeates the culture, according to Thompson, the recipient of a Bronze Stevie® Award for Female Executive of the Year in 2018. The company functions as a virtual home office and an umbrella for core business functions—including marketing, PR, and legal—and it provides access to firm-branded templates for contacts, presentations, and signature services. A small percentage of each member’s billable revenue helps cover the expenses A23 incurs.

At the same time, the firm strives to create a shared sense of ownership in its success.

“Every advisor is involved in a minimum of one advisory board or board of directors that drives our brand recognition and is tied to the company’s vision and goals,” she says. “All contribute to industry and vertical thought leadership with white papers, speaking engagements, guest blog posts, and media interviews.”

With its recent venture, Women in Travel Tech, or WiTT, the consultancy built a space where female professionals can help each other thrive in a sector where the cards often seem stacked against them.

“The organization brings together the leaders and executive women of the travel industry to create a social, professional, and creative network,” adds Thompson.

For technology companies, working with A23 means they can avoid adding long-term staffing costs as they try to innovate and to build market share. The firm, which markets itself as “an outsourced extension of your executive team,” sees its agile personnel solution as a key selling point. To date, the firm has already attracted an array of promising start-ups, including FLYR, Points.com, Bonwi.com, TripTuner, and myDigitalOffice.

“Start-ups seek flexibility in marketing, sales, and operational investments as they build products and scale infrastructure,” notes Thompson. “Established companies seek flexible investment in innovation and market expansion resources, and publicly held global enterprises seek flexible consultative expertise when researching acquisition targets.”

Over the last 10 years, gaming culture has grown exponentially across all age groups and genders. From enjoying record-breaking retail numbers to hosting events that attract tens of thousands of fans, gaming has officially left the basements of the world and become one of the main attractions on the world stage.

Gaming and its underlying principles aren’t just restricted to consoles and PCs, though. Gamification is a motivational method that’s increasingly making its way into many organizations. By applying game design elements into non-gaming situations, the practice actively engages teams and individual members. For example, say a real-world business goal is to reach a certain monthly benchmark. Teams can “gamify” the rules and milestones of that practical target to motivate each “player” to do his or her best and, ultimately, to decide a winner.

PentaQuest is an Australian-based company that helps organizations perform better by gamifying individual preferences. These preferences then optimize organizational strategy, culture, and capability.

The company provides custom and off-the-shelf gamified platforms, as well as consulting services, giving them the flexibility to apply their tools to solve a range of challenges related to everything from organizational performance to cultural issues.

New Game, New Players

PentaQuest was founded in 2016 in Canberra, Australia. Their founder, Kerstin Oberprieler, discovered gamification in 2014 and implemented a gamified experience for her colleagues in order to add fun to business- and team-based activities.

“The original design was simply a ‘pen and paper’ experience. It involved a team leaderboard in the office and physical tokens and artifacts,” says James Sellers, a gamification designer at PentaQuest. “Kerstin’s colleagues loved it. Before long, there was enough demand from clients for gamification design, and PentaQuest was born.”

With a proven methodology and track record, the company earns clients through both word of mouth and extensive existing networks.
 
Yes, Gaming Is Good for You

Whether applied to employees, citizens, customers, or students, gamification promotes positive workplace culture, health, and well-being, and the practice is proving to be effective for governmental departments, schools, multinational companies, and many more entities.

Although gamifying tasks can be a fun motivational tool, PentaQuest makes it clear their core values drive success. Review these six core values to see if your team can benefit from the methodology:

1. Purpose driven 
2. Playful 
3. Player-centric 
4. Ethical 
5. Experimental
6. Open to evolution and change

If improved employee engagement is a goal for your company in 2019, look further into how PentaQuest implemented the practice to see if gamification aligns with your career and personal goals.

“PentaQuest is growing quickly, and we are now serving customers from five countries,” says Sellers. “In the coming years, we hope this number will grow significantly as we continue to provide value to thousands of organizations and teams around the world, helping them supercharge performance through a human-centered, playful approach to employee engagement.”

Many established companies are already gamifying programs for their employees. Here are just a handful of businesses enjoying practical success with gamification:

• Cisco
• Deloitte
• Microsoft
• Nike
• Spotify
• Verizon

Even human resources are successfully using gamification to drive higher employee engagement and to raise productivity. It’s also resulted in improvement in unexpected areas, such as the promotion of better diet and exercise practices among employees.

Gamification has proven to have a positive impact on employee engagement. By harnessing humans’ natural interest in playing games, participants feel more motivated to solve work-related issues, which, in turn, benefits the company.

PentaQuest won the 2018 Bronze Stevie® Award for Startup of the Year in the 2018 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

Interested in entering the Stevie Awards for Women in Business this year?

While many think of academics as the core of education, there have been recent shifts in the fundamental way learning is viewed and approached. One of these more significant shifts came with the rise of the whole-child approach—policies and practices that move the focus from a narrowly defined set of academic standards to a concept of success that encompasses long-term developmental health.

The whole-child approach is particularly championed when it comes to early childhood education. The goal of this approach is to equip students with the skills necessary to be fully prepared not just for elementary, middle and high school but also eventually for college, fulfilling careers, healthy relationships, and successful citizenship. This is done through a more holistic and comprehensive look at all of a child’s needs, including the emotional component. It also emphasizes a collaborative approach between the child’s school, fellow students, family, and community.

Schools Embrace the Whole-Child Approach

The Malvern School, which is headquartered in Glen Mills, PA in the United States, is a private year-round preschool that serves children ages six weeks to eight years, and it serves as a prime example of the kind of learning institution that wholeheartedly embraces the underlying concept of whole-child education.

“The Malvern School always seeks to raise the bar in early childhood education,” says Kristen Waterfield, the school’s cofounder and president. “We encourage children to meet their highest potential, but that potential isn’t one-dimensional. As a teacher and a mother, I have always felt strongly about the importance of developing the physical, emotional, cognitive, and social growth of the ‘whole’ child, and this is key to our educational philosophy.”

While some detractors of the whole-child approach fear the loss of academic rigor, schools like The Malvern School demonstrate that the enhancement of emotional intelligence need not come at the expense of more traditional intellectual development.

“When my business partner, Joe Scandone, and I founded the Malvern School 20 years ago, our goal, first and foremost, was to provide exceptional programming,” says Waterfield. “And we wanted that exceptional programming delivered by forward-thinking, college-degreed educators. By starting to build this dual foundation of emotional health and academic intelligence early, we truly believe we’re setting up children for success throughout their lives.”

Parents and Caregivers Recognize Success

Parents and caregivers of the young children who attend programs like The Malvern School are pleased with the concrete, positive results. With the continuing success of its curriculum, The Malvern School, which began in 1998 with only 20 employees, now employs 580 educators and operations and business professionals over 26 locations throughout southeastern Pennsylvania, United States, and central and southern New Jersey, United States.

“Departing from the traditional model of day care or childcare programs, our schools focus on diverse programming that enables children both to learn and to feel loved,” says Waterfield. “This has fueled the school’s ability to become the largest privately owned preschool in Greater Philadelphia [Pennsylvania, United States].”

While some educational shifts may be more fad than lasting ideology, the whole-child approach only seems to grow in popularity every year as parents seek to provide their children with the best pathways to success.

“Since 1998, The Malvern School has educated more than 30,000 children—a number that continues to grow significantly,” says Waterfield. “With our steadfast focus on providing value to the community, we continue our journey to bring new educational opportunities to children and families, and we have plans to open additional schools in 2019.”

Parents, however, aren’t the only ones recognizing the significant work done by educational institutions in this sector. For her innovative work with young children, for example, Waterfield recently earned a Gold Stevie® Award in the Entrepreneur of the Year category in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business. 

To learn more about Waterfield and The Malvern School, visit MalvernSchool.com.

When Natasha Bansgopaul helped establish a financial technology firm focused on alternative investments, she knew getting clients to ditch their existing methods of evaluating funds and raising capital wasn’t going to be easy. The bigger challenge: acting as a minority change agent who also happens to be female.

“People tend to underestimate you. This is especially true in financial services and technology industries, which are trying to rally to incorporate more women leaders throughout,” says Bansgopaul. “The advantage is that I’m always able to over-deliver and to lead my team accordingly. You can perform well beyond expectations when you’re underestimated.

“The disadvantage, though, is that you always feel the need to prove yourself and to deem yourself ‘valued’ or ‘worth it’ in order to combat the perception,” the entrepreneur says. “I focus on debunking the myths and letting our deliverables speak for themselves.”

Transforming the Industry

More than four years into DarcMatter, her venture that’s based in New York, New York, United States, the cofounder and COO has proven more than a few people wrong. The firm has become a key researching and networking platform for investors and fund managers involved in alternative investments—a category that includes hedge funds, venture capital funds, and financial derivatives.

Qualified investors (typically financial advisers), institutions, and high-net-worth individuals can use DarcMatter to explore pre-vetted funds, to perform due diligence, and to purchase shares online. It’s quite a change for industry insiders who, believe it or not, still frequently use more traditional channels to share information, including fax machines and “snail mail.”

“Our mission is to enhance capital flow, transparency, and efficiency for clients by providing direct and comprehensive access to funds in the asset management industry,” says Bansgopaul, who started the business with college friend Sang Lee in 2014.

One of her main responsibilities these days is broadening the brand awareness of DarcMatter via speaking invitations in the United States and abroad in South Korea, as well as spearheading the company’s product development and blockchain integration initiatives.  Recently, the team announced the launch of “Konstellation,” the blockchain development and consulting division of DarcMatter, geared towards financial institutions with dedicated internal blockchain development teams.

Since July 2017, she’s helped grow the company’s user base by over 60 percent. Today, DarcMatter hosts information on more than 150 live fund products and has upwards of 2,900 registered investors using the platform around the globe.

Bansgopaul was honored for those accomplishments last November with a Gold StevieⓇ Award for Female Executive of the Year and a Silver for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business. DarcMatter also received a Bronze in the Company of the Year category.

“It was an amazing honor to be selected amid stiff competition from over 1,500 finalists from more than 30 countries,” she says. “I’m truly proud to represent the DarcMatter team.”

Interested in entering the Stevie Awards for Women in Business this year?

Paying It Forward

DarcMatter, which has offices in South Korea, China, and Ukraine, boasts a particularly diverse management team for the financial technology (fintech) industry, which is something Bansgopaul definitely takes pride in.

“As a company with a black female founder with an MBA, a Korean-American cofounder, and a Ukrainian chief technology officer, our management team comes from culturally diverse upbringings,” she says. “We tout a wealth of diverse experience from various sectors, including traditional financial services, CPG, and corporate strategy, as well as product and SAAS technology development.”

The executive is aware, however, that there’s a long way to go before women attain equal footing in her industry. According to a gender diversity report published by Mercer, women comprise 46 percent of all employees in the financial services sector but only 15 percent of leadership positions. Currently, DarcMatter has seven female employees, representing 35 percent of its total employee count. Bansgopaul hopes that number will continue to grow.

“As a female in a position of power, I am laser focused on hiring qualified female candidates. I hope to assist in their growth and development within financial technology firms, which should, in turn, help to build a new class of diverse female talent. Moving forward, they can then recruit candidates like themselves, and this positive cycle will continue,” says Bansgopaul.

Few industries are as integral to well-being as health care—and by capitalizing on the globe’s exponential technological achievements, the medical field continues to advance telehealth. Much as the Internet changed how people communicate, telehealth is disrupting the status quo of health and wellness in order to improve how people live.

What Is Telehealth?

Telehealth essentially leverages technology in order to distribute health-related services and critical health-related information. Even when a clinician is in another city, state, or even country, telehealth allows that clinician to provide advice, reminders, health monitoring services, and more to his or her patients.

The field of telehealth is not necessarily new, but with burgeoning technological advances, the applications continue to expand and to change. Here are just a few ways telehealth is pushing the medical field in an innovative, positive direction:

• Two or more doctors, regardless of location, can meet via video conference to discuss a case. (Lab results and tests can also be distributed to multiple facilities across the nation or world to ensure the proper specialists analyze the results.)
• Through remote access, a surgeon can perform robotic surgery.
• A patient can complete a physical therapy regimen from home through live feeds and digital monitoring equipment.
• Transitioning health data management online can make the process more secure, accurate, up to date, and integrated with the health care system.

Benefits of Telehealth

Even as this industry evolves, the underlying benefits remain clear:

• Increased access to health care for those living in remote or rural areas.
• Increased access for those with limited or no means of transport to a medical facility.
• Increased access to care for historically vulnerable populations, including the elderly and disabled.
• Minimized health care costs.
• Consolidation of a company or organization’s resources into a single platform (e.g., a mobile app).
• Access to live health ambassadors any time, day or night.
• Ability for working parents in the medical field to perform job tasks from home. (Many nurse call centers today are moving toward a remote nursing model.)
• A modernized health care system that prioritizes convenience, communication, and wellness.

As people continue to live longer, demands on the health care system increase, but there’s often not a correlated increase in funds for those facilities. When critical resources—namely, money and staff members—are low, telehealth can fill in many of those gaps, ensuring more people get easy, affordable access to the care they need.

Recognition of Innovation

Every year, telehealth becomes an increasingly integrated part of the medical landscape. Companies at the forefront of that innovation are receiving both recognition and support for their important work.

Continuwell, a company based in Jacksonville, Florida, United States and part of the TriageLogic Group, provides telehealth software and mobile communication solutions to U.S.-based medical centers and businesses.

“Continuwell is an innovative platform with a mobile application designed to simplify the employee well-being experience,” said CEO Dr. Charu Raheja. “We keep members engaged and informed, and we empower them to access key company resources through our easy-to-use mobile app.”

For her efforts, Dr. Raheja won the 2018 Gold Stevie® Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in the Business Services category of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the TriageLogic Group and Continuwell took the 2018 Silver Stevie Award for the Most Innovative Company of the Year in the same category.

“This recognition is an honor to our team,” said Raheja. “By increasing our visibility, we sincerely hope we can help other companies engage with their colleagues and prioritize health and well-being.”

Mona Andrews is many things: a California, USA, resident; an entrepreneur; and the operator of a business process outsourcing firm since the early 1990s. She notes she had the flexibility to balance the demands of raising young children, but when her kids reached preschool, she noticed other moms didn’t have that same luxury.

“Either they stayed employed and missed many of the important moments of being a mother, or they dropped out of the workforce altogether,” recalls Andrews.

Many of her female friends continued working after their first child was born, she says, but when the second son or daughter came along, the financial and emotional toll became too much.

“It’s an impossible situation,” says Andrews.

With her latest venture, Stay In The Game, she attempts to eliminate the dichotomy between being a mother and having a career. The company, launched in 2017 in Los Angeles, California, United States, offers “downshifting” opportunities, where women can work part time or remotely. This allows mothers to be home with their children either all day or at least more each day. The company also works with individual employers to reintegrate a mom into the workforce after a prolonged absence.

“As the children of these women grew, I noticed a surprising phenomenon,” says Andrews. “Over and over again, I met highly educated women who previously had important careers, and now they were telling me they wanted to get back into the workforce but didn’t know how.

The most jarring realization was their lack of confidence. They had not been in the workforce for a while and felt insecure regarding their relevance, their ability to compete, and their skill levels.”

At the same time, she noticed employers were reluctant to interview any woman who had taken an extended leave. To Andrews, this seemed a regrettable waste of talent and energy.

A Changing Workforce

While society has progressively abandoned the idea of strict gender roles, women continue to sacrifice their careers for family to a much greater degree than men. A 2015 study by the Pew Research Center, for instance, found 42 percent of women reduced their work hours after the birth of a child, which compared to 28 percent of men.

Even more telling was the fact that 27 percent of women left their jobs to handle child-rearing duties, according to the Pew study. Only 10 percent of men did so.

Stay In The Game provides its services as a way for businesses to leverage the talent of experienced, skilled workers, who are often less expensive than lower-level temporary employees. Candidates work in a range of fields, from data entry and customer service to IT and accounting.

At the same time, employers can demonstrate their social responsibility by providing continuity for caregiving parents. For Andrews, the service is also a means to retain talented employees who might otherwise drop out of the workforce completely after having children.

“There will be an exponential increase in the demand employees have for remote and flexible work, and companies will be forced to change in order to successfully retain great employees,” says Andrews.

As her firm grows, she sees it as a way for more employers to manage that challenge.

“We can offer employers a solution that includes a talented, dispersed workforce,” the entrepreneur says.

Though the company is still in its infancy, Andrews says it’s not having any trouble finding female job candidates. In the case of one advertisement she placed for a remote position, she received 240 applications in just three hours.

“The demand for our service is huge,” she says.

For its innovative approach to helping skilled, professional mothers achieve greater work-life balance, Stay In The Game won two Bronze Stevie Awards at the 15th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business in November. It earned one for Best New Product or Service of the Year in the Business Services category and another for Start-Up of the Year.

“This has really reinforced the value of what we offer, and it shows our business concept resonates with many other people,” says Andrews.