The 11th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, the world's top honors for women entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run, will be presented this Friday, November 14 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York.  More than 400 women and their guests from around the world will attend.

The presentations will be broadcast live across the U.S.A., and simulcast worldwide via the web, by Biz Talk Radio, from 7:30 pm eastern time on Friday.  Listen in and follow along with a copy of the awards dinner's official program book.

Finalists in the 2014 awards were announced last month.  This Friday the Finalists will find out whether they've won Grand, Gold, Silver or Bronze Stevie Award status.

So who's coming to New York City for Friday's gala event?  Here are the organizations who have already booked their place for the awards dinner.  Tickets are still available.

11mark  
6Sense  
ABS-CBN Corporation
AccountingDepartment.com  
All Channels Communication Group
ALOM  
Amadeus  
American Express Global Business Travel  
ARIIX
A-T Solutions
AT&T
Bahwan CyberTek  
Best Doctors  Inc.
Bhava Communications
Bitsy's Brainfood  .
Biz TV
BLAMtastic  LLC  
Bombshell Productions  
Collective Bias  
Complete Active Living  
Confirm Biosciences  
Curemark  
Deborah Mitchell Heaven Health & Beauty Ltd
Decisive Minds  LLC  
Dell Boomi  
Delta Air Lines
DentaSpa Seminars  
Descriptive Video Works  
Digital Risk  
EMC
EnergyRICH® Coaching  Inc.  
Esprit de Mami Corporation
Exceptional Business Solutions, LLC
Experian Marketing Services  
Extreme Networks  
eZCom Software
Fabric Innovations  
Fareportal
Financial Voyages LLC
FIS  
Gabriel Marketing Group
GALILEO RESEARCH AND STRATEGY CONSULTANCY LLC  
GE Software  
Girls Leading Our World
Global Good Fund  
Gridstore  
Grow Marketing  
Hansen Technologies  
HARMAN  
Hewlett-Packard Company  
HirePerfect
Home Development Mutual Fund (aka Pag-IBIG Fund)  
Home Rental Services  
IBM  
iFinance Canada Inc.
In-Flight Crew Connections  LLC.  
inVNT
Isagenix International  LLC.
iTalent Corporation
Jones Publishing (Citywealth)
KAY Corp.
KC Projects  
Lexicon  Inc.  
Lisa Tener  Book Coach
Liz Palmer Media Group Inc.
LLORENTE & CUENCA
Lovell Corporation
Lyons Consulting Group  
Marketsmith  Inc.
MarketStar  
Martz Parsons
Mblox Inc.  
McAfee  part of Intel Security  
McKinsey Development  Inc.  
Medical Observer
Miller Street Dance Academy  
Mosaic Sales Solution
Mosman NewMedia Inc.
National Merchants Association  
NEI Global Relocation
Nerium International  
New Family Organization  
Newberry Executive Solutions  LLC
Nicor Gas  
Novitex Enterprise Solutions  
NurseWise  
One Stop Environmental  
Origami Owl
Orion Associates Incorporated
Panache
Pascale Communications  
Pathways Community Interest Company
PepsiCo AMEA
PepsiCo SACCAF  
Picore International
Pink Elephant  
Plasticity Labs  
PPC Ltd
Pretty Pushers  Inc.
Prime Therapeutics
ProcessPro  
Proforma Printelligence  
Propeller Resources
ProposalHelper LLC
Qualia  
Rakuten Marketing  
Red Hat  
Regional Business Accelerator  Lloydminster  
Ripper PR
S & E Trusted Online Directories Inc
SAMMS Juke Box
Sarofsky  
SEARCH Group Partners
Seeing Angels Two by Two  
SevOne  Inc.
Silicon Image
SocialCode  
Spherexx.com  
SPLICE Software  
Synergy Vision Ltd  
Tequila Avión  
Tollgrade Communications  
UST Global
Veggiecation
VerticalResponse
Waitressville  
WDS Marketing & Public Relations
Wells Fargo Bank
WLF Medical  
Women Presidents’ Organization
World Vision Canada  
Xceed Financial Credit Union  
Yuwakai
ZYTO Corporation

We have changed the schedule for the 2015 (second annual) Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the top business awards program for the region.

It has come to our attention that updates that were supposed to have been made to the website at http://Asia.StevieAwards.com before the opening of the awards last month were not made. It will take us about two weeks now to update the website fully. Therefore we are changing the schedule.

The early-bird entry deadline with discounted entry fees, originally published as November 12, has been changed to December 3. Review the complete revised calendar for the 2015 awards. The awards are open to all organizations operating in the 22 nations of the Asia-Pacific region.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

We expect the website to be ready to accept your entries the week of 17 November. You may submit your 2015 entries anytime after that date.

We have added many new categories to the awards, including marketing awards, PR awards, new product awards, HR awards, and more. Explore them all here.

The website at http://Asia.StevieAwards.com is available in, and entries may be submitted in, seven languages: Chinese, English, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay and Thai.

Please contact us with your questions about how to participate in the 2015 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards.

The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, has issued a call for entries for the 2015 (9th annual) Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. 

GET THE ENTRY KIT HERE.   

All customer service, contact center, business development, and sales departments, teams and professionals worldwide are eligible to be nominated, in addition to new products and services used by those professionals. The 2015 awards will recognize achievements since July 1, 2013.

The entry deadline is November 19, but late entries will be accepted through January 13 with payment of a late fee. Winners of the ninth annual competition will be announced at a gala awards banquet on February 27 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

The 2015 program offers new categories for business development professionals including Business Development Executive of the Year, Business Development Professional of the Year (for non-executive professionals), and Business Development Achievement of the Year.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service feature more than 135 sales awards, customer service awards, business development awards, new product awards, and call center awards categories. Entrants may submit any number of nominations to any number of categories, which include:

•     Sales Individual categories such as Senior Sales Executive of the Year and Sales Operations Professional of the Year
•     Sales Team categories like Global Sales Team of the Year and Field Sales Team of the Year
•     Sales Achievement categories such as Sales Turnaround of the Year and Outbound Marketing Program of the Year
•     Sales Department of the Year categories in 13 industry groupings
•     Customer Service and Contact Center Individual categories such as Front-Line Customer Service Professional of the Year and Customer Service Leader of the Year
•     Customer Service and Contact Center Team categories like Contact Center of the Year and Customer Service Management Team of the Year
•     Customer Service and Contact Center Achievement categories such as e-Commerce Customer Service Award and Award for Innovation in Customer Service
•     Customer Service Department categories in 11 industry groupings
•     New Product and Service categories like Best New Business Intelligence Solution and Best New Relationship Management Solution
•     Solution Provider categories such as Sales Consulting Practice of the Year and Incentive, Rewards, or Recognition Provider of the Year

2015 will see the return of a popular feature of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. All Finalists in the Customer Service Department of the Year categories will be included in the People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Customer Service voting.

Winners of the 2014 edition of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include Cars.com, Comcast, CubeSmart, Delta Air Lines, Etiya, eZCom Software, FedEx, HubSpot, Kohl’s Department Stores – Credit Division, OfficeDepot, SAVO, ShopKeep POS, Vestmark, and VIZIO, Inc., among others.

The 2015 competition will be judged by more than 200 professionals around the world.

The 2015 entry kit and a complete history of the awards program are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.

About The Stevie Awards:
The Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: The American Business Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com, and follow the Stevie Awards on Twitter @TheStevieAwards.

Sponsors of the 2015 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include ValueSelling Associates.

optivo in Berlin, Germany won two Stevie® Awards in The 2014 International Business Awards: its Customer Care Team won a Bronze Stevie in the Customer Service Awards categories; and its optivo® broadmail–Marketing Automation Solution won in the New Product Awards categories.

We asked Harald Oberhofer, Director of Corporate Communications at optivo, for his thoughts about the new German Stevie Awards. (Get your German Stevie Awards entry kit here.)

“Herzlich willkommen, as we say in Germany,” was his response. “We regularly participate in the international edition of the Stevies and our company and innovations have received several awards. We are therefore really happy that the Stevie Awards have now launched a competition specifically for the German market.”

“German companies are acting more and more internationally,” Harald added. “The German Stevie Awards might help to deepen our global mindset. At the same time, I think it’s great that German business achievements are going to be recognized through these new Awards, and that German innovations and product highlights will get the visibility they deserve.”

Delivering Added Value

We asked Harald if he had any advice for companies thinking of doing business in Germany.

“The starting point has to be a valid business model–and that applies to Germany companies, too.” Harald told us. “In Germany, careful and thorough planning is of great importance. Plans and concepts should be developed very thoroughly, with a special eye on the details. There is a great demand in Germany for professionalism and for delivering added value. And, of course, reliability is a must.”

Industry News

Harald also gave us some tips on a few of the apps and blogs that he finds most useful in the workplace.

“optivo is one of the largest email marketing and omnichannel specialists in Europe,” he told us. “We have our own German language blog at www.optivo.de/de/blog, which provides a lot of useful industry news information. For other industry news, I can also recommend www.emailmarketingforum.de and www.emailmarketingblog.de.  However, if you need a cab in Germany, the MyTaxi app is essential!”

Looking Ahead

We asked Harald what he most enjoyed about his work at optivo. “optivo is the technology leader in its industry and right now we are expanding internationally, which is exciting for the entire company as well as for me,” he told us.  “Moreover, my colleagues in our Berlin office are cool and dedicated, as are the people working in our offices around Europe. In short, to work at optivo is fun and rewarding.”

optivo® broadmail

optivo’s main product is optivo® broadmail, which enables optivo clients to send out permission-based and professional newsletters as well as email marketing campaigns. optivo® broadmail is an internationally applicable solution for all business sectors and industries. The user interface is available in English, German, Polish, Dutch, and Turkish. The software includes more than 300 functions and can be used via all relevant web browsers. Its customers can send out up to 25,000,000 emails per hour. Furthermore, it is continuously being updated and developed. New functionalities are provided regularly and made available free of charge to optivo’s customers.

Customer Care Team

The optivo customer care team helps with advice and assistance in all matters concerning the use of optivo® broadmail. Online marketing specialists create customer templates for a consistent corporate design and give international support regarding the use of the online broadcasting system as well as email and omnichannel marketing in general. The staff is multinational and supports customers in various European languages.

optivo offers workshops on email marketing strategies, customer training, and academies. Its customers receive regularly updated documentation, technical white papers, video tutorials, and newsletters. Through its blog, optivo offers in-depth information on relevant topics concerning email and omnichannel marketing to all interested parties. Customers can also subscribe to a newsletter series that offersuseful tips on email marketing over the course of one year, and they can attend free webinars on special topics which are held on a regular basis.

About Harald Oberhofer

Harald Oberhofer is Director of Corporate Communication at optivo. He has 14 years of experience in PR and Marketing in the online sector. Harald joined optivo in 2007 in order to set up the Marketing Department. His current responsibilities are the management and coordination of international and corporate PR and marketing communications activities. Prior to optivo, Harald worked for Zanox and IBM, among others.

About optivo

optivo is one of Europe's leading email and omnichannel marketing service providers, delivering efficient, professional and secure email marketing solutions from one single source. Since the foundation of optivo in 2001, all of its operations have focused on efficient direct marketing. More than 1,000 companies from various industries rely on its services, including many top names; such as Best Western Hotels, Bosch Power Tools, Die Zeit, InnoGames, Henkel, and QVC.  For more information go to www.optivo.com

The Stevie Awards are delighted to announce the names of the five distinguished women who will chair the final judging committees of the 2014 (11th annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business competition.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are the world's top business awards program for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run.

Finalists in this year's Stevie Awards for Women in Business were announced last week.  Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie placements from among the Finalists will be determined in final judging, to begin next week.  Results will be announced at the 11th annual awards dinner in New York on November 14.  Tickets are now on sale.

The five committee chair selections are based on the categories that will be judged. Final judging chairs helped to form their committees, each of which will be comprised of 10-20 other executives.  Here are this year's final judging committee chairs.

INDIVIDUAL/EXECUTIVE AWARDS

CHAIR: Susan Johnson, Director of Communications
The Women Presidents’ Organization, New York, New York

Susan Johnson is Director of Communications for the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO). WPO is a membership organization for women presidents and CEOs of privately held, multimillion dollar companies. Through global, confidential, and collaborative peer-learning groups, the WPO accelerates business growth, enhances competitiveness and promotes economic security. Working at the local, national, and international levels, Susan oversees marketing, public relations, and brand building initiatives for WPO, whose mission is to accelerate business growth, enhance competitiveness, and promote economic security for multi-million dollar, women-led companies.

Prior to joining WPO, Susan had her own business, developing strategically creative marketing campaigns to give brands, services, and nonprofits a distinctive voice, personality, and presence.  A seasoned public relations agency professional, Susan has a strong background managing strategic business-to-business and business-to-consumer communications that build brand reputation and value, and support business objectives. Having had the privilege of launching and sustaining many well-known brands, she’s also helped startups come to market and built thought leadership platforms for nonprofit organizations.

Her work at Fleishman Hillard and Rowland Worldwide has been recognized with the industry’s highest honors, including a Silver Anvil from The Public Relations Society of America. Named a fellow of Columbia University’s Age Boom Academy, she honed her social media skills at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

INDIVIDUAL/ENTREPRENEUR AWARDS

CHAIR: Redickaa Subramanian, CEO & Chief Strategist
Interakt Digital Group, Singapore

Redickaa Subramanian is a global advertising, marketing, and technology expert and the co-founder and CEO of Interakt Digital Communications Group, a digital marketing and communications firm headquartered in Singapore. Through her strategic insight and hands-on leadership, she has guided Interakt’s growth to approximately 200 associates with operations on four continents.

As Interakt’s chief strategist, she specializes in helping global companies deliver their brand promise inside/out by aligning all audiences and messaging, internally and externally. She has worked with some of the world’s most respected brands, including Citibank, Ecolab, Lenovo, Nalco, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Acer, HSBC, Motorola, Levi’s® and Estee Lauder Companies.

Redicka earned her MBA at the State University of New York at Buffalo and was named “Outstanding Entrepreneur of the Year 2007” by DBS-SICCI.

COMPANY/ORGANIZATION AWARDS

CHAIR: Stephanie Azzarone, Founder & President
Child’s Play Communications, New York, New York

Stephanie Azzarone is founder and president of Child’s Play Communications, the first agency to specialize exclusively in marketing to moms. Child’s Play celebrated its 25th anniversary last year (2013). Stephanie is creator of the award-winning Team Mom™ blogger network, the voice behind the blog Mom Market Trends, and winner of Bulldog Reporter’s Social Media Innovator of the Year Award. She also received an Honorable Mention in this year’s Enterprising Women of the Year Awards.

Stephanie has been quoted on the subject of marketing to moms in media ranging from PRWeek through The Wall Street Journal and writes a monthly post for the industry publication Engage:Moms. Disney, Warner Bros. Consumer Products, Heinz, Hewlett Packard, TIME Inc., and the Wildlife Conservation Society are among her recent clients.

CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS/MARKETING/NEW PRODUCTS & SERVICES

CHAIR: Katrin Ludvigsson, CEO
Rippler Communications, Stockholm, Sweden

Katrin is the CEO of Rippler Communications, an award-winning strategic and creative agency committed to delivering quality marketing and communications solutions in multiple channels and across platforms. Having spent a decade as account director and senior consultant at one of Sweden´s largest PR-firms, she founded Rippler eight years ago together with a female former colleague. Together they set out to create a business squarely dedicated to delivering quality with pride, a matter of “ your business is our business.”

From the first year of operations, Katrin and Rippler have earned numerous awards in SPINN—the Swedish equivalent of the IPRA Golden Awards—for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer clients. Last year, though, was the first year Rippler entered any international competitions and as a result Katrin won the Gold Stevie® Award for Communications or PR Campaign of the Year – Public Affairs and Public Service with “For a more humane city” – displaying homelessness through a nationally covered photo campaign. The campaign “For a humane city” was also selected as one of the winners in IPRA last year.

On a more personal level, Katrin is dedicated to work against ethnic and racial intolerance, being one of the co-founders of Oss alla, a national network with about 20,000 followers, writing and co-signing opinion pieces, commissioning and promoting research to combat myths about refugees and immigration. She recently launched a campaign,“the mirror of prejudice,” targeted at high school students and aiming to promote classroom discussions on tolerance issues. Katrin and her Rippler co-founder have also started an informal network for women, meeting twice a year to help promote other women in business.

Katrin has a Bachelor of Arts in both journalism and international relations from the University of Minnesota.  

MEDIA

CHAIR: Caroline Tien-Spalding, Marketing Director
Arcsoft/Perfect 365, San Francisco, CA

As Senior Director of Marketing for ArcSoft consumer imaging applications and a photography black belt, Caroline Tien-Spalding is always looking to turn pixels into magic pixie dust. Caroline has built an impressive track record of success in the mobile app and consumer markets, and was the driving force behind bringing ArcSoft’s Perfect365, a digital makeover app, to the forefront of over 45 million users.

Prior to ArcSoft, Caroline was instrumental in successfully launching the renowned photo app Camera Awesome with SmugMug, and spreading the word on wireless memory cards at Eye-Fi.

Caroline has been a speaker at CES, Macworld, SXSW, and Mobile Mondays in Silicon Valley. She is a University of California, Berkeley alumna (go bears!) and has a Masters in Linguistics. She speaks on a wide range of topics related to imaging technology, including face recognition, Internet of Things, and connected home. Past engagements include Macworld, CES, CTIA, SXSW and Mobile Mondays.

World's Top Honors for Working Women to Be Presented in New York on November 14

Finalists were announced today in the 11th 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 14. More than 300 women and their guests from around the world are expected to attend the presentations, which will be broadcast live by Biz Talk Radio and taped for a later television broadcast.

More than 1,200 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, Women Helping Women, and Communications Campaign of the Year.

Among the leading contenders with multiple Finalists are Accenture, Chicago, IL; AT&T, Dallas, TX; Australian Innovative Systems, Brisbane, Australia; Craig Safety Technologies, Kansas City, MO; Creative Lodging Solutions, Lexington, KY; Dubai Police General Headquarters, United Arab Emirates; Ellison Educational Equipment, Lake Forest, CA; Gabriel Marketing Group, Reston, VA; Hewlett-Packard Company, Sunnyvale, CA; Home Rental Services, Overland Park, KS; iFinance Canada Inc., Toronto; Jeunesse Global, Orlando, FL; KC Projects, Birmingham, AL; LLORENTE Y CUENCA, Madrid, Spain; Marketing Maven, Camarillo, CA; MWW, East Rutherford, NJ; National Merchants Association, Temecula, CA; NEI Global Relocation, Omaha, NE; Nerium International, Addison, TX; Newberry Executive Solutions, LLC, Dallas, TX; Pink Elephant, Burlington, ON Canada; PPC Ltd, Johannesburg, South Africa; RezBiz, LLC, Estero, FL; Smartling, New York, NY; Wisdom Natural Brands, Gilbert, AZ; and Xceed Financial Credit Union, El Segundo, CA.

For a complete list of Finalists by category, visit http://www.stevieawards.com/Women.

Finalists were chosen by more than 100 business professionals worldwide during preliminary judging. Members of five specialized judging committees will determine the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists during final judging that begins on October 20.

About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, and a new program, the German Stevie Awards. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.