Shining a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations run by women, winners in the 2018 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business were announced on Friday, November 16.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business is an international competition produced by the creators of the prestigious International Business Awards® and American Business Awards®. The Stevie is widely considered to be the world’s premier business award.

With more than 500 businesswomen and their guests in attendance, the awards were announced at a gala dinner at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel. Nations represented at the event included Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Switzerland, U.S.A., United Kingdom, and Vietnam, among others.

The presentations were broadcast live worldwide.

More than 1,500 nominations from organizations and individuals in 33 nations were submitted to the awards this year for consideration in categories including Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Startup of the Year, among others. Winners were chosen by more than 200 business professionals working in six specialized judging committees to determine the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award placements.

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

The Grand Stevie Award winners are:

• Award Winning Accelerator, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia (#1)
• Plan International Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada (#2)
• DP DHL, worldwide (#3)
• The Female Social Network, Sydney, NSW, Australia (#4)
• Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India (#5)

Notable Gold Stevie Award winners in this year’s competition include:

• Aflac, Columbus, GA USA — Communications or PR Campaign of the Year — Reputation/Brand Management
• Bon Choix Couture, Glendale, CA USA — Company of the Year – Business Services – 10 or Less Employees
• Dee Hutchinson, Founder of Dee Hutchinson Talent Development Ltd, Waterford, Ireland — Mentor or Coach of the Year — Business
• Laurie LaPat-Polasko, Vice President/National Director of Remediation, Matrix New World Engineering, Florham Park, NJ — Woman of the Year — Technology
• PotomacWave, Alexandria, VA USA — Fastest Growing Company of the Year
• Caroline Riseboro, President & CEO, Plan International Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada — Women Helping Women — Government or Non-Profit
• HK Strategies, Mexico City, Mexico — Communications or PR Campaign of the Year — Public Service
• Ashley Harris, CEO, LoveBug Probiotics, New York, NY — Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Products – 10 or Less Employees
• Anne-Lise Dorry, Senior Director of Corporate Finance Products, Thomson Reuters, New York, NY — Employee of the Year — Business
• Esther Rovira, CEO, CasaAPP, Barcelona, Spain — Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Europe, the Middle East & Africa
• Sykes Enterprises, Tampa, FL USA — Achievement in Developing and Promoting Women
• PharmaLogics Recruiting, Quincy, MA USA — Achievement in Equal Pay

The 2018 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflect a diverse group of large and small organizations from around the globe. Organizations that won more than one Gold Stevie Award include Dignity Health, iTalent Digital, Jeunesse Global, LoveBug Probiotics, Plan International Canada, Simpson Healthcare Executives, The Cura Foundation, Thomson Reuters, and Tick Tock Boom Digital Agency.

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

Entries for the 2019 edition of the awards will open in May.

After spending weeks scanning job listings and showing up as your best-dressed self to job interviews, you’ve finally come across the perfect role. You exceed the requirements, and you have a lot of relevant experience, as well as the soft skills the company is after.

All that’s left is a return phone call saying, “Come on by to discuss your employment with us!”

That call never comes though. Why is that? Could it be because your last name isn’t something like Smith?

The immigrant workforce, visible minorities, women, and historically overlooked groups have demonstrated increased success when a company hires more diverse workers.

Attracting—and especially retaining—a diverse workforce should be an important focus for employers in all sectors.

Progressive HR and recruiting companies like career.place aim to remove biases one hire at a time.

Formed in 2016, career.place has been diversifying hiring processes and compliance through a SaaS-based solution that put applicants through an anonymous, consistent, and semi-automated hiring funnel. Using the software, employers advance anonymous candidates who meet the company’s needs and remove those who simply don’t qualify. This technology helps applicants demonstrate they are qualified for positions, and the right people can move forward to the final stage in the hiring process.

Career.Place won three Bronze Stevie® Awards including Woman of the Year in Business Services Industries, Startup of the Year in Business Services Industries, and Entrepreneur of the Year in Computer Software in The American Business Awards®.

The Paradox of Hiring: Anonymity Brings Back Humanity

Melissa Dobbins, founder and CEO of career.place, built the company on the simple premise – bias has no place in hiring. Job seekers and employers are noticing her company’s unique approach; which starts by defining the needs of the job, and anonymously evaluating candidates against those needs, thereby focusing on what matters without the distractions of what is not.

Of course, diversity and compliance are in the news a lot, and this has perfectly positioned companies like career.place to solve the diversity-related problems companies are having now or will potentially have.

Career.Place has created a software solution where applicants are evaluated based on the employer’s criteria, including criteria such as requirements, soft skills (measured by integrated assessments), and responses to job-scenario and situational questions. All unrelated information about the applicants are hidden including name, education, titles, and other biasing information typically found on a resume – think “The Voice” but for applicants. The process is efficient, fair, and eliminates the need for time consuming resume and phone screens.

“Ironically by removing applicant identities, including their gender, age, ethnicity, favorite sports team, and other biasing and irrelevant information, we are giving applicants their voices back.” says Dobbins. “Imagine the great talent overlooked because of details like not knowing the right keywords to get through an automatic filter or having a gap in work history. By removing that information, and replacing it with information like qualifications, soft-skill assessments, and responses to job scenario questions, great talent will stand out because they are great.”

Change agents driving for a better tomorrow

Organizations gain valuable perspectives from diverse talent. There are many reports and studies that show diversity is good for business, but fundamentally, it just makes sense – companies will more effectively sell, support, and engage with a market if they reflect the full diversity of that market. Unfortunately, conscious and unconscious biases get in our way, constantly nudging us to hire others like us, rather than those who are best for the role, the company, and the mission. Dobbins details her experiences dealing with this before starting her company.

“When applying for jobs, I have been asked some very odd questions that I suspect my male counterparts have not had to deal with. For example, probing questions about if I would leave work to pick up my child if she were sick– indecently, that line of questioning is illegal. I have been asked if I could fire people because it is emotionally difficult, if I could handle difficult personalities, and if I would be interested in a single contributor role (i.e. a demotion) before being evaluated for the position at hand. What do you think my experiences would be like if those who interviewed me didn’t know I was a woman? What would your experiences be like if in your next job application the company doesn’t know what you are – just what value you bring?”

“These stories are universal. I have never met anyone who hasn’t experienced bias in one form or another,” continues Dobbins. “For me, I became obsessed with becoming part of the solution – a way for people to be evaluated fairly and consistently based on their skills and qualifications, and not assumptions made based on what they look like or what’s on a resume. And so career.place was born.”

A diverse workforce is good for business, good for communities, and good for the employees. There is no silver bullet for creating a diverse, engaged workforce. It is a future that will take many change agents – from entrepreneurs, like Dobbins, who are creating solutions to support unbiased hiring to those who are engaging and cultivating talent across every demographic group. Together we will succeed and the impact will be profound.

For more information about Melissa Dobbins or career.place, go to www.career.place.

https://www.career.place/single-post/2018/03/19/Do-Not-Hinder-Diversity-with-Bias-in-your-Hiring-Process-Have-a-Plan

World’s Top Honors for Women Professionals to Be Presented in New York on November 16, with First Edition of Women|Future Conference

Finalists were announced today in the 15th 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 placements from among the Finalists will be announced at an awards dinner at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel in New York City on Friday, November 16. More than 600 women and their guests from around the world are expected to attend the presentations, which will be broadcast live on Livestream.

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

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business event will be complemented by a new one-day educational and networking event called the Women|Future Conference, also at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel on November 16.  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 around the world for consideration in more than 90 categories including Executive of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Startup of the Year, Women Helping Women and Women-Run Workplace of the Year.  New categories for 2018 included Achievement in Equal Pay, Achievement in Developing and Promoting Women, and Achievement in Promoting Work-Life Balance.

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: Award Winning Accelerator, Brisbane, QLD, Australia; Bob Woodruff Foundation, New York, NY, USA; DHL Express, worldwide; The Female Social Network, Sydney, NSW, Australia;  iTalent Digital, San Jose, CA, USA; Jeunesse Global, Lake Mary, FL, USA; Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), Englewood, CO, USA; Oceans 2 Earth Volunteers, Kenmore East, QLD, Australia; Plan International Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada, Simpson Healthcare Executives, LLC, Old Lyme, CT, USA; Tata Consultancy Services, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India; Tavuun Welfare Association, Karachi, Pakistan; The Welsh Air Ambulance Charitable Trust, Llanelli, Wales, United Kingdom; and Zingbox, Inc. Mountain View, CA, USA.

Nominations were submitted by organizations in 33 nations including Angola, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jordan, Kenya, Maldives, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 200 professionals around the world, organized in five juries.

Trade shows and conferences can be great opportunities for businesses to meet prospects—but they can also be crowded places where exhibitors find themselves in competition with hundreds or even thousands of other companies to catch the eye of attendees.

That’s why many exhibitors hire experts like Live Marketing, a U.S. firm that specializes in creating memorable experiences. For example, a food ingredient developer enlisted them when it sought to create a buzz around its newest solutions at an important industry event. Live Marketing’s answer: RFID sensors to trigger an interactive, multi-screen display when guests “pick and place” various food items, a novel approach that helped the client exceed its lead-generation goal.

For a medical device maker, the team created a unique conference display featuring a glass-encased laboratory dotted with scannable hotspots that let the visitor experience its products firsthand. Each interaction prompted a brief video or augmented reality sequence, resulting in an immersive tour through the lab.

Underpinning those examples, and many other projects, is a reliance on technology to push the boundaries of what a live corporate event can be. It’s an approach that Anne Trompeter, then a 10-year veteran of the Chicago-area firm, brought to the forefront when she bought Live Marketing in 2014.

The organization has long had a prominent position within the world of corporate events. Launched in the 1970s, the agency was a pioneer in the experiential marketing industry. It was the brain trust that helped introduce the Intel Pentium processor and the world’s first flip phone to the marketplace.

When she took the reins four years ago, Trompeter’s goal was to make sure the firm didn’t grow stale. “I bought Live Marketing from its original founder with a clear vision to reinvigorate and refresh the company to be relevant for today’s sophisticated experiential marketing and technology-activated approaches,” she says.

In a short period of time, she’s helped make that vision a reality. The company has won numerous industry awards for its innovative, tech-based exhibits, and Trompeter recently garnered the Silver Stevie® award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in The 2017 American Business Awards.

A Team Effort

Breathing new life into the agency hasn’t been a solo task, something Trompeter readily acknowledges.

One of the changes she made early on was to get the most out of what she saw as untapped potential within the staff. “I’ve shifted our creative process so we are all challenged to bring in new engagement ideas on a regular basis,” she explains.

She’s also put a premium on helping employees grow, either within their role or in new positions. In one instance, a member of the marketing team expressed an interest in being a producer, a job with which she had little experience. Not wanting to lose one of her valued employees, Trompeter helped ease her into the new role over a period of 18 months. “By mid-2017, she was full-time producer and is very happy and productive,” the executive says.

In another instance, the executive leveraged an employee’s degree in theater management by moving him up into a production role. Once an assistant to Trompeter, he’s now a full-time creative director with a roster of his own clients for which he writes and develops concepts.

“I consider it an achievement to cultivate the very best team who feels appreciated and able to do their finest work at all times,” she says. “The way I do that is listening to my team members and making adjustments based on what I’m hearing.”

As if running a top-tier events marketing firm isn’t challenging enough, Trompeter does it while juggling a litany of other roles. Among them: parent, church choir member, and triathlete.

Rather than detracting from her business responsibilities, she says those outside endeavors help keep her energized. “Training for races and triathlons plus my overall commitment to fitness keeps me physically and mentally healthy,” she says. “I apply that same focus and drive to my business. But I recognize the importance of a healthy work-life balance, not just for me, but for everyone on my team.”

A breast cancer survivor, Trompeter uses her professional success to support cancer research and other philanthropic causes and encourages her employees to perform charitable work as well. “Several employees suggested giving back more specifically to the communities where our offices are located,” she says. “So beginning last year, each office identifies and does two hands-on charitable give-backs, like serving in local soup kitchens and doing food distribution.”

“In 2018, our theme is ‘Get Engaged’,” says Trompeter. “I feel strongly that now more than ever we have a responsibility to be civic-minded. Getting more involved in our communities’ neediest populations is an immediate and personalized way to get engaged.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finding her passion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shining a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs and organizations run by women, winners in the 2017 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business  were announced on Friday, November 17.

See the full list of winners here.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business is an international competition produced by the creators of the prestigious International Business Awards and American Business Awards. The Stevie is widely considered to be the world’s premier business award.

With more than 500 businesswomen and their guests in attendance, the awards were announced at a gala dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Nations represented at the event include Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Germany, Iceland, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, U.S.A., and the United Kingdom.

The presentations were broadcast live worldwide.

More than 1,500 nominations from organizations and individuals in 25 nations were submitted to the awards this year for consideration in categories including Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Startup of the Year, among others. More than 170 professionals around the world participated in the judging process to determine the Finalists and then the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements.

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

•         FIS, Jacksonville, FL USA (#1)
•         Pink Elephant, Burlington, ON Canada (#2)
•         Jeunesse Global, Lake Mary, FL USA (#3)
•         Clariti Group, Brisbane, QLD Australia (#4 tie)
•         Accenture, Chicago, IL and New York, NY USA (#4 tie)

Notable Gold Stevie Award winners from this year’s competition include:

• Therese Tucker, Founder & CEO of BlackLine, Woodland Hills, CA USA - Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Services
• Martha Herrera, Corporate Director of Social Responsibility of CEMEX, Mexico City, Mexico - Most Innovative Woman of the Year – Industry
• Chargeback Gurus, McKinney, TX USA - Company of the Year – Business Products – More Than 10 Employees
• Good Food Enterprise Co., Ltd, Taipei, Taiwan - Startup of the Year - Consumer Services Industries 
• Huda Ali Al-Husaini, Head of Training and Studies for Jordan Engineers Association, Amman, Jordan - Employee of the Year - Government or Non-Profit
• Little Medical School, St. Louis, MO, USA – Best New Product or Service of the Year - Consumer Services
• Nissan North America, Franklin, TN USA - Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Marketing - Consumer Products
• Inga Hlín Pálsdóttir, Director of Creative Industries for Promote Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland - Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –11 to 2,500 Employees
• Allison Grafton, President and Partner of Rockwood Custom Homes, Calgary, AB Canada - Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Canada
• Sarah Lance, Founder of Sari Bari Private Limited, Kolkata, India - Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Asia, Australia or New Zealand
• Katlin Smith, CEO of Simple Mills, Chicago, IL USA - Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Products –11 to 2,500 Employees
• Michelle Visco Bauyon, CEO of The Alpha Enterprise, Cabuyao, Laguna, Philippines - Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Products –10 or Less Employees
• Jess Tomlin, President and CEO of The MATCH International Women's Fund, Ottawa, ON Canada - Most Innovative Woman of the Year - Government or Non-Profit

The 2017 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflect a diverse group of large and small organizations from around the globe. Organizations that won more than one Gold Stevie Award include Accenture, BioSafe Technologies, Inc., Clariti Group, Envolve, Inc., FIS, Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, GingerMay PR, Jeunesse Global, Pink Elephant, Sari Bari Private Limited, Science Exchange, and The Author Incubator.

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

Entries for the 2018 edition of the awards will open in May.

The 2017 (14th annual) Stevie® Awards for Women in Business - the world's top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run - will be presented this Friday, November 17 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.  More than 525 nominees and their guests from more than 20 nations will attend for the announcement of the Grand, Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners.

The presentations will be broadcast live, beginning at 7:30 pm ET.

Here are the organizations that as of this writing will be represented at the event on Friday.

ActionCOACH Turkey
air events global
Albert
Allegis Global Solutions
ALOM
Amanda Hamilton Interior Design
AMN Healthcare Services Inc.
Amobee
Anchor Water Damage & Restoration
ARIIX
AT&T
Athene Solutions LLC
Bank Leumi USA
BBC Systems Inc. dba JVZoo
Bendalls Group
Beverly's Birthdays
BioSafe Technologies Inc.
Bishops Services Inc.
Business Tech Ninjas
CableLabs
Cake & Arrow
Care.com HomePay
CEMEX
Central Exchange
Chacka Marketing
Chargeback Gurus
Clariti Group
Coast Professional Inc.
Completely Yours Events
corecubed
Cosmique Global Inc
Cyber Human Capital
Delta Dental
Dignity Health
Dinner A'Fare
District of Columbia / Office of the Chief Technology Officer
Dr Pepper Snapple Group
Dr. Susan Harrison
DT Callis Seafood LLC
Durée & Company Inc.
Dynamic Dialog, Inc.
EHR Concepts
Emprint
engage2learn
Estee Lauder Inc.
Extreme Reach
EY
Fabric Innovations
FedEx Corporation
Fighting Golf
FIS
Flourish Nutritional Medicine
Forcepoint
Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
Full Sun International Co. LTD.
Galileo Research and Strategy Consultancy
GCG
GingerMay PR
Global Listings Limited
Global Upside Inc.
Glotel
Good Food Enterprise Co. Ltd
Goodwin Group PR
HCL
Heal
HealthEquity
Hemsworth Communications
HGS
HM Health Solutions
HR Authority Ministry of Interior Manama Kingdom of Bahrain
iCIMS
ICON plc
IEEE
Impact PR & Communications Ltd.
Improving
InAuth
Inspired Results Inc.
Institute of Women
JBJ Soul Kitchen
JDA Software
Jetlore
Jeunesse Global
JND Legal Administration
Jones Publishing (Citywealth)
Julie Cortes
Kaizen Technology Partners
Kenandy
Kindred BioScience
Kit Out Your Crib
KSJ & Associates
Learning Links Foundation
Lighthouse Worldwide Solutions
Little Medical School
Live Infinitely
Live Marketing
LoveBug Probiotics
Luckie & Company
Madwire®
MapR Technologies
Margaritaville Holdings
Maria Shireen
MarkLogic
Merck & Co. Inc.
NBCUniversal Inc.
New Directions for Women
Northrop Grumman
NRPR Group
Nu Skin Enterprises Inc.
Oncor Electric Delivery
One Purse One Planet
Other World Computing
Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc.
Panasonic
Paradigm Design Group
Pencil9
PeopleScout
Pink Elephant
Plan International Canada
PlanGrid
Pop2Life
Proforma 4D Marketing
Promote Iceland
Publicity Genie
Rahab's Daughters
Randa Habelrih
Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems
REACH, LLC
RealtyMogul
Recipe4Change P/L
Red Hat
ReSound
Romanoff Consultants
RV Rental Connection Inc.
SABIC
SAP
SAP SE
Sari Bari Private Limited
School District of Palm Beach County
Selling Energy
Sharon Merrill Associates
She Prosperity
Shire Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Simpson Healthcare Executives LLC
Socialfly
Songpa-gu
Space Kidz
Spotted Inc.
Staples Inc.
STARLINKS PR and Events
Stewart A Xerox Company
Strategati LLC
Susan Davis International
Swiss Post Solutions
Tavuu Welfare Association
TeamPeople
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited
The Alpha Enterprise
The Freelance Exchange
The Giggling Pig
The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR)
The Juniper Center
The Mane Choice
TIAA
Transitions in Progress LLC
Travelzoo
Triple A Financial Services Pty Ltd
True Value Company
Turner
Turner/CNN Digital
Ultimate Business Propellor
UnitedHealthcare
University of Wisconsin Health
ValueSelling Associates
Verizon
Vistra Energy
WDS Marketing & PR
Widows of Opportunity
Williams Law Group LLC
Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.
Woodcliff Realty Advisors LLC
YouEarnedIt
Ziegler
ZingBox

The 2018 edition of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business will open for entries in May.  Join the mailing list and the 2018 entry kit will be emailed to you as soon as it is available.

Helping leading global companies turn strategy into results takes careful consideration and extensive experience. However, making that process fun, powerful, and lasting, to make an impact on the people and their careers can be one of the most challenging hurdles to overcome. BTS is a global professional services firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden with 500 professionals in 33 offices on six continents, inspiring new ways of thinking, building critical capabilities, and unleashing business success. Jessica Parisi, President & CEO of BTS USA, has been named the winner of a Bronze Stevie Award The 2017 International Business Awards for the Woman of the Year category.

The Industry Gold Standard

As a management consulting company, BTS always strives to focus on working with leaders at all levels to help them make better decisions, convert those decisions to actions, and deliver results. Hannah Reeve, the Associate Marketing Manager at BTS, comments on the recent attention BTS has received due to their history of success.

“BTS has had a record year, with tremendous growth and significant improvements to the bottom-line, and continues to set the industry gold standard in terms of innovative, scalable, impactful client work. This expertise and impact is widely recognized, with BTS USA being named both a 2017 Top 20 Leadership Training Company and a 2017 Top 20 Sales Training Company for the first time ever, and our Changr and Pulse digital tools winning Gold and Silver Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, respectively.”

Some of the services BTS offers include:

• Assessment centers for talent selection and development
• Strategy alignment and execution
• Business acumen, leadership and sales training programs
• On-the-job business simulations and application tools.

They partner with nearly 450 organizations, including over 30 of the world’s 100 largest global corporations. Some of their major clients include: Microsoft, SAP, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Volvo Group, Citigroup, Salesforce, Tencent and Novartis.

The Best Work of Their Lives

BTS winning a Stevie Award has been a symbol of international recognition of Jessica Parisi's powerful influence and positive impact on BTS and their client organizations globally. Hannah Reeve believes it is, “an honor that does nothing but bolster the reputation of both BTS and Jessica in the public eye, and has been incredibly beneficial in getting increased attention to Jessica's achievements as a leader and insightful point of view.”

Jessica Parisi has since been interviewed by magazines such as Entrepreneur..

As a woman CEO in a male-dominated industry, Jessica Parisi has demonstrated remarkable growth, achievement, and passion for her work. Throughout her 18-year career at BTS, Parisi has pioneered turning strategy into action through the use of customized business simulations and other experiential learning techniques for leading Fortune 500 clients.

Jessica also evolved BTS USA from a female to male consultant ratio of 18% to 82% and 44% to 56%. Engaging with every individual throughout the organization on a personal level, Jessica embodies the “Multiplier” leader and sets the direction for the organization as she strives to provide all employees the opportunity to “do the best work of their lives and have fun while doing it.”

No Fear Needed to Disrupt an Industry

The learning and development space is changing tremendously, with increased emphasis on virtual learning formats, digital technology, and equipping people with the skills and mindset needed to lead through transformation.

“Clients across industries are all combating enormous change and shifts in their spaces” says Reeves, “More and more are turning to programs that will help their people learn the leadership skills, innovation capabilities, and strategic agility required to be successful moving forward.”

At their core, BTS believes people learn best by doing. For 30 years, they’ve inspired new ways of thinking, building critical capabilities and unleashing business success.

Jessica Parisi wants people to know that, "it's not scary to do something different and new – it's exciting. BTS has a history of being disruptive, and I want us to continue that. It’s so much more fun when we are the disruptor.”

We know, summer's almost over and you're getting back into the swing of things. Whatever the reason, you didn't get around to submitting entries to this year's Stevie Awards for Women in Business. But you've gotten a reprieve. We have some tips on how you can submit your nominations in as little time as possible. 

The last day final entries wil be accepted is Wednesday, September 20.

If your women-owned organization deserves to be recognized, surely you can find 10 free minutes. Because in 10 minutes you can prepare and submit an entry to the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and potentially win a Stevie®, one of the most coveted trophies on the planet.

Here are a number of ways you can do that:

Repurpose Nominations From Other Awards Programs
The submission requirements are fairly open-ended, and there's a wide variety of categories to choose from. If you've entered any other awards programs this year, simply repurpose the nominations you wrote for those competitions, as long as they qualify as being run by women. Most categories require only the submission of an essay of up to 525 words and an optional collection of supporting files and web addresses to support your entry and provide more background information.

Repurpose Your Press Releases and White Papers
It's likely you've already done the heavy-lifting of describing your organization's achievements, your innovations, your new products and services, your marketing and PR campaigns, etc. Throughout the year you've been trumpeting your successes through press releases and white papers. Simply comb through your output over the past year and cobble together the text you've already written into a short essay. Note that the 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business will recognize your achievements since the middle of 2016.

Repurpose Your Press Clippings
With every nomination you have the option to attach any number of press clippings, work samples, video clips, photographs, etc. to your essay, to help paint the picture for the judges. Does one or more of your press clippings feature a compelling story that can be the basis of the essay for your Stevie Awards for Women in Business nomination? There's no need to reinvent the wheel if it already exists and you can reuse it.

Hire a Consultant
Did you know that there are a number of consultancies that specialize in preparing and submitting awards nominations on behalf of their clients? There are quite a few in the U.S.A., and internationally and they've been remarkably successful over the years in winning Stevie Awards for their clients. Contact us if you'd like a referral to one of them who can take the process of getting entries into the Stevie Awards for Women in Business off your hands this week.

Submit Media Work
Sometimes you hope to win a Stevie for a specific reason - for a major achievement, or a member of your team - but you can also win a Stevie Award for specific media work. If that's the case, take a look at the categories for videos, apps, websites, publications, and live events. It's really easy to enter these categories. These categories generally require only a short essay of up to 200 words, describing the nominated work's purpose and results to date, and the nominated video or app, etc., itself.

Resubmit a Nomination From Another Stevie Awards Program
Did you have success with a nomination in the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, or The American Business Awards? One Stevie Awards competition has nothing to do with another, and resubmitting a nomination from one program to this year's Stevie Awards for Women in Business is a valid strategy followed by many organizations.

Contact Us for Help
You'll save a lot of time by letting us do some of the important work for you. We'll save you the trouble of plowing through our category lists to find the category that's right for you, for example. Contact us, by email at help@stevieawards or telephone at +1 703-547-8389. Tell us what your organization wants to be recognized for, and we'll suggest the best category for your nomination.

Whichever strategy you choose to get your nominations written and submitted this week, do get them submitted by the final entry deadline of Wednesday, September 20.

Ready to Enter the 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business?