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?

All Female Entrepreneurs, Executives and Employees Worldwide Are Eligible

The Stevie® Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, has issued the call for entries for its 2017 (14^th annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Entry kits and complete details on the competition are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

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

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor the achievements of working women in more than 85 categories, including: Best Entrepreneur, Best Executive, Mentor or Coach of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award, Women Helping Women, Employee of the Year, Woman-Owned or -Run Company of the Year and Innovator of the Year. All female entrepreneurs, executives, employees and the organizations they run, worldwide, are eligible to be nominated.

The final entry deadline is August 23, but late entries will be accepted through September 20 with payment of a late fee. Finalists will be announced on October 4, and the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie winners will be revealed at a gala awards dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on November 17, 2017.    

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

Niamh Barker, founder and managing director of The Travelwrap Company in the UK, commented on the impact of her win. “Winning the Stevie Award was an enormous achievement for me and my business and continues to prove beneficial to our operations every day. I had no idea of the impact that winning this award would have on our business until I checked my email from my hotel room the next morning and online orders had flooded in from across the USA. We now have a growing and loyal customer base in America via online and retail outlets. The Stevie Awards have definitely helped elevate our U.S. presence.”

Winners of the 2016 Stevie Awards for Women in Business include, among others: 

• Mina Lux, Founder and CEO, Meelo, New York, NY
• Rakefet Russak-Aminoach, President and CEO, Bank Leumi, Tel-Aviv, Israel
• Yvonne Mei, Executive Vice Chairman of World System Builder, World Financial Group, San Jose, CA
• Ellie Hollander, President and CEO, Meals on Wheels America, Arlington, VA
• Nyree McKenzie, Managing Director and Principal Consultant, Thought Bubble, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
• Astha Malik, VP of Marketing, PagerDuty, San Francisco, CA
• Teresa White, President, Aflac U.S., Columbus, GA
• TAPfit, Queensland, Australia
• Prelude, London, UK
• Humana Insurance, Louisville, KY
• Century 21 Real Estate, Madison, NJ

The 2016 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflected a diverse group of large and small organizations around the globe. The 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business will be judged by more than 200 leading professionals around the world, and nominees will have access to all of the judges’ comments and suggestions about their nominations: an invaluable resource.

The 14th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, the world’s top honors for women entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run, is now accepting entries. All organizations and individuals worldwide are eligible to submit nominations.

The early-bird entry deadline, with discounted entry fees, is July 19. The final deadline is August 23, but late entries will be accepted through September 20 with payment of a late fee.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE

Learn about what’s new and different in the 2017 edition of the awards.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business offers categories for every aspect of the women-run workplace.

Today we will feature the Individual Awards categories. 

These categories will recognize the achievements since July 1, 2016 of individual female entrepreneurs, executives and employees.

Entries to these categories require the following:
1. An essay of up to 525 words describing the nominated individual's achievements in the category since July 1, 2016
2. A biography of up to 125 words of the nominee
3. Optional (but highly recommended), a collection of supporting files and web addresses that you may upload to our server to support your entry and provide more background information to the judges.

The entrepreneur categories are for women who founded their organizations. The executive categories are for women who run all or some part organizations founded by others. Employee totals are for the entire organization.

1. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Products –10 or Less Employees
2. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Products –11 to 2,500 Employees
3. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Products –More Than 2,500 Employees
4. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Services –10 or Less Employees
5. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Services –11 to 2,500 Employees
6. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Services –More Than 2,500 Employees
7. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Products –10 or Less Employees
8. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Products –11 to 2,500 Employees
9. Female Entrepreneur of the Year– Consumer Products –More Than 2,500 Employees
10. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Services –10 or Less Employees
11. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Services –11 to 2,500 Employees
12. Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Services –More Than 2,500 Employees
13. Female Solo Entrepreneur of the Year: new category for 2017.  This category will recognize the achievements of women business owners who work alone.
14. Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –10 or Less Employees (this category has no entry fee)
15. Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –11 to 2,500 Employees (this category has no entry fee)
16. Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –More Than 2,500 Employees (this category has no entry fee)
17. Female Executive of the Year – Business Products –10 or Less Employees
18. Female Executive of the Year – Business Products –11 to 2,500 Employees
19. Female Executive of the Year – Business Products –More Than 2,500 Employees
20. Female Executive of the Year – Business Services –10 or Less Employees
21. Female Executive of the Year – Business Services –11 to 2,500 Employees
22. Female Executive of the Year – Business Services –More Than 2,500 Employees
23. Female Executive of the Year – Consumer Products –10 or Less Employees
24 .Female Executive of the Year – Consumer Products –11 to 2,500 Employees
25. Female Executive of the Year– Consumer Products –More Than 2,500 Employees
26. Female Executive of the Year – Consumer Services –10 or Less Employees
27. Female Executive of the Year – Consumer Services –11 to 2,500 Employees
28. Female Executive of the Year – Consumer Services –More Than 2,500 Employees
29. Female Executive of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –10 or Less Employees (this category has no entry fee)
30. Female Executive of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –11 to 2,500 Employees (this category has no entry fee)
31. Female Executive of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –More Than 2,500 Employees (this category has no entry fee)

32. Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Asia, Australia or New Zealand
33. Female Executive of the Year in Asia, Australia or New Zealand
34. Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Canada
35. Female Executive of the Year in Canada
36. Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Europe, the Middle East & Africa
37. Female Executive of the Year in Europe, the Middle East & Africa
38. Female Entrepreneur or Executive of the Year in Mexico, Central & South America

39. Most Innovative Woman of the Year: new categories for 2017.  These categories will recognize individual women for the innovations they initiated, developed, or launched since the beginning of July 2016.  Choose the category that corresponds to your nominee's industry, not her job function.
       a. Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations
       b. Business Services
       c. Franchising
       d. Industry
       e. Government or Non-Profit
       f. Manufacturing
       g. Technology

40. Young Female Entrepreneur of the Year: This category will recognize the achievements of female entrepreneurs under the age of 30.

41. Maverick of the Year: This category will recognize the achievements of female individuals who have affected positive change on their companies and/or industries. 

42. Lifetime Achievement – Business
43. Lifetime Achievement – Government or Non-Profit

These categories will recognize individual executives and entrepreneurs who have achieved accomplishments of significance over their entire careers. There is no eligibility period requirement for these categories.

44. Mentor or Coach of the Year – Business
45. Mentor or Coach of the Year – Government or Non-Profit

These categories will recognize the achievements of women who provided support and guidance to other women in the workplace.

46. Women Helping Women – Business
47. Women Helping Women – Government or Non-Profit

These categories will recognize the achievements of women who provided support and assistance to women in their communities.

48. Female Employee of the Year: This category will recognize the achievements of non-executive female employees. There is no entry fee for this category.
       a. Business
       b. Government or Non-Profit

49. Woman of the Year: These categories will recognize individual women, regardless of their titles, positions, or entrepreneurial or executive status, for their achievements since July 1, 2016, in the following industry sectors.  Choose the category that corresponds to your nominee's industry, not her job function.
       a. Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations
       b. Business Services
       c. Franchising
       d. Industry
       e. Government or Non-Profit
       f. Manufacturing
       g. Technology

For years, ElsaMarie D’Silva kept the incident a secret. She was travelling with her mother and siblings on a crowded train in Mumbai when she felt a stranger grope her pelvic area.

Yet the girl, just 13 years of age at the time, had no way of getting help. She couldn’t scream amid the cacophony of sounds in the train compartment. She couldn’t even raise her arms to bat the man away, since they were pressed down against a sea of fellow travelers.

The assault put an indelible scar on D’Silva. In the years that followed, she’d avoid city trains whenever possible, opting for more time-consuming routes to reach her destination.

And yet, like many victims of sexual assault, she didn’t feel comfortable telling anyone. “I filed it at the back of my mind and moved on with life in the best way I knew how to,” she explained during a 2015 Ted Talk.

That is, until a particularly horrifying event shook the country of India ‒ and the rest of the globe ‒ in 2012. It was then that a 23-year-old physical therapy student from Delhi, accompanied by a male friend, was so brutally raped by a group of young assailants that she later died from her injuries.

By then a 20-year veteran of the aviation industry, D’Silva knew she couldn’t remain quiet about her own story any longer. She decided to use the very tool that helped her coordinate 500 flights each day as an airline executive to help combat the problem of sexual assault in India: data.

Her solution was an app called Safecity, which allows women and young girls to report incidents of everything from rape to indecent exposure and unwanted picture-taking. It also provided a comments section where females can share their stories of violence and provide mutual support.

The data, she says, can help law enforcement officials and community leaders to focus on “hotspots” where this type of behavior seems to emanate. And, crucially, it also helps hold law enforcement accountable if those problem areas aren’t addressed. “My challenge with SafeCity is to actually get people to question the status quo,” D’Silva told her Ted Talk audience.

D’Silva has already garnered numerous plaudits for her venture, including the 2016 Gold Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year. More importantly, the company she founded is making a big impact throughout some of India’s most populated cities.

The 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the top awards for women entrepreneurs, executives, and employees around the world, opens for entries on May 22. Request the entry kit here.

In Mumbai, for example, local police have altered their patrols to counteract hotspots. And in Delhi, city leaders have increased the availability of public restrooms, alleviating the opportunity for predators to abuse women who otherwise had no choice but to relieve themselves outdoors.

The technology is also making it possible to confront problems in more novel ways. For instance, crowdsourced data revealed a tea stall in Delhi where men would loiter and stare in an intimidating fashion at girls as they passed by.

Once that trend became known, a community group hired a local artist to paint a mural outside the tea stand featuring eyes that glare back at the male customers. It has a sign that, in translation, reads “Look with your heart and not with your eyes.” As a result, D’Silva says, the menacing behavior has been significantly reduced.

Because of stories like the horrific incident in 2012, India has developed an outsized reputation for sexual violence. But D’Silva says it’s important to realize that there’s actually a much wider phenomenon that needs to be addressed globally.  She uses a startling statistic from UN Women to make her point: 1 in 3 females, the organization finds, will encounter some type of sexual assault in their lifetime.

Indeed, the market for Safecity has grown beyond India’s borders to countries like Kenya, Cameroon and Nepal. The company is even getting reports from western cities like New York and London. In total, it’s gathered information on more than 10,000 incidents of sexual assault and intimidation.

The more the tool spreads, the closer D’Silva believes cities will get to achieving true gender equality. “We need to create a world where every girl can walk down the street without fear of being intimidated and where every woman has an equal opportunity to a quality life,” she said.

At a time when businesses have access to more data ‒ from more sources ‒ than ever before, Mina Lux believes the ability to better understand that information will be crucial to future success. That’s precisely the challenge that Lux, who just took home the Gold Stevie Award in the 2016 Stevie Awards for Women in Business for Female Entrepreneur of the Year, is trying to address.

The 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business will open for entries on May 22. These are the top awards for women across the globe. The program features entrepreneur awards, company awards, marketing awards, media awards, and more.

Request the entry kit now and it will be emailed to you in May.

Her young New York City-based firm, Meelo Logic, Inc., enables companies to aggregate data and gain insights through artificial intelligence. As a result, clients can “understand, activate, engage and motivate customers” more effectively.

It’s an endeavor that could fundamentally reshape the way companies interact with data. And yet the Taiwan native, who grew up in Canada, has an even more ambitious goal: to break down the longstanding gender gap within the tech industry.

She’s trying to tackle the issue by mentoring young females and calling attention to the issue at industry events. “Throughout my career, I’ve had the good fortune of supporting young women in their careers by offering them guidance and opportunities in organizations that are often dominated by men,” Lux says.

The under-representation of women is underscored by a 2015 TechCrunch report, which found that only 18% of technology companies had a female founder. That’s up from less than 10% as recently as 2009. The forces behind that phenomenon are numerous.  But for Lux and other women in the industry, there’s still plenty of work to do.

Certainly, having fewer female role models to follow has kept many young women from studying in computer science or engineering programs. Those who do pursue STEM-related degrees often find unique obstacles when they try to launch startups of their own. In part that’s because early-stage investment firms are themselves a “boy’s club,” according to researchers.

A joint survey by the National Venture Capital Association and Deloitte, for example, found that women make up just 11% of top decision-makers at venture capital firms. And, there are plenty of entrepreneurs who say that creates a bias ‒ whether consciously or not ‒ against female-led organizations.

To overcome those hurdles, Lux suggests it’s important for females to not only have the necessary skills, but the confidence to see their goals through. It’s a point she drove home during an International Women’s Day event at her alma mater, the University of Ottawa.

“We discussed the steps of building a company from recognizing a need, dreaming up a solution, solidifying funding, running a company and confronting challenges head on,” she says. “But most of all, I wanted to highlight the importance of never undervaluing your own brilliance and to believe in yourself.”

Breaking Barriers

Cracking the glass ceiling is something Lux has successfully done time and again. After graduating with a dual biochemistry and chemical engineering degree, she changed course and helped co-found a marketing company called FloNetwork. There, she pioneered the first technology platform that allowed businesses to send emails as a way of generating leads and building revenue. She ended up selling the business to DoubleClick for a staggering $80 million in 2001.

After a distinguished consulting career where she tackled digital marketing for the likes of USA Today and Doubleday Book Club, she decided to start a new technology firm that would help businesses strategize based on real-time consumer data and behaviour prediction. Meelo was born.

Already, the company is gaining serious attention from the tech world. Among its accomplishments: beating out thousands of early-stage firms to win the 2016 TiE50 Top Startup award. 

“[Meelo] is the only company that holds partnerships with the two largest think tanks in the cognitive technology and artificial intelligence: IBM Watson and Caltech/Jet Propulsion Labs,” Lux explains. “Meelo uses both think tanks to solve any problem and provide intelligence for any need." 

In order to deploy the technology effectively, she says it’s vital that the organization bring in contributions from a diverse pool of talent.

Lux says, “At Meelo, all voices are heard, all talents are valued and all have an equal opportunity to succeed.”

An interview with Etsuko Tsugihara, President of Sunny Side Up, Inc.

Stevie Award-winner, Sunny Side Up, Inc of Tokyo, Japan won a Gold Stevie Award in the 2016 Stevie Awards for Women in Business for Women-Run Workplace of the Year.  President and CEO Etsuko Tsugihara also won the Silver Stevie for Female Executive of the Year in Asia, Australia or New Zealand.  Tsugihara shares what winning the Stevie Awards this year meant to the organization.

The 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business will open for entries in May. If your organization has operations in Japan or any of  the 22 nations of the Asia-Pacific region, you may participate in the 2017 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

What does Sunny Side Up, Inc., do?

We are a multi-faceted Public Relations firm offering a wide range of services from standard PR and marketing, to Sports Marketing, Casting, Digital Marketing, Business Development, Media Relations, Sales Promotion and more. Recently, we've expanded our services globally and our strength is in assisting foreign companies entering the Japanese market.

What is the organizational vision?

Our company motto is "Let's have fun!" We seek to create a buzz by continuing to evolve and expand, in order to stay ahead of social and cultural trends.

What sets your company apart in this category?

Japan is still a very conservative business culture with many challenges for women. For instance, less than 1% of the 3000 companies listed on the Japanese stock exchange are run by women. In fact, I may be the only female Founder! The Japanese government has a target to increase the number of women executives drastically by 2020. In my own small way, it would be great if I'm able to encourage and inspire the future businesswomen of Japan.

How did you first become acquainted with the Stevies®?

Some of our global partner companies and clients had received an award, and we wanted to see if it applied to our company as well.

What was it like for your company to win this award?

It's quite exciting for the entire company because this is a joint effort. Our company is young (average age is less than 35), with more than half being female employees. I hope that the award will help motivate them even more!

How has the win affected your business?

We hope it increases our visibility so that people who see our fun name will associate it with Public Relations in Japan. Perhaps we'll also be able to attract new team members?

What changes in the industry does your team find interesting and why?

Having been in the PR business for more than 30 years, I've seen how we've changed drastically with the diversification of media. For a very long time, mass media meant TV, newspapers, magazines and radio, and we were able to gain exposure by establishing strong working relationships and ties with the major media sources. With the expansion of the internet and social media, even the source of news and how it’s generated has expanded. In fact, anyone can be the source of news/information. More than ever, it’s not important how much you spend, but how creative and original you can be in creating newsworthy information. Sunny Side Up is known for creating a buzz, so we're in perfect position to be the trendsetters!

What is the story behind your organization that might inspire our audience?

I started the company when I was 17, and not only have we managed to stay in business for more than 30 years, we've been listed on the local stock exchange since 2008.That's quite a feat when you consider less than 1% of Japanese companies last that long. I hope that more young and motivated people are inspired to break out on their own!

Learn more about Sunny Side Up. Inc.

World's Top Honors for Women Entrepreneurs, Executives, Employees and the Organizations They Run Were Presented in New York Before More than 500 Accomplished Women From Around the World

Shining a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations run by women, the Stevie® Awards for Women in Business announced the results of its 2016 competition on Friday, November 18.

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 Argentina, Australia, Canada, Croatia, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, South Africa, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.A.

The presentations were broadcast live via Livestream.

More than 1,400 nominations from organizations and individuals in 22 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 160 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:

•         PAIRELATIONS LLC, Centennial, CO USA (#1)
•         Accenture, Chicago, IL USA (#2)
•         WDS Marketing & Public Relations, Overland Park, KS USA (#3)
•         Jeunesse Global, Lake Mary, FL USA (#4)
•         Linqia, San Francisco, CA USA (#5)

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

• Shauna MacDonald, Principal and founder of Brookline Public Relations, Calgary, AB, Canada - Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Canada
• Viviana Zocco of Grupo Vi-Da, Buenos Aires, Argentina - Female Entrepreneur or Executive of the Year in Mexico, Central & South America
• Susan L. Abrams, CEO, Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, Skokie, IL - Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit
• LivingTree dba: Snowflake Technologies Inc., Austin, TX - Community Involvement Program of the Year
• Shyamala Soundari Kuppusamy, Senior Product Manager, Macy's Inc., San Francisco, CA - Employee of the Year - Business
• Bobbi Leach, CEO of RevenueWire Inc, Victoria, BC, Canada - Female Executive of the Year in Canada
• SUNNY SIDE UP, Inc. Tokyo, Japan - Women-Run Workplace of the Year - More Than 10 Employees
• TAPfit, Queensland, Australia - Startup of the Year - Consumer Products Industries
• TEARS Foundation, Sandton, South Africa - Organization of the Year – Government or Non-Profit– 10 or Less Employees
• Susan Ma, founder of Tropic Skin Care, Croydon, Surrey, United Kingdom - Young Female Entrepreneur of the Year
• Yvonne Mei, Executive Vice Chairman of World System Builder, World Financial Group, San Jose, CA, USA - Woman of the Year - Industry

The 2016 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, Cisco Systems, Inc., Enabled Employment, Final Salute Inc., Goldie Blox, Happy Family, Jeunesse Global, Linqia, Madison Services Group, Inc., Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), and RippleNami, Inc.

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

Entries for the 2017 edition of the awards will open next May.

The Stevie Awards are delighted to announce the  five distinguished women who will chair the final judging committees of the 2016 (13th annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business competition.

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

Finalists in this year's Stevie Awards for Women in Business were announced on
October 6.  Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie placements from among the Finalists will be determined in final judging, to begin October 17.  Results will be announced at the 13th annual awards dinner in New York on November 18.  Tickets are on sale now.

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/ENTREPRENEUR

Jo Wimble-Groves, Business Support Director
Active Digital, Lamberhurst, Kent, United Kingdom

Jo Wimble-Groves is co-owner of the successful Kent-based company Active Digital, an award-winning business mobile communications company, which she operates with her brother, Richard Groves. Jo has spent the last 20 years of her career working on customer experience and team strategy. Her commitment to delivering an exceptional level of service has led to a number of company awards. Active Digital was named as one of the “Top 6 Customer Service Business Leaders in Europe” at the European Contact Centre and Customer Service Awards in 2013. The company also won the Gold Stevie® Award for Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year - Technology Industries in the 2015 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Established in 1996, Active Digital clients include Olympic teams and rugby clubs. Its core business is providing mobile phones, tablets, fixed line, and apps to UK organizations of all sizes.

INDIVIDUAL/EXECUTIVE

Karen Justice, CEO
Just For Pets, Suffolk Park, New South Wales, Australia

An award-winning business leader, Karen Justice has owned and managed the Just for Pets buying group business based in Byron Bay since January 2009. As CEO, she liaises with over 65 independent pet retailers and most major manufacturers and suppliers to the pet industry on a daily basis. Karen keeps her finger on the pulse in this fast-changing industry.

Karen’s first job was as a vet nurse while she was still a teenager, which she did for four years before completing her Higher School Certificate and moving into the world of human health. She is a registered nurse who moved into private Child and Family Health Clinics when she started her own family. She managed a pharmacy for over eleven years, and then moved into the pet-care industry in 2005. After leaving the health industry completely, Karen owned and managed a pet shop for five years before taking on the challenge of a pet industry buying group.

Karen owns a beautiful Tiboodle (a cross between a Tibetan spaniel and a poodle) named Daisy, and a rescue cat named Sox, and is an avid marine fish enthusiast.

COMPANY/ORGANIZATION

Dr Ambreen Zaman Riaz, Founder
I Change Her Life, Lahore, Pakistan & Istanbul, Turkey

Dr Ambreen Zaman Riaz is a medical doctor, social entrepreneur, renaissance scholar, and polymath. She left her successful career as a cosmetic dermatologist to help disadvantaged women because she firmly believed that educated people needed to get actively involved in the social-service sector. Dr Zaman has worked as a volunteer for non-profits both in Pakistan and Turkey. This has further enhanced her enthusiasm to serve vulnerable and weak women.

Dr Zaman is an active advocate of women's rights and participates in highlighting the rights of Christian, Agha Khani, and non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan. Her commitment to change the lives of underprivileged women has enabled her to achieve the status of "change maker" in international circles.

PUBLIC RELATIONS/MARKETING/MEDIA

Mary Ann Henker, President
The Henker Group, Easton, Maryland, USA

Mary Ann Henker is president of The Henker Group, an integrated marketing communications firm serving clients up to the national level. She founded The Henker Group in 2005 to fully leverage her skills and experience to deliver powerful and proven results for companies and organizations. Prior to The Henker Group, Mary Ann was the executive director of the Giant Screen Theater Association, the worldwide association for the IMAX theater and film industry. In that role, she completed business and contract negotiations with individuals and companies in 22 countries. Her management and business style is that of aggressive marketing, detailed planning, and strict fiscal management.

Mary Ann has been a frequent judge for the marketing and communications categories of The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards and the Stevie® Awards for Women in Business. She has also been invited by A Billion + Change to participate in a forum at the White House. She is a past recipient of The Daily Record of Maryland's “Successful by 40 Award,” and has has been honored as a Business Woman of the Year by the Talbot County Chamber of Commerce. In addition to receiving a Stevie® Award for Women in Business, her company, The Henker Group, won Bronze Stevie® Awards in The  2016 American Business Awards for both Marketing Agency of the Year and Communications Department of the Year.

Currently, Mary Ann sits on the boards of Junior Achievement for Talbot County, Maryland, the Eastern Shore Experiential Learning Center, and The Cause Agency.  She is a graduate of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business, a Minor in Management, and a focus on employment law. She has completed courses towards a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas.

NEW PRODUCT & SERVICE

Fatima Cabral, CEO and co-founder
Pink Elephant, Burlington, Ontario, Canada

Since the founding of Pink Elephant in 1989, Fatima Cabral has been a driving force behind the success of Pink Elephant across Canada, North America, and Asia. After introducing ITIL® to North America and Asia in 1997, Pink Elephant established itself as a leading provider of IT Service Management conferences, education, and consulting services.

Fatima has received many awards, including ranking in the PROFIT W100 of Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs for eight successive years, a business award from the Federation of Portuguese-Canadian Business Professionals, and the Gold Stevie® for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in Canada in the 2015 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business.

Currently, Fatima and Pink Elephant are leading the way in the Lean IT Revolution–an essential certification that should be part of every IT professional’s toolkit.

You've been busy. Summer's 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 Friday, September 30.

We know, you're still busy. Your calendar this week is still chockablock. But 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 650 words and a bullet-list summary of the achievements portrayed in the essay.

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 2016 Stevie Awards for Women in Business will recognize your achievements since the middle of 2015.

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 125 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 Friday, September 30.

Ready to Enter the 2016 Stevie Awards for Women in Business?

Tania Hummel is Director of Thrive Coaching and Consulting in London, United Kingdom.  She assisted in judging the Company/Organization Awards categories for last year’s Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

The 2016 Stevie Awards for Women in Business is accepting late entries through the final entry deadline of Wednesday, September 21.  REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

Preliminary judging of the 2016 Awards has just commenced. Tania will be joining the final round of judging in October. If you are interested in being a judge this year, apply to judge here.

Following are some surprisingly moving comments Tania sent us on her experience of judging in 2015.

This time last year, I was approached by an old friend to judge the Stevie Awards for Women in Business.   Not knowing what to expect, I gamely applied and was accepted. At the allotted time and date I accessed the judging website to view entries.

The first thing I discovered was that there were many more entries than I had expected– and from all over the world.  

The next thing I discovered was just how challenging judging could be.

Pressure to Succeed

Some submissions were about women who had scaled the heights of corporate giants, landing in senior roles where the competition and pressure to succeed could scarcely be imagined. Closer inspection of supporting documents to these applications showed that these were often “winners” from childhood–starting in their earliest school days, often mentored or supported by other high achievers, and given the best education money could buy.  In some cases, the question wasn't how could they succeed, but how could they possibly fail?  Yet the pressure to succeed, the perfectionist standards, and the constant striving made clear that success was without doubt hard won.

Rising from Obscurity

Then there were women who rose from complete obscurity, with no advantages at all, who told stories of how they worked during the day, and studied at night, sometimes working more than one job just to make ends meet.  They also scaled the corporate heights, sometimes in areas you might expect such as NGOs and charities, where sheer pluck and strength of character might get you places, but also in more conventional and male-dominated industries.  They added a quality of sheer grit and determination, inspiring others to believe that they, too, could make it, against all odds.  I identified with these women, as their story was my story–but I was careful not to allow my conscious bias to affect my objectivity.

Building Businesses from Scratch

I noticed there were women from all kinds of backgrounds: corporate refugees; stay-at-home moms; apparently ordinary women who started up businesses from their living rooms.  Sometimes they succeeded first time, sometimes they didn't.  Some of them had succeeded so well they had more than one entry, as they were running more than one business.  This demonstrated the power of the Internet to create new businesses, but these entries didn't shy away from illustrating the long hours, moments of doubt and despair, and sheer commitment and sacrifice needed to build a business from scratch.

Turning Weakness into Strength

Then there were the women who defeated the odds by overcoming their personal demons, and in so doing had succeeded beyond all expectations. These were women who had been given harsh feedback because of some personal flaw, but had not given in to either self-pity or self-loathing. Instead–with courage, determination, and the will to work on themselves–they had turned things around, and turned those weaknesses into strengths.  

Harnessing Technology to Solve Suffering

And then there were the women in technology roles, who started out in global organizations but who managed to use their positions of power to lobby their organizations to use their technology for a purpose beyond profit.  One such example was a woman who showed how her company brought first-line medical care to the remotest parts of the world via telecommunications in a way that made me rejoice at the limitless possibilities of harnessing technology to solve suffering in the world.

The Capacity to Care

Finally, there were the stories that made me stop in wonder at the human capacity to care.  One woman had started an obscure charity in a faraway country to which she apparently had no personal links. As an example of what must have been pure altruism, she showed the difference she had made–with no personal gain that I could see–to a group of blind and disabled people in a developing country, who, as a result of her efforts, were able to earn a living in a supportive community.

Mentoring and Inspiring

How clever, how kind, how determined, and how creative these ladies were. And how wonderful that so many of them cited other women as mentors, and were mentoring young women themselves.  It shattered the myth of the Queen Bee who pulls up the ladder behind her, and renewed my gratitude to the great lady who gave me my own big break.  And how encouraging, too, that many cited as inspiration their fathers, the male bosses who mentored them, or the husbands and partners who provided much needed moral, practical, or financial support.

I was once asked in a consultation forum what was the one thing I thought a woman with a family most needed to be successful. Without hesitation I replied: “A quality husband!”  Looking around at my successful girlfriends, however, I note that these can be a rare commodity, which makes the women who succeed as single parents, or who recover from adversity, all the more to be admired and respected.  

At any rate, there is usually someone, whether male or female, who is prepared to take a step down while you take a step up. Someone who is prepared to be a little bit beta while you go a little bit alpha … because no one gets to have it all–at least not all at the same time. 

So, in celebration of all successful women and the people who helped make them so, here is an anthem to Women’s Day from Peter Gabriel & Youssou N’Dour to play us out. 

Read more of Tania’s views on the world of Coaching and HR on the Thrive Blog.

About Tania Hummel:

Currently the Director of Thrive Coaching & Consulting, for six years until 2014 Tania Hummel led the HR function of the Nature and Macmillan Publishing Group, one of the world’s most renowned scientific, academic, and education publishers, during a period of transformation from a regionally organized, traditional, print-based business to a global digital and data-driven information provider. She had strategic and operational accountability for over 5,000 employees in over 50 markets, dealing with complex people and organizational challenges in countries as diverse as Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Kenya, Mexico, Brazil, India, Japan, Australia, and the US. Her key experiences include managing complex employee relations issues in the UK and internationally, executive coaching, talent management, employer brand development, leadership and management development, communications, and global compliance and risk management.

Creative, pragmatic, and focused, Tania creates a safe space for teams and individuals to develop transformational goals whilst building confidence and increasing strategic capability. She is equally comfortable coaching groups, or individuals and is passionate about developing talent through strategic talent management initiatives. She uses innovative, award winning tools and techniques to create bespoke initiatives and has coached senior executives internationally via Skype or Google hangouts.