Finalists were announced today in the 19th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, the world’s top honors for women entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run. 

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are produced by the creators of the prestigious American Business Awards® and International Business Awards®, among other business awards programs. The Stevies are widely considered to be the world’s premier honors for achievement in the workplace.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

Fabulous@50, of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, won the Gold Stevie Award for Event of the Year in the Media Awards categories of the 2014 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

The final deadline for the 2015 Stevie Awards for Women is September 23.

REVIEW THE ENTRY KIT HERE.

Although extremely busy with her next event this November, Fabulous@50’s founder, Dianna Bowes, was able to spare a few minutes to talk with us about winning awards, her plans for the future, and her next big event, the Fabulous@50 Experience & Martini Party.

The Fabulous@50 Experience and Martini Party takes place the first Saturday of November every year at the River Cree Entertainment Facility in Edmonton, Alberta. It is a celebration for women, age 40-plus, and their circle of influence. The event brings women of a similar age together to have fun, and to be inspired with a little education from inspirational speakers and great exhibitors.

Expanding Into New Communities
Dianna has big plans for the future of her event. “My plan for Fabulous@50 is to continue to grow in other communities by engaging heart-centered women to join the ranks as licensees and build their own Fabulous@50 community,” she told us. “As well as growing readership of the E-Magazine and online membership, Fabulous@50 will always be about supporting women by bringing them great information and friendship.”

Gaining Credibility
Dianna also won a Bronze Stevie for Women Helping Women - Business/Business Services & Diversified Services in the Individual Awards categories of the 2014 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

“Winning not just one but two Stevie Awards in 2014 was the icing on the cake,” she observed. “It benefited my company by giving us credibility for the hard work we put into developing a great event. And it also supported us in the development of our sponsors and the attraction of exhibitors.”

“The Stevie Awards for Women in Business helps build awareness for our events because of the incredible women involved and nominated for these awards,” added Dianna. “I feel so honored to be a winner of such a prestigious award.”

Growing Every Year
The purpose of the Fabulous@50 Experience is to inspire, educate, and empower women over 40. It is an event that brings together products, services, and speakers that are picked specifically for their demographic. “The 2015 event will be our 7th event, and growth every year has been incredible,” commented Dianne. “From bringing one friend in the first few years, groups have grown to 6 and then 12. Plus companies are providing their female employees with tickets to support their growth and connection. This event is looked forward to by many every year.”

Sponsorship and Support
Fabulous@50 is sponsored by local businesses, and it supports local charities such as the YWCA and Suit Yourself. Helping others is a foundation of Fabulous@50, and members get involved in everything from preparing Christmas gift shoeboxes for inner city kids to organizing an elegant charity auction. The group’s charity of record, Suit Yourself, is an organization that helps women dress for success as they enter or re-enter the working world.

Building a Community
Dianna is looking forward to this November’s event. “I am inspired when I see the ladies enter our events with openness to new experiences,” she explained. “At our November tradeshow, we see ladies who came a few years ago with one friend and are now are making it an annual event for a large group of friends and family of all ages. For me, it is all about the relationships and the building of a community of amazing women.”

About Dianna Bowes:
Dianna Bowes’ vision was not only to change her life, but also to transform others’. As founder of Fabulous@50, a network for women in and around their 50s, Dianna is a guiding light to thousands of women who are members, who come to her events, and who read the Be Fabulous! Magazine.

Following the break-up of her own marriage, and serious spinal surgery, Dianna took a good, hard look at her life and decided it needed a major make-over. Although pain, poverty, and life as a single mother are not the routes many would choose, they were a catalyst for Dianna. She decided her path to self-fulfillment could be inspiring for others. She retrained as a personal life coach and formed a company called Creative On The Move that offered an eclectic mix of graphic design services, event planning, and life coaching.

In 2008, she expanded her outreach by forming Fabulous@50. Her vision is to inspire, educate, and empower women in midlife by bringing them together virtually and in person to network, share, care, and grow. Suit Yourself named Dianna Bowes and Fabulous@50 as their Top Fundraiser in 2011, and Dianna received further accolades when she was named a 2011 YWCA Woman of Distinction in the “Turning Point” category.

About Fabulous@50:
Fabulous@50 is an organization that empowers, educates, and inspires baby boomer women through events, magazines, and an online and offline membership. Founded in 2008 by Dianna Bowes, this vibrant organization is growing at a steady rate and is licensing the business plan to women leaders in other communities. Fabulous@50 is an organization based on the concept of growth through relationships. For more information, go to www.fabulousat50.com/

The 12^th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business is now accepting entries. All female entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run, worldwide, are eligible to be nominated.

A new feature for this year's competition is an Entry Kit Brochure. The PDF brochure details all the information you need to submit nominations.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business Entry Kit Brochure includes:

• A letter from the President and Founder of the Stevie Awards, Michael Gallagher
• The 2015 Program Calendar
• What Past Stevie Winners Have to Say About Their Award
• Information About Judging
• The Top 5 Awards
• How to Submit Entries
• Entry Fee Information
• List of Awards Categories

The program will be especially useful to those who are new to submitting entries to the Stevie Awards for Women in Business. In just a few short minutes of browsing the Entry Kit Brochure, you will find out which categories best suit your organization and how to submit entries.

Get the Entry Kit Brochure now:

• A PDF of the Entry Kit Brochure (2.6MB)

The Entry Kit Brochure is not a replacement for the Webpage Version of the entry kit. The Brochure Entry Kit instructs you how to submit entries through the Webpage entry kit.

How to Submit Your Entries

After you have chosen your categories and prepared your entries according to the requirements per category, do the following:

1. Visit the website at www.StevieAwards.com/Women and click on the ‘ENTER’ button on the top navigation bar.
2. Follow the instructions to complete the registration form for your organization, which will create your entry-submission account.
3. Within your entry-submission account, choose the first category you want to enter, and complete the entry form for that category.
4. Repeat the process as necessary for additional entries.
5. When you’ve created all of your entries, select all of them and click ‘SUBMIT SELECTED NOMINATIONS’ to begin the submission process.
6. Review and agree to the Terms and Conditions of Entry, and choose to pay your entry fees by credit card, bank check, or wire transfer.

There's also a webpage version of the entry kit available to you.

The early-bird entry deadline, offering reduced entry fees, is July 22. The final entry deadline is August 26, and late entries will be accepted through September 23 with payment of a late fee. Winners of the 12th annual competition will be announced at a gala awards dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on November 13, 2015.  Attendance is not required to win.

This year the Stevie Awards for Women in Business will honor women in more than 85 categories including, among others, Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Maverick of the Year, Mentor or Coach of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award, Employee of the Year and Most Innovative Company of the Year.

Nearly 10 years ago, Mariah Fenton Gladis, a professional psychotherapist in the state of Pennsylvania in the U.S.A., won the Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in the 2006 Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Here we take a look at her life and what she is continuing to achieve.

The 2015 (12th Annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business will open for entries on May 11. Request an Entry Kit here and it will be emailed to you when entries open..

In accepting her 2006 Stevie Award, Mariah Fenton Gladis said: "I’m honored to be recognized among a group of such remarkable women. We, as women leaders in the emerging global community, have the responsibility and the privilege of instilling both passion and compassion in the workplace and the world.”

Mariah is herself truly remarkable. She is a 34-year survivor of Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), and has recently given an inspirational TIM Talk (Together In Mission). This TED-like talk series, sponsored by the Lutheran Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Synod, is an event with multiple speakers about the best ideas they have for the future.

Creating Moments That Matter

Mariah chose the topic “Creating Moments That Matter,” talking about the power that moments large or small, spontaneous or planned, can have in your life. Moments that can transform, connect, elevate, and sometimes heal. Mariah believes that as moment makers and receivers, we all have the opportunity to make positive changes in the lives of others and ourselves. During her talk, Mariah is also self-revealing of some moments that have changed her life. Here is a link to her talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4RaJEQrJHE

Strength of Spirit

In 1981, when Mariah was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), three prominent national neurologists gave her a 10% chance of surviving two years. Yet, three months after the diagnosis, she married Ron Gladis and went on to have two children: Luke, a graduate of James Madison University; and Cole, a graduate of Ithaca College. Today, Mariah continues to be a loving wife, a doting mother, and a licensed professional psychotherapist in the state of Pennsylvania. Her courage to continually go forward with grace and determination demonstrates the very nature of her character and the amazing survival capacity of the human spirit.

After nearly 35 years, ALS has ravaged Mariah’s body. She needs help waking, walking, dressing, eating, and multitudes of other personal chores. Her tongue muscles have atrophied and she speaks with what she calls her “ALS accent.” Wearing a special speech-enhancing microphone to enhance the articulation and projection of her voice, Mariah often tells her audiences, with characteristic humor, that she gives new meaning to the term “high maintenance woman.”

A Privileged Position

None of this, however, diminishes her powerful presence and expert ability to do her work. In fact, Mariah acknowledges that it is her personal healing journey that has expanded and deepened her capacity to heal others.

“People often ask me how I do it, listening to people’s problems all day long for over 35 years, and not get burned out, drained or disheartened. I tell them that I don’t hear problems. I see people reaching for health; wanting to change, wanting to be better human beings, wanting to create happier families. I have been privileged to work with people from every continent and from all levels of life and I hear them wanting to love and be loved more effectively, wanting to remove the barriers in their life and provide more for their loved ones on every level, economically and emotionally. This is a privileged position that I have, sharing so many heartwarming moments of laughter and tears with people working toward healing.”

Mariah Fenton Gladis Foundation

Since it was formed in 2006, the Mariah Fenton Gladis Foundation has funded special workshops: “An Afternoon of Forgiveness” is for anyone who needs to let go (check here for the next workshop); “Embracing Yourself into Wellness,” for cancer patients, offers the opportunity to create the necessary moments needed to move forward in wholeness and health; “Befriending Death/Transforming Life” explores the practical and psycho-spiritual preparations for death; and “Bless the Broken Road” presents an opportunity to experience physical or emotional heartbreak more as a gift, a resource to mine wisdom and compassion, than as an impediment to living a full life.

The Foundation has also supported needy students in life-skills training; provided private counseling for the underserved and financially destitute; given inspirational lectures on the value of hope and personal sustainability; and there is more to come. The Foundation wants to create more special workshops on self care, attract more of the served and underserved, give back more to the community—all with the concept of reaching inward and outward to provide more love, compassion, and forgiveness in the world.

Be An Agent Of Change

The goal of the Foundation is to empower people to master, monitor, accept, and enjoy their inner life as well as their life in the world. According to Mariah: “I believe that each of us is a powerful agent of change. As more people spread love, compassion, and forgiveness, the more we will create peace in our hearts, our families, our community, our country, and ultimately peace in our world.”

A Remarkable and Inspirational Woman

“I am extremely proud of Mariah,” says husband, Ron Gladis, “especially considering she’s spent more than two-thirds of her business career with the life-threatening disease of ALS. Mariah is a truly remarkable and inspirational woman.”

Mariah’s son, Coleman, is making a documentary of her life. You can see a 3-minute trailer for the film “Mariah” at http://www.mariahmovie.com.