2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the world's top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run.

As we approach the entry deadlines for the 2013 competition we'll look back at some of the women who have won Stevie Awards over the past decade.  We'll catch up with them on their current activities, and learn what their Stevie win meant to them and their careers.

Today's profile is of 2011 Stevie winner Gwen Rhys, founder and CEO of Women in the City.

Women in the City is a London-based organization that promotes, recognizes and rewards female talent.  Women in the City started from a small idea – to host a luncheon for like-minded women working in a very male-dominated environment in the City of London, the city's financial center.  By 2011, when Rhys won a Stevie Award in the Women Helping Women category, her organization had grown into a well-respected entity with a strong voice representing women working in the professions.    

Women in the City has since had a successful 10th anniversary year with a sold-out luncheon attracting nearly 400 attendees in November 2012.  This year, Women in the City published a handbook for career-focused women, entitled Project Diamond: Bringing Brilliance to Business. 

Women in the City stages its own awards program, so Rhys knows firsthand just how important external validation can be in helping women to raise their profile both internally and externally.  

“Winning the Stevie Award made me feel very proud of what my team and I have achieved during the past decade," Rhys said.  "Women in the City partners with global corporations, and being able to describe my organization as ‘award-winning’ has elevated our position and enables us to play with the big boys.  What’s more, having dipped my toe into the water, I’ve now entered some other awards. My new motto is ‘if you’re not in it, you can’t win it.'  Putting yourself up for any award takes courage as you need to critically assess what you’ve done and then put yourself forward for judgment by complete strangers.  This also makes the achievement all that more credible. When I have a difficult moment I remember that I’m a Stevie winner, and things don’t seem nearly so bad.  Thanks to the Stevies, we are definitely  in it.” 

The entry deadline for the 2013 Stevie Awards for Women in Business is August 25.  Complete entry details are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

All Female Entrepreneurs, Executives and Employees Worldwide Are Eligible; Entry Deadline August 28, 2013

The Stevie® Awards for Women in Business have issued the call for entries for its 10th annual competition.  Entry kits and complete details on the competition are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business will celebrate its 10^th anniversary by continuing to honor women in more than 50 categories including, among others, Best Entrepreneur, Best Young Entrepreneur, Best Executive, Mentor or Coach of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award, Employee of the Year, Best Overall Company of the Year, and Most Innovative Company of the Year.  The awards are produced by the creators of the prestigious American Business Awards and International Business Awards. 

All female entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run, worldwide, are eligible for nomination.

The entry deadline is August 28 and late entries will be accepted through September 25 with payment of a small late fee.  Winners of the 10th annual competition will be announced at a gala awards dinner in New York on November 8, 2013.  

New categories in 2013 include Innovator of the Year, Woman of the Year and Event of the Year

Vicki Batten, chief executive officer of FSG Australia and a 2012 Gold Stevie winner, commented on the impact of her win:  “FSG Australia is now known to people on the other side of the world, and that is an important result of winning the Gold Stevie.  This experience was a most unexpected and humbling one.  The event is a high-profile and sparkling one, and it certainly made me feel very special, even to be nominated, let alone to take away the coveted gold statue.”

Other winners of the 2012 Stevie Awards for Women in Business include, among others:

-          Kanchan Naikawadi, Director of Indus Health Plus Pvt. Ltd., Maharashtra, India

-          Dr. Akudo Anyanwu Ikemba, Founder and CEO of Friends of the Global Fund Africa, Lagos, Nigeria

-          Brooke Denihan Barrett, co-CEO of Denihan Hospitality Group, New York, N.Y.

-          Bethany Mayer, Senior VP and General Manager of HP Networking, HP, Palo Alto, Calif.

-          Emer Timmons, President of BT Global Services UK, BT, London, United Kingdom

-          Linda Clement-Holmes, Senior Vice President of The Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, Ohio

-          Christiane Schulz, Member of the German Executive Board, Global Partner, MD of Ketchum Pleon, Berlin, Germany

-          Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, Mozilla, Mountain View, Calif.

-          Weili Dai, Co-Founder, Vice President and General Manager of Communications and Consumer Business of Marvell Technology Group Ltd, San Francisco, Calif.

-          LittlePINKBook.com, Atlanta, Ga.

-          Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Inc., El Segundo, Calif.

-          Vodafone Istanbul, Turkey

The 2012 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 included Accenture, Creative Catapult, LLC, eCycle LLC, Friends of the Global Fund Africa, Oncology Rehab Partners, Sentis Pty Ltd, Susan Davis International, and Vaco Los Angeles.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are judged by many leading women entrepreneurs, executives and luminaries across businesses worldwide. 

About the Stevie® Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in five programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.  A fifth program, the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, will debut later this year.  Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide.  Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.StevieAwards.com  and follow the Stevie Awards on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. 

2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the world's top honors for female entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run.

As we approach the entry deadlines for the 2013 competition we'll look back at some of the women who have won Stevie Awards over the past decade.  We'll catch up with them on their current activities, and learn what their Stevie win meant to them and their careers.

Today's profile is of Isabelle Duston, Founder of Apps of All Nations, LLC.

Isabelle Duston founded Apps of All Nations, LLC, a company for which she won two Gold Stevie Awards in the 2010 edition of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business.  After selling more than 500,000 apps, Duston tended to her dream of teaching reading in developing nations through the use of technology.  She created a non-profit organization, ilearn4fun, focused on providing reading in such areas.  In her leadership role there, she presented at many conferences; among them the mobile learning week at Unesco and Online-Educa. In 2011, she earned an innovation award from Region 2000.

Duston then created a social enterprise with a similar mission, called Et4d (Education Technology for Development) and made all the investments in this enterprise using the funds she reaped from Apps of All Nations.

Through a partnership with World Education, she won a partial grant from USaid to create the application smart4kids in Khmer for Cambodia, marking her first viable contract.  Recently, immigration laws have made it a little bit easier for entrepreneurs to obtain a green card but proving recognition as an entrepreneur was critical to this process for Duston.  She obtained her green card for the deployment of this education project. Duston’s winning two Gold Stevies marked this point of achievement in her career, and has since served as a springboard to her current role and successes.

This project is still Duston’s main focus, and she believes that in the coming years she will truly be able to make a difference in education while teaching reading in her mother tongue.  She attributes much of her ability to make these dreams come true to her Stevie wins and the recognition she earned as a consummate female entrepreneur.

“Earning the Stevies had a significant impact on my credibility as a founder and leader in business as well as that of the organization I was heading at the time I won.  I believe it played a role in allowing me get recognized in other awards competitions, and aided in my ability to secure a green card to work on my next project.  The Stevie Awards have helped me feel more confident in my capacity as an entrepreneur and an innovator, and has had great influence on the pursuits I continue to chase.”

The entry deadline for the 2013 Stevie Awards for Women in Business is August 28.  Complete details on how to enter are at www.StevieAwards.com/Women.