The Leadership Excellence Awards are hosted at the globally respected GDS Summits, bringing together senior executives from the biggest global brands who are actively seeking to learn, engage, and find the best technology solutions.
The events provide a forum for leaders to learn from peers about how they are approaching common challenges and opportunities. Each GDS Summit hosts a Leadership Excellence Awards with the ceremony held at the end of the conference agenda. This gives outstanding individuals the chance to be recognized for their achievements in front of the industry in which they serve.
Each award category is aligned to a Summit of the same theme. At the end of the Summit the gold, innovation, integrity and impact awards winners will be announced.
This award goes to the applicant who demonstrates how they have successfully innovated and/or transformed their operations, team, technology, processes to improve outcomes for their organisation.
This award goes to the applicant who can demonstrate their achievements in terms of ‘doing the right thing’. For example, they might have improved ethics, improved the working lives of colleagues, supported marketplace change, or reduced environmental impact.
This award goes to the applicant who has delivered outstanding business performance. This does not have to be purely in terms of tangible financial benefits, it can also be less tangible, such as reputational impacts or reduced risk.
The judging process is unique and externally audited by the Independent Awards Standards Council to ensure it is ethical, transparent and robust. The market insight team at GDS will gather the information necessary to invite the right people to participate, and then allow written evidence (supplied in the strictest confidence) into the awards platform to bolster the case of nominees
Once as much information as possible has been gathered, external independent expert awards judges will review the nominees and select which are worthy of the awards, which will be given out at the associated summit events run by GDS.
Applications will be evaluated based on three key criteria: Delivering innovation and transformation, Doing the right thing (workplace, marketplace, environment or community), Improving business performance.
This could be through innovation, inspiring colleagues, making excellent decisions, bravery, or achieving outstanding business growth.
These awards are designed to recognized C-Suite (or equivalent) leaders who are the most deserving of recognition for delivering real value through innovation.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) executives with data-related roles, who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and operational efficiencies.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) oil & gas industry executives who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and operational efficiencies.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) Supply Chain executives who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and operational efficiencies.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) retail executives who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and operational efficiencies.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) digital marketing executives who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and operational efficiencies.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) executives in sales / revenue generation roles who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and customer experience.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) executives in HR roles who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and customer experience.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) executives in digital innovation roles who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and customer experience.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) executives in omnichannel roles who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and customer experience.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) marketing executives who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the applied creativity alongside innovative technologies and strategies over the last 12 months, which have led to improved business performance and reputational benefits.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) executives in banking roles who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and customer experience.
This award will recognise outstanding C-Suite (or equivalent) executives in healthcare roles who can demonstrate exemplary leadership through real-world achievements in their field. Judges are particularly interested in seeing evidence of the application of innovative technologies or strategies over the last 12 months that have led to improved business performance and customer experience.
If you would like to be considered, but are short on time then please contact us and we will put you in touch with people who can help you.
Enter todayThese awards are unusual in that the different awards are presented at different events. So, for example, the European CIO of the Year Award is presented at the end of the CIO Insight Europe summit. Please note that attending the summit, whether virtual or live, is not mandatory to enter or win the award.
As such the deadline for submitting evidence to support each application is different. Please see the schedule on the calendar and deadlines section.
The entry is uploaded into the Awards’ portal. There is no option for hard copy or email submissions.
See the page about how winners are selected.
No, in submitting your evidence you are confirming it is accurate to the best of your knowledge.
These awards are strictly for senior leaders within large organisations. Each award is suitable for either a specific role, or a specific industry. See the Categories page for details.
All those accepting their nomination and going through the judging process will receive feedback on their entry. All applicants will be invited to reapply the following year and either retain their crown or earn an award of a different colour (e.g Silver winners receiving Gold for their achievements the following year).
The entry is uploaded as plain text only written/pasted into the Awards’ portal, but we strongly recommend that it is drafted and approved in MS Word prior to submission.
We recommend you draft your content in MS Word first. It is as follows:
– Your goals and challenges for the past year: 100-200 words
– Your achievements in terms of innovation and transformation: 100-300 words
– Your achievements in terms of ‘doing the right thing’ (workplace, marketplace, environment or community): 100-300 words.
– Your achievements in terms of improving business performance: 100-300 words
All the Judges, Administration Team and Project Directors will digitally sign a non-disclosure agreement. Please therefore rest assured that any evidence you submit to back up your case for winning the award will be treated with strictest confidence.
This is a single stage process. The written content is used to decide the winner, although judges are also at liberty to do desk-research into applicants too
No supporting material is allowed. The entry is plain text only with the exception of a headshot of the entrant.
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