Best-selling authors, entrepreneurs and media personalities join BIG Awards business awards program
PHILADELPHIA—July 25, 2012—The Business Intelligence Group, hosts of the BIG Awards, announced four new judges today for their annual awards program. This comes weeks after the organization named their initial panel of 10 judges and days before nominations are due on August 18th. The BIG Awards program specializes in recognizing talent and performance in the business community and judges are tasked with analyzing and scoring nominations from around the world.
“The shear volume of support we have received from business leaders is phenomenal,” said Russ Fordyce, managing director of the Business Intelligence Group. “The level of experience and expertise we have on our judging panel is unrivaled and their knowledge and attention to detail will surely make for an exciting year.”
The four new BIG Awards judges include:
Steve Strauss of TheSelfEmployed.com. Steve is USA TODAY’s senior small business columnist and author of The Small Business Bibleand 16 other books. He sits on the Board of directors for the World Entrepreneurship Forum and has judged many business competitions.
Susan Solovic of ItsYourBiz.com and Susan Solovic Media Group is an award-winning entrepreneur, columnists for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and an Amazon Top 100 bestsellingauthor. She is a frequent ABC News small business contributor, media personality, sought-after keynote speaker, leading small business expert, former Fortune 100 company marketing executive, and attorney.
Mike Figliuolo is the founder and managing director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC – a leadership development training firm. He is also the author of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership. Mike is an honor graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He has worked for leading firms like McKinsey & Co., Capital One Financial, and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He currently trains leaders as industry-leading companies on topics of leadership, communication, strategy, problem solving, and decision making.
Barbara Weltman of BigIdeasforSmallBusiness, Inc is an attorney, prolific author with such titles as J.K. Lasser’s Small Business Taxes, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business, and the soon-to-be published Smooth Failing: Top Industry Leaders Share Their Secrets for Turning Pain into Profit, and a trusted professional advocate for small businesses and entrepreneurs. She has been named one of the 100 Small Business Influencers.
Having launched the BIG Awards in March the program offers contests in five categories including Company of the Year, Start-up of the Year, Product of the Year, Case Study of the Year and Executive of the Year. Nominations are accepted in each of eight separate industries.
The BIG Awards is a very transparent program, giving companies and executives insight into the judges, the judging process, as well as their own nomination performance. This proprietary judging process measures nominations across multiple variables and from multiple judges. Nominations are individually scored by each judge and ranked, providing organizations with insight on their own performance so they gain real value from the process.
The deadline for submitting award nominations is August 18, 2012. The Business Intelligence Group will then categorize nominations and present them to judging panels for scoring. Judges will use a proprietary and unique system to measure the submissions. Winners will be announced on September 24, 2012.
The complete list of judges is available on the BIG Awards website at http://www.bigawards.org. One there companies looking to submit nominations can review the process and view sample nominations forms.
About Business Intelligence GroupThe Business Intelligence Group, creators of the BIGAwards, was founded with a mission of recognizing true talent and superior performance in the business world. Unlike other award programs, real business people, those with experience and knowledge, judge the BIG Awards. Companies nominatetheirownorganization, executives, products and customer case studies within their respective industry. Industry leaders are also encouraged to apply to become a judge.
ContactRuss FordyceManaging DirectorBusiness Intelligence Group+1 90-95-AWARDScontact@bigawards.org@BigAwards