Most leadership awards programs recognize executives and managers for their achievements, success in improving a company’s profits or enhancing operations.
One Ontario-based organization, however, has taking a different tack by recognizing a person’s ability to share among his or her peers expertise, experience and helpful information.
Early this month, AceTech Ontario announced the winners of its 2015 Leadership Initiative Awards. AceTech Ontario is a not for profit organization focused on helping the province’s technology-based companies become more competitive, by developing programs that guide their CEOs and senior executives.
“The goal of the awards is to tap into the vast knowledge and experience of our C-suite members,” said Jo Ann Dizy, executive director of AceTech. “It’s not about the size of the company or what you’ve achieved, but about the expertise you are able to share and being able to bring all members together.”
This year’s winners were: Mark Jaine, president and CEO of Intelex, an environmental, health and safety and quality management software firm; Kristy Sadler, vice-president for global marketing at Intelex; Dave Millier, owner of security solutions and consulting firm Sentry Metrics, which he recently sold to Robert Herjavec of the Shark Tank fame and head of the Herjavec Group; and David Lahey, president and CEO of Predictive Success, an international management consulting firm.
The winners were chosen for their “best-of-class processes” in specific topics. Winners also have to commit to providing a workshop for AceTech members, as well as an article, white paper or business tool based on their topic.
For example, Lahey’s topic was Who builds the future of leadership? He explores the process of using data to support a seamless transition in each level of an organizations and discusses issues such as the importance of a solid succession plan geared towards identifying, developing and preparing candidates for key executive roles.
“Many organizations focus on information found in a person’s resume and this could lead to wrong person being chosen for a specific role,” he said. “We believe personality and behaviour are better indicators of how a person will perform and we have analytics tools that can help managers gauge this.”
Jaine’s topic was the Evolution of a sales department: Growing revenue from 0 to 10s of millions of dollars. He spoke about the planning and the first steps that Intelex took to sustain and accelerated growth over the last 10 years.
Sadler’s topic was on Galvanizing your users, growing your business: The viral effects of an inspiring user conference. She discussed the impact of an effective user conference to a business’ success.
Millier’s Selling to a shark covers the process he went through in selling his business to Shark Tank star Herjavec.