municators through collaboration, curiosity, and a commitment to continuous learning—embodying the spirit of Page Up’s mission to develop leaders who shape the future of the field.
2025 Award Winner: Umayma Abubakar, Mubadala
2025 Runner-up: Rob Jekielek, Harris Poll
AI-generated, some errors may appear
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One of the things we've tried to do
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is recognize great achievement at Page Up.
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And we started by thinking
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about the awards that have been given
at the society over the years.
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And those mostly were awards
given for looking back over the course
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of someone's career.
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You just heard from Dave Samson.
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He's one of the Page Hall of Fame
recipients.
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He got that a few years ago.
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I was privileged to get the Distinguished
Service Award a few years ago myself.
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So those were awards that sort of said,
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here's what this person has done
over the course of their career.
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Well, I'm looking at Page Up.
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We said, you know, we need an award
that's more forward looking
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because Page up is really more
about looking forward.
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That's why the arrows
pointing upward in the logo.
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And so we we started out by saying,
all right,
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one of the things we try to to promote
at Page up is innovation.
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So we call the award the innovation Award.
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We gave that for a few years.
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Or some of the recipients are in the room
here today.
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But then Ethan, my partner
in crime in this, endeavor,
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had a better idea and I
and I'm going to let him explain that idea
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and kind of how the award has evolved to
what we're going to be presenting today.
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So, Ethan.
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Thank you. Tom.
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Oops. Let me just, here we go.
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So we decided to move the name in greater
and tighter alignment with the,
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with the Page principles and the Page
principle of March for tomorrow
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was really the one that resonated most
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with really the whole mission of Page up,
as Tom just said.
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So, that evolution from, innovation
Award to match for tomorrow,
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it reflects of what we're actually
and truly recognizing.
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It's not just technical innovation,
which is broadly how people interpret
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the word innovation.
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It's innovation
with purpose, with foresight.
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And, you know, match for tomorrow
comes directly from the Page principle,
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which is Page principle number four,
which calls on communicators to anticipate
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change, invest in the long term health
of our organizations and our profession.
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The award celebrates individuals
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and their teams
who aren't just creating something new.
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They're really charting the pathway
for others to follow as well.
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And that's actually one of the criteria.
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Is this extensible to other members
in our, in our community?
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And ensuring that communications can lead
rather than follow in shaping the future.
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So, this,
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this the what we're going to do today
is we're, Oh, and I get to unveil this,
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this really cute award that, our designers
made.
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Yeah. So I want to recognize. Yeah.
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Thank you.
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Priscilla Rios and Maya Hernandez,
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on my team,
who, took the time to make this.
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And I thought when they made the
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the drawing, that was impossible
because there was this part
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that's floating
and not attached to anything, but,
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it is actually attached to something.
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It's a secret. Okay. Anyway, so,
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for the, for
the runner up, I want to just say that,
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a few remarks about their, their entry.
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In an era where reputation management
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often relies on the perception
surveys, social media sentiment.
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One particular, communications leader
took a radically different approach,
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listening to what stakeholders actually do
and not just what they say.
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The innovation was a search
based insights tool
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that measures reputation
through actual behavior.
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The questions that people ask, the content
that they seek,
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the information
they consume when researching companies.
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This represents a fundamental shift
from traditional research methods
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long questioned for their reliability,
like, impressions or, add value and so on.
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What makes the, our comparative add value?
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Whatever.
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What makes a, this a particularly forward
thinking
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is how it addresses
the evolving landscape of AI and search,
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as generative
AI reshapes information discovery.
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This framework identifies specific content
gaps across the peso model, with special
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emphasis on owned content that forms
the foundation of digital discoverability.
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As I learned the other day here
in this session, north of, 50, in
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even 60%,
it seems the system has uncovered
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specific formulas that,
consistently outperform,
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longer form content, rich with expert
quotes, the critical importance
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of the first 200 words
and the power of editorial franchises,
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those core landing Pages connected
to regular and fresh content companies
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without substantial research budgets,
now have a comprehensive
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and behaviorally grounded foundation
for understanding their reputation.
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Let's give a round of applause.
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For the match for tomorrow.
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Runner up. Rob Jekielek of the Harris
Poll.
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Would you stand and be recognized,
Rob, please?
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A round of applause.
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Rob. Architected
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and brought digital, arc to life,
fundamentally recalibrating
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how we think about reputation strategy
in a data driven world.
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And we've already been
beneficiaries of it. Thank you. Rob.
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And if I could just add to,
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Rob has also been very generous
with his time in helping us all get better
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because he he runs the surveys
that are done for both Page and Page up.
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And he just presented that to the
operating committee a couple of days ago.
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So, Rob, thank you for all that
you do for Page to help us get better.
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Indeed.
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Before we announce this year's winner,
I do also want to just recognize
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and thanked, Alyssa Gilmore, Evan Krauss,
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my partner in crime,
Tom and, Gabrielle Poshadlo,
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who all contributed
to evaluating entries and,
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to the entire operating committee who,
beat the bushes to get more entries out.
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We continue to get more
and better submissions every year.
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So thank you to you.
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So what if every
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employee in your organization
could feel like a founder?
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What if innovation
wasn't confined to leadership retreats
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but became everybody's responsibility?
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That's exactly what happened
when a global firm
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launched an in-house Shark Tank,
a crowdsourced innovation
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platform that broke down hierarchies
and reframed internal communications
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as strategic infrastructure,
not just messaging.
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The initiative empowered employees
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to submit ideas,
invest virtual tokens in concepts
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they believed in, and watch as finalists
pitched live to senior leadership.
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But here's what made transform.
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Here's what made it transformative.
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Leaders became the sharks,
offering transparent feedback
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and revealing how decisions
are actually made in that organization.
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At the highest level, it was vulnerable.
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It was authentic and deeply humanizing.
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The the results speak volumes.
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More than 100 ideas
submitted more than 5000 interactions.
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And this is the thing that surprised me
most.
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As somebody who has been involved in
crowdsource innovation programs,
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70% participation across a global,
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and distributed workforce
that is breathtaking
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and perhaps most tellingly, employees
immediately asked, when's the next round?
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When?
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When is the next round going to launch?
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This exemplifies
the Page principles in action.
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It listened by making listening
the very mechanism of the program.
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It provided commitment with action
by investing real resources.
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It told the truth through
candid public feedback,
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and it managed for tomorrow
by embedding innovation as cultural DNA,
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preparing the organization
for future challenges
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instead of just reacting to the present
ones.
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Congratulations to our match for tomorrow
winner,
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Umayma Abubakar from Mubadala.
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Please come up to the stage
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to receive your award.
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Share this
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interview.
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Congratulations!
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Congratulations.
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Yeah.
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Please.
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Thank you very much.
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For those who know me very well,
they know engagement and communications
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and is at the heart
of everything that I love to do.
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So even though I've grown in my role,
helping
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the team with this idea was something
that I really felt very proud about.
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We've got, as all of you
and your organizations
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have so many challenges
when it comes to just
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what's the new shiny thing
and how do we help people stay motivated?
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And this was something that we just
thought, heck, let's try it out.
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And, to what Ethan said just now,
that was the best part of it, was to help
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the organization see how employees
felt about certain things
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and how passionate they were,
and then have leaders
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explain why the answer was no,
or why the answer was yes.
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But here's how we going to do it.
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So for me, that was a bit
that was really, really proud about
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because as communicators,
that's what we do.
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We try to help everyone understand
where the middle ground is,
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and it's not always easy
to do it in a messaging.
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So for that, I'm really glad to see that
this kind of made it to the end.
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So thank you for recognizing it.
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And I want to thank Ethan and Tom.
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This is our second year for submitting, so
I'm really glad that we finally made it.
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So I appreciate all the recognition.
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Thank you brother.
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If I'm interested,
I want if I could just add one, one thing.
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I hope this inspires
those of you in the room.
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Innovation manager for tomorrow.
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It takes many forms
and so it's not always about I.
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We've spent a lot of time
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in the last couple of days talking
about AI, and AI is obviously the future,
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but I think also things like that,
creative ideas that get people involved,
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that speak to employees.
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So think about your own organizations
and your own clients and think about
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what are the innovations,
what are the managing for tomorrow
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kinds of ideas that you have?
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Because we'd love to see more,
even more, nominees next year.
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So thank you for that. Yeah.
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And, Tom, I'll build on that.
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Just to say, the submission process,
we've made it very, very simple.
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It's AI having submitted, for awards
across the industry myself
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before, sometimes they're inordinately
complex, almost Byzantine.
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This is a single Page.
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And so I hope that in the coming year,
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you'll be willing and able
to, submit your ideas.
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We're always looking for great entries.
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This group is innovative.
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This group is, really founded to manage
for tomorrow.
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So let's recognize that amongst ourselves.
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And also, I want to really recognize Ethan
because he's an enormous thank you
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time and effort,
not only himself, but of his firm.
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And he's done that gratis.
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So we really appreciate that.
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Ethan,
thanks for your leadership. Pleasure.
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Back over to you, our hosts.
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Our co-hosts. Thank you.