Manage for Tomorrow Award | 2025 Page Up Annual Conference

The Manage for Tomorrow Award recognized an outstanding Page Up member who exemplifies leadership, mentorship, and innovation in advancing the communications profession. This year’s honoree was celebrated for fostering the next generation of communicators 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

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Transcript

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.