Strategic Initiative of the Year
This award recognises an outstanding strategic initiative or transformation programme that has significantly enhanced organisational capability and delivered lasting business value.
The winning entry will demonstrate how a major strategic challenge or opportunity was addressed through large-scale organisational change. Judges will look for evidence of strategic vision, effective delivery, stakeholder engagement, innovation and measurable impact. Eligible initiatives may include operating model transformation, organisational redesign, capability development, technology-enabled change, controls modernisation or process improvement.
Eligibility
- Open to in-house teams, departments or programme groups that have delivered a major strategic initiative or transformation programme.
- Entries must reflect activity and impact delivered within the last 12–18 months.
- Joint entries demonstrating collaboration across multiple business functions are encouraged.
- The organisation or project team must be based in or operating within Europe.
- Advisory firms, technology providers, outsourced service providers are not eligible.
Criteria
- Your submission needs to respond to the 3 criteria sections: Spirit, Approach and Outcome.
- You will be awarded a maximum of 10 points per section (30 points in total).
- Questions are suggested in each criteria section. These are prompts to help you think about the evidence that will help judges to best assess your entry. You do not need to address all questions, please use them as a guide.
- The 4th criteria section Validation is optional and is your opportunity to provide supporting documents to further demonstrate to judges why your submission should win. You can submit up to 3 supporting documents.
Spirit: Introduce the initiative and explain its strategic importance
Please include details such as:
- The strategic challenge or opportunity that prompted the initiative
- The business, regulatory or operational context
- The intended outcomes and long-term vision
- The scale, complexity and significance of the transformation
- Why the initiative was important to the organisation's future success
Approach: Describe how the initiative was designed, delivered and embedded
Please address some or all of the following:
- How the initiative aligned with organisational strategy and objectives
- How organisational change was planned, governed and delivered
- How stakeholders were engaged and aligned
- Any innovation, technology, automation or new ways of working introduced
- How implementation risks, dependencies or challenges were managed
- How the change was embedded to create sustainable outcomes
Outcome: Show the value and impact delivered by the initiative
Please include evidence such as:
- Evidence that the initiative met or exceeded its objectives
- Improvements in organisational capability, effectiveness or performance
- Improvements in compliance, governance, risk management or financial crime outcomes, where applicable
- Quantitative or qualitative measures of success
- Evidence of business value, operational improvement or strategic benefit
- Evidence that outcomes have been sustained and embedded
- Long-term scalability, sustainability or future benefits delivered by the initiative
- Both quantitative and qualitative evidence are welcome.
Validation (Optional): Support your entry with any further information to show the judges why this initiative should win
Examples include:
- Testimonials (100 words maximum each) from executive sponsors, business leaders or key stakeholders
- Evidence demonstrating measurable impact against the initiative's objectives.
- Examples of organisational adoption, capability enhancement or business transformation
- Audit findings, assurance reviews or independent assessments
- External recognition, benchmarking or independent validation
- You may submit up to three supporting documents for this section.