At Utah Business, we pride ourselves on recognizing and celebrating the people and companies behind Utah’s business successes. Almost every month, we feature a different category of Utah’s brightest minds—from CEOs to HR professionals to the Legal Elite. We rely on the community to submit nominations for these awards, and you’ve helped us spotlight people we never would have found on our own.

Some companies are consistently recognized for their excellence—and we know there are even more who deserve it. In this article, we pull back the curtain on our selection process. We invite all Utah companies to participate!

How are honorees selected?

Award nominations are scored by a panel of their peers—honorees of the same award from years past. All scores are then averaged, and the nominations are ranked.

Who should submit the nomination?

Anyone may nominate a candidate for an award. Nominations from within the candidate’s own company tend to score higher since colleagues generally have access to detailed and accurate information about the nominee’s professional accomplishments.

What information should be included in the nomination?

Judges expect nominations to give a full picture of the candidate. Do not expect judges to score based on a nominee’s reputation in the community—our judges come from a variety of industries and communities, so they may not have heard of your nominee, even if the nominee is generally well known. Points to consider include:

• Details about expertise, including degrees, certifications, work experience or background
• How this nominee goes above and beyond the way people in similar roles perform—what makes them different?
• Statistics about the nominee’s professional successes (e.g. increased sales by X%, managed acquisition valued at $X, expanded the business into X new markets, managed a team of X employees, etc.)
• Accomplishments, discoveries or awards
• Anecdotes about leadership style or philosophy
• Involvement in community or charitable organizations

Do multiple nominations for a candidate improve their chances of being selected?

No. Honorees are selected based on merit rather than popular vote. It is best to compile all the information into one well-written nomination. As the judges read through all the nominations—sometimes hundreds of them—it’s easier for them to get a full picture of the nominee if all information is in the same nomination.

Is there an associated cost?

There is no charge to submit a nomination, with the exception of two of our awards (noted in the “Exceptions” section). There is no charge for individual honorees to receive their awards or attend associated recognition events.

Other tips?

We want our award winners to be interesting to our readers, and we want to spotlight role models of all kinds for Utah’s business community. “If you can see it, you can be it.” We love receiving nominations from diverse categories—diverse geographies (like rural Utah), diverse industries, diverse roles and diverse communities.

* Exceptions

The Utah Business Fast 50 award recognizes Utah’s fastest-growing established companies based on a combination of revenue growth and total revenue. An application fee covers costs associated with vetting these numbers through a financial auditor.

The Utah Business Best Companies to Work For are selected based on responses to an employee survey. An application fee covers costs associated with surveying employees at each company that is considered.

Can you provide an example of a successful nomination?

Below is a [redacted] nomination for a candidate our judging panel selected to receive an award from Utah Business in 2023.

[Nominee] is the [Title] at [Company]. She graduated with her PhD in molecular biology in 2015, then completed an MBA in technology commercialization from [School] in 2021—basically, she’s a big fan of learning new things.

One of [Nominee]’s biggest strengths is relationship building. Directly with others and also connecting others together. She is big on mentoring and helping her team achieve their own goals. She strives to help make sure people truly understand science. She works at not just being a scientist but being a resource to bring science to people – acting as a bridge between scientists and the general public. She has a strict dedication to upholding integrity and scientific standards, even when it’s difficult.

[Nominee] has led multiple product development teams to successfully launch innovative new projects, like [Company Product]. She goes above and beyond in her work and steps in projects, even when they are difficult. She heads up quite a few projects at [Company] and is always looking to help in any way that she can.

[Executive Leader] started an initiative called [redacted]. These [Teams] are small teams that lead product development tasks. [Executive Leader] asked [Nominee] if she would lead one and she immediately jumped on the task. She stepped right in and performed exceptionally well.

Most scientists keep to themselves and like to work in a silo. But that is not [Nominee]. She loves to collaborate and pull people into the conversation early – which according to [Executive Leader], a scientist himself, is rare for other scientists to do.

She has received multiple awards, both internally at [Company] (including Leader of the Year) and externally from scientific organizations. She’s a woman in a STEM field where women are still in the minority. Women make up under 50% of the workforce in life and physical sciences.

[Nominee] participates in both formal and informal mentoring at [Company]. Informal mentoring is something that she has tried to be very active with since she was in graduate school. [Nominee] is a trusted, sought-after leader both within and outside of [Company]. She is a part of the internal Women in Leadership group, helping to promote the professional growth of women at [Company].

In her MBA program, [Nominee] led a team competing in a statewide financial analysis competition – something she had no real experience in but was excited to learn about after having been selected to lead. [Nominee] always steps up to lead initiatives – there’s a reason a friend gave her a notepad that says, “Stop me before I volunteer again”!

[Nominee] is involved with several charitable organizations, including one that works to provide transitional housing to families experiencing homelessness. She has gone to the Utah State Capitol to lobby Congress about initiatives to reduce poverty in Utah. And she has coordinated the donation of [Company Donations] to an orphanage in Mexico.

In collaboration with another employee, [Nominee] worked to spearhead the establishment of a program to support [Company] families through a dedicated program allowing them to exchange used kid items. The two goals for the program were to reduce the inflation pain for employees by allowing them access to free items that they may need and to promote sustainability within the company through the re-use of items that would otherwise have been thrown away and then purchased new. While it’s not a big, flashy initiative, it’s something that I think can have a real impact on people’s lives and the world around us in a quiet way.

Her involvement in the company and all the projects she works on shows her leadership skills and how much trust [Company] executives have in her to do her job. [Nominee] is still quite young, yet her portfolio is amazing. Her boss [Executive Leader] believes that it is probable [Nominee] will earn more degrees as well as have a top 100 portfolio in the nation at some point in her life.