The Outstanding Business Leader Award

Celebrating a UK-based leader who has built, transformed, scaled or reinvented an organisation, delivering exceptional business achievement, inspiring people through complexity, and creating lasting value.

The recipient will have played a clear and defining role in that success, combining commercial impact with bold decision-making, clarity of purpose and leadership that others can learn from.

This is not an award for the biggest business, the highest share price or the longest CV. It recognises leadership that can be seen, attributed and told: a clear challenge or opportunity, decisive leadership, and an outcome that demonstrates the difference they made.

Above all, the winner should be someone whose achievements, experience and perspective can inspire our community of senior marketers and business leaders, a leader who means business.

How it works

We are inviting our Members to nominate the UK business leader they believe most deserves this recognition. Every nomination is reviewed against our eligibility criteria, then assessed by an independent panel of judges against four judging criteria. The winner is selected by the panel and announced live at The Leadership Dinner.

Timings

• Nominations close on 25 September 2026.
• Judging takes place by 19 October 2026.

The winner is announced live at The Leadership Dinner, where they receive the award and deliver a short acceptance speech.

Previous Winners

• 2013 Richard Curtis
• 2014 Carolyn McCall
• 2015 Ron Dennis
• 2016 Paul Polman

How to nominate

Tell us who you'd nominate and why. Your nomination should set out the business challenge or opportunity they faced, the decisions and actions that were distinctly theirs, and the outcome that resulted. The more specific and evidenced your nomination, the easier it is for our judges to assess.

Nominate here

Who you can nominate

As you put your nomination forward, consider whether the leader:

• Currently holds a substantial business role and is UK-based, for example CEO, founder/CEO, executive chair or an equivalent enterprise leadership role with demonstrable accountability for business outcomes.
• Has built, transformed, scaled, rescued or reinvented a business, with results that are significant, well evidenced and would stand up to external scrutiny.
• Played a clear, defining personal role in that achievement, rather than simply benefiting from favourable conditions.
• Has a compelling, memorable story, with a clear challenge, decisive action and a demonstrable difference between where they started and where they ended up.
• Has the credibility and presence to inspire an audience of senior business and marketing leaders.

What you'll need to nominate

Before you start, it helps to have this ready:

• The business challenge or opportunity they faced, in under two hundred words
• What they personally did, distinctly theirs, to address it, in 250 to 300 words
• The outcome, and how it's evidenced, in 250 to 300 words
• Why this leader would inspire our community of senior marketers and business leaders, in 250 to 300 words
• Any supporting links, such as press coverage, results or interviews (optional)
• Your relationship to the nominee, if any

The more specific you can be, the easier it is for our judges to do your nomination justice.