EFMD is delighted to announce the 2020 EFMD Excellence in Practice Gold Award Winners.

Since 2007, The EFMD Excellence in Practice (EiP) Awards recognise outstanding and impactful client-supplier partnerships in the domains of Leadership, Professional, Talent and Organisational Development.

The 2020 Gold Award Winners in the following five categories are:

Organisational Development

Unilever Brasil Industrial & Fundaço Dom Cabral (FDC)
“Responsible factory closing and relocation at a global sustainability leader”

Commenting on their recent success, Michelle Demori, Program Director at FDC said: “We are immensely happy with this recognition that exemplifies FDC’s mission in contributing to the sustainable development of society through education. Certainly, a sum of factors contributed for us to be recognised and – in my opinion – the most important is the fact we have assembled a spectacular team (FDC and UL) which has always believed in and dedicated itself to this Project.”

Viviane Barreto, Associate Dean for Global Strategy at FDC reinforces that: “This award recognises a thing with great value to FDC, through education to support organisations to implement important projects to provide positive results for the corporation and all its stakeholders.”

FDC Professor and Director of the FDC Sustainability Research Center Heiko Spitzeck added: “The Gold Award recognition by EFMD not only showcases our ability to deliver outstanding executive education in challenging environments but also how customised programmes can deliver shared value – value for our client and for the local community at the same time. I would be very happy to see other schools integrating shared value approaches.”

Talent Development

Pertamina & INSEAD & Deloitte & Tjitra and Associates Consulting & Bob Aubrey Associates
“Catalyser: Massive leadership acceleration in an Indonesian state-owned company”

“Pertamina is honoured to be the first Indonesian company awarded the EiP Gold Award for Talent Development. We took the initiative to create a new leadership development model and we hope this will motivate more Indonesian companies to innovate and create world-class solutions to our human development needs,” says Nicke Widyawati, President Director & CEO of PT Pertamina (Persero).

Bob Aubrey, Managing Director at Bob Aubrey Associates added: “I speak for my collaborators at INSEAD, Deloitte and Tjitra in thanking EFMD for recognising our ambitious co-creation enterprise in partnership with Pertamina. We believe our Catalyser initiative demonstrates the advantages of “gotong royong” (Indonesian word for collaboration) in developing global Asian leaders.”

Executive Development

Standard Bank & Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) & Henley Business School
“Authentic African leadership requires ‘more than a programme”

Sharon Taylor, Head of Human Capital at Standard Bank Group commented: “We are delighted to be recognised for our Strategic Leadership Programme, in partnership with GIBS and Henley Business School. It is critical that we build rich personal and professional development experiences that prepare our leaders for success in an ever-changing environment. At Standard Bank, we believe in creating an environment in which our people can become the best version of themselves – the Strategic Leadership Programme certainly contributes to our ability to realise this dream.”

“We are excited to be recognised for the efforts we have made in making the Strategic Leadership Programme a truly transformational experience. The partnership that we have with GIBS and Henley, the wonderful faculty and the overwhelming belief that ‘It can be’ has contributed to the success of this initiative. Thank you to everyone involved,” says Shayne Weideman, Head: Leadership Effectiveness at Standard Bank Group.

Reacting to this award, Gill Cross, Head of Learning Innovation, at Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) added: “We are honoured to receive this award, which epitomises the spirit of Africa. The GIBS partnership with Standard Bank and Henley has cultivated a rich approach towards the design and delivery of leadership development solutions ‘by Africa, for Africa’ held together by our spirit of Ubuntu, roughly translated as ‘I am because of who we all are.'”

“My sincere congratulations to all involved,” said Nicola Kleyn, Directors of Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS).

Commenting on their recent success, Jon Foster-Pedley, Dean of Henley Africa said: “The purpose of a business school is to build our clients’ businesses and build the nation. The world is too small, the challenges too big, to focus on competition. By working together, a collaboration between great schools and a great client, we’re reinventing executive education to the benefit of all. Congratulations to the great teams from Standard Bank, GIBS and Henley. Let’s keep doing this.”

“As Henley, Africa, we are most grateful to our partners in this development endeavour – Standard bank and GIBS. We are definitely better together, proving that ‘strengths-gathering’ is a productive coopetition endeavour. Our continent needs sustainable solutions to societal issues. The #unTAP programme speaks to the mantra of ‘more than a bank’ and allows us to be part of something far bigger than ourselves,” said Linda Buckley, Director Executive Education at Henley Africa.

Professional Development

ArcelorMittal & EF Education First
“Unlocking human potential through English language learning”

“We are honoured and humbled by this international recognition of our professional development partnership with Education First. Our global English language programme is the cornerstone for all our other learning and development programmes, as it brings diversity to our talent pipeline,” says Bart Wille, Executive Vice President Human Resources at ArcelorMittal.

Commenting on the award, Brian Callaghan, Vice President Resourcing, Leadership Development and Learning at ArcelorMittal said: “English is the foundation on which we strengthen inclusion, collaboration, job satisfaction, knowledge transfer and employee engagement. So, the professional development opportunities our English programme brings, particularly where English language skills are less accessible, are vital.”

“We are incredibly proud to accept this award and delighted to showcase a really impactful collaboration with one of our close partners. It is inspiring for us to see how much ArcelorMittal value their English training program as a strategic project that underpins their other learning initiatives, and strongly supports inclusivity and diversity in their leadership development,” says Bjorn Bengtsson, President Corporate Solutions, at EF Education First.

Ecosystem Development

Association of Entrepreneurship Development “SKOLKOVO Community” & Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO
“Developing entrepreneurship in Russia”

“For the last 7 years, the programme Practicum has been providing a rich knowledge base and a set of tools for entrepreneurs. We are very proud that our joint efforts with the Association of Entrepreneurship Development “SKOLKOVO Community” to develop the business ecosystem was highly appreciated not only by the participants of our programmes, but also by the representatives of the jury of one of the largest international business case competitions,” says Andrei Sharonov, President of Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO.

Vitaly Polekhin, Head of the Investors Club at the Association of Entrepreneurship Development’ SKOLKOVO COMMUNITY’ added: “We are happy to receive this EiP Gold award for our joint efforts with Moscow school of management SKOLKOVO. It was seven years of exciting work in partnership that allowed us to achieve the results in creating a supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem we described in our case.”

Finally, Eric Cornuel, President of EFMD, congratulated all the winners of the EiP Gold Awards: “We are delighted to continue recognising the strength of partnerships which enhance the Learning & Development within an organisation. This year, with more than 40 submissions spanning across different continents and industries, we came across many exceptional cases illustrating the power of multi-partnership collaborations and testifying to the impact of investing in human and organisational development. In the current context, providing an environment that helps to develop people and enhance their skills is now more essential than ever.”

“The 2020 edition of the Excellence in Practice Awards has been an all-time success: more partnerships than ever submitted a case and jury members had again a challenging task in deciding on award winners. The all-virtual process has proven an asset in these pandemic times, conditions which make us already curious for next year’s batch of applicants.  As from here the sharing and exchange can start.  Thanks to all applicants and congratulations to the winners!” added Jan Ginneberge, Senior Advisor at EFMD Corporate Services.

EFMD is eager to provide visibility and support to all professionals in the L&D sector. The Winners will be awarded during the next EFMD Executive Development Conference, 21-23 October 2020.

We would like to thank all of the applicants as well as the jury members for their successful cooperation and hope to receive more exciting cases next year. We are pleased to take note of the continuously growing quality of applications. As well as the Gold Award winners there were Silver Award winners and also Finalists selected from all of the entries.

Next submission deadline: 15 March 2021

For submission guidelines & expression of interest, please visit www.efmdglobal.org/EIP. If you have any questions or would like further information on the EIP awards you can find out more via this EIP Overview Brief or please contact Florence Gregoire.