Empowering the recognition of empowerment

The main reason for the change is that the research methodology has been enhanced to provide a more sophisticated and accurate system of recognising the luminaries and the country's most successful black economic and gender empowered organizations and individuals.

Through a process of public voting, both companies and individuals will be nominated and submitted to the Top Empowerment Awards Panel before being finally chosen. The panel is made up of SA Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CHAMSA), the UCT Graduate School of Business (UCT GSB), the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), SizweNtsaluba VSP (chartered accountants) and Nafcoc.

The Top Empowerment Awards in-house research department undertakes a rigorous process that takes place over a period of eight months and investigates more than 3,000 South African companies. Of the companies that qualify - usually about 50 percent of those researched - a final shortlist of the best is drawn up and submitted to the panel of judges to choose the final winners.

Also, this year there will now be sector nominees for each Award - such as for Top Emerging Gender Empowered Company of the Year, Top Black Empowered Company of the Year, etc - in different business categories and will cover diverse fields such as media, health, retail, IT and finance. The nominations for Awards in each sector will then be put forward to the panel for choosing the ultimate winner.

For further information, please visit the Top Empowerment Awards website, www.topco.co.za

Or call Karey Evett or Gwen Villet at Wired Communications on 021 464 1144.