How winners are decided
Decided by public vote.
Five steps and the guard rails around them, set out here before anyone pays to enter.
You run it. Come and collect.
Entries are open. Winners are announced online.
- 20
- Counted votes to qualify for the shortlist
- 3 to 5
- Finalists the vote finds in a category
- 1
- Verified vote per person, per category
- 0
- Sponsors with a vote or a look at the count, ever
One of six
Five steps, in this order.
Decided by public vote. One verified vote per person.
Nothing about a result can be bought. Entering pays for your page, a sponsorship never includes a finalist place, and sponsors never vote.
Step 01
Apply
The entry fee pays for your page, never for the result.
Step 02
Connect your accounts
Link and lock your LinkedIn, your socials and your website. Your band is self-declared on one line. There is nothing to prove.
Step 03
Community vote
One verified vote per person, per category. The vote finds three to five finalists.
Step 04
The count
Every vote is checked for fraud and the count is independently certified. The finalist with the most counted votes in Round 2, finalists only, wins, sealed until the winners are announced.
Step 05
Announced online
The winner is announced online at The Virtual Awards Night. Entries and finalist counts are published, category by category.
Two of six
Step 02. Connect your accounts.
Link and lock your LinkedIn, your socials and your website. Your band is self-declared on one line. There is nothing to prove.
If nobody can sack you, you belong in the Entrepreneur Awards.
Step 02, part 1
Your accounts, locked
Connect your LinkedIn (required), any socials you use, and your organisation’s website. Each one is confirmed as yours, then locked to your entry.
Step 02, part 2
Your headcount, declared
The headcount you are accountable for on the day you enter, on a one line declaration. Nothing to send, nothing to prove.
Step 02, part 3
We do the looking
Your locked accounts are what voters see and what we check. Nobody asks you for a document.
Headcount of the organisation
The band you compete in, and the rules that make it hold.
- Headcount is the organisation you are accountable for, measured on the day you enter, full time equivalents including contractors on the books.
- A country executive of a global group enters on the headcount they are accountable for in that country, not the group total.
- Self-declared on the entry, on a one line declaration. Nobody asks you to prove it.
- The ratchet. You may move up a band in a later year. You may never move back down.
Band 1 of 3
Growth
Under 100 people
The function is you and a couple of people. You still do the work.
Band 2 of 3
Mid-market
100 to 999 people
A department, a budget and a board that asks questions.
Band 3 of 3
Enterprise
1,000 people and over
Layers, regions, regulators and a function that runs without you in the room.
Three of six
Step 03. The community vote.
An executive’s constituency is not customers. It is the market they work in: colleagues, counterparts, suppliers, advisers, recruiters, the people who have sat across a table from them. That is the executive equivalent of having walked the floor, and it can be gated with one rule: a work email.
One verified vote per person, per category. The vote finds three to five finalists. The word the programme publishes is Qualified, at 20 votes, then the finalists. Never a running total.
Vote rule 01
A verified work email, on a corporate domain
Free mail domains are rejected outright and held as a maintained list. The voter declares their employer and their role on the ballot, one vote per person per category, confirmed by clicking the link sent to the work address.
Vote rule 02
The domain cap, at 25 per cent
No more than a quarter of an executive’s votes may come from their own employer’s domain. Votes past the cap are recorded and not counted. This is the whole game. It stops a chief executive emailing four thousand staff, and it forces the support to come from outside the building.
Vote rule 03
Twenty counted votes, as a threshold
Twenty counted votes qualifies an entry. Nothing about the count is ever published, only the word Qualified. The vote then finds three to five finalists, and the finalist with the most counted votes in Round 2, finalists only, wins, checked, certified and sealed until winners are announced.
Where it breaks
Every voting mechanic has an attack on it. This one is published with its own, because a rule you only find out about after you lose is not a rule.
- It excludes legitimate voters at small firms and sole practices who genuinely use a free mail address, and retired or between-roles executives. There is a manual allow-list request, reviewed, for a named person at a named company.
- A determined employer can buy a second domain and provision mailboxes on it. Domain age and mail records are checked on any domain supplying more than a handful of votes, and a new domain whose votes all land inside one hour is flagged.
- The cap can be routed around through suppliers, partners and the agency roster, which is arguably legitimate support and arguably an organised campaign. There is no clean line, so the cap is published and the right to disqualify is reserved.
- Big organisations have more counterparts than small ones. That is exactly what the headcount band is for.
The exceptions
- Employer, Executive Team and Board of the Year
- The cap inverts. At least 60 per cent of votes must come from the organisation’s own domain, minimum ten verified voters, ballots anonymous and never shown to the entrant.
- Public Sector and Not-for-Profit Executive
- The standard rule, with government and organisation domains treated as corporate domains.
Four of six
Step 04. The count, checked and sealed.
Every vote is checked for fraud and the count is independently certified. The finalist with the most counted votes in Round 2, finalists only, wins, sealed until the winners are announced.
Sponsors never vote and never see the count. The rules are published before the vote opens.
01
Published before the vote
The rules are published before the vote opens, so every entrant knows how the count works before anyone votes.
02
One verified vote each
One vote per person, per category, confirmed by email. A vote counts only when the link is clicked.
03
Checked for fraud
Bulk, bot and traded votes are flagged and removed before the finalists are named, and the count is independently certified.
04
Sealed until announced
The finalist with the most counted votes in Round 2, finalists only, wins. The result stays sealed until the winner is announced online.
Five of six
Step 05. Announced online.
The winner is announced online at The Virtual Awards Night. Entries and finalist counts are published, category by category.
Announced online
The winner is announced at The Virtual Awards Night, streamed. Anyone can register to watch.
What is published
The number of entries and the number of finalists, category by category.
What is never published
A running vote total, a leaderboard or a position. The vote says Qualified, then the finalists, then the winner.
Six of six
The guard rails.
Written into the rules, not left to goodwill.
2027 is the inaugural year. Nothing on this site will suggest a history the programme does not have.
In the rules
Guard rails
- Sponsors never vote and never see the count.
- No sponsorship package includes a finalist place.
- Reciprocal vote trading is flagged and reviewed before the finalists are named.
- The rules are published before the vote opens, and the count is independently certified.
Said plainly
Inaugural 2027
2027 is the first year, and every page, badge and release says so. There is no back catalogue of past winners, and nothing will suggest one.
The calendar
27 September 2026
Entries open
From 27 September 2026
Round 1 of the community vote, online. It decides the finalists
30 July 2027
Entries and Round 1 close, everywhere
Monday 9 August 2027
Finalists announced
9 to 29 August 2027
Round 2, finalists only, counted from zero. It decides the winners
Before winners are announced
The count is checked and certified, then sealed until winners are announced
June 2027
Winners announced online at The Virtual Awards Night, streamed
The Executive Awards
Nominate someone. Or apply yourself.
Entries are open. Winners are announced online.