Distinguished Achievement Awards

Acknowledging outstanding contributions to
management thinking.

about the awards

About the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards

The biennial Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards were created in 2011 to recognise the exceptional contributions of individual thinkers.

Award categories can vary slightly in any given year, but tend to fall into the categories below. Thinkers50 publishes the specific list of upcoming awards, including descriptions of the criteria for each one, during the award nomination period.

Distinguished Achievement Award Categories:

  • Breakthrough Idea Award
  • Coaching & Mentoring Award
  • Digital Thinking Award
  • Ideas into Practice Award
  • Innovation Award
  • Leadership Award
  • Radar Award
  • Strategy Award
  • Talent Award

In addition to the category awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award is given to an individual thinker in recognition of an outstanding body of work over an entire lifetime; and a Founders’ Award is given to individuals in the world of business ideas who provide industry leadership and inspiration.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Recognising an outstanding body of work over an entire lifetime.

The Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award is given to someone who has had a long-term impact on the way people think about and practice management. The first-ever award in this category was given to Charles Handy in 2011. Recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award gain automatic entry into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame.

See the complete list of Lifetime Achievement Award recipients

FOUNDERS’ AWARD

For an individual who has paved the way for thought leadership to flourish.

The Thinkers50 Founders’ Award, introduced in 2019, recognises individuals in the world of business ideas who provide industry leadership and inspiration. It acknowledges the invaluable contribution of the architects who lay the foundations for ideas to flourish. The first Thinkers50 Founders’ Award recipient was Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño, President of IE University.

SELECTION PROCESS

Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards: The Selection Process

Nominations for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Category Awards are open from May to July in Thinkers50 Awards Gala years (odd-numbered years), and shortlists are announced in late summer. Awards are conferred in November at the biennial Thinkers50 Awards Gala event.

All nominations for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards are considered by the Thinkers50 Panel of Advisors.

Public participation is an important part of the Awards process. In Thinkers50 Awards years (odd-numbered years) all interested parties are invited to participate in the nomination process by submitting online the names and qualifications of thinkers they wish to put forward for consideration. Nominations from across the globe are accepted – and encouraged.

The Thinkers50 Distinguished
Achievement Awards have been described by the Financial Times as

The Oscars of Management Thinking

because, like the Oscars, they are highly prestigious in their industry and are presented at a gala event attended by scores of the great management thinkers of our time. The Thinkers50 Awards Gala also features the announcement of the new Thinkers50 Ranking.

for the next Distinguished Achievement Awards

Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards

THINKERS50 awards gala 2017

13 November 2017

Every two years, Thinkers50 hosts a unique event in central London – a gathering of great business minds for a day of ideas, debate, and networking, followed by an elegant evening celebrating the very best in management thinking.

Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards 2017 winners and shortlists

BREAKTHROUGH IDEA
Award Recipient

Susan David

for Emotional Agility

Author of Emotional Agility (Penguin, 2016), which Harvard Business Review rated as one of its Management Ideas of the Year

BREAKTHROUGH IDEA AWARD 2017 SHORTLIST

Aaron Hurst for The Purpose Economy

John Spence for Awesomely Simple

Joost Minnaar, Pim de Morree & Freek-Jan Ronner for Corporate Rebels

Lynda Gratton & Andrew Scott for The 100-Year Life

Mark Esposito & Terence Tse for The DRIVE Framework

Marshall Goldsmith for 100 Coaches

Nilofer Merchant for Onlyness

Susan David for Emotional Agility

Digital Thinking
award Recipients

Don and Alex Tapscott

Authors of The Blockchain Revolution How the Technology behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World (Portfolio, 2016)

Digital Thinking AWARD 2017 SHORTLIST

Anindya Ghose

Don & Alex Tapscott

Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee

Hu Yong

Jose Esteves

Kate Darling

Martin Ford

Sherry Turkle

IDEAS INTO PRACTICE
Award Recipient

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez

The world’s leading champion of project management

IDEAS INTO PRACTICE AWARD 2017 SHORTLIST

Adele Sweetwood

Anita Krohn Traaseth

Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez

ofo

Louise van Rhyn

Mary C. Gentile

Peter Terium & Deborah Rowland

The Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management

INNOVATION
award Recipient

Scott Anthony

Managing partner of Innosight. Author and co-author of several books.

INNOVATION AWARD 2017 SHORTLIST

Christian Seelos & Johanna Mair

David Robertson

Howard Yu

Jeanne Liedtka

Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden

Scott Anthony

Soren Kaplan

Tendayi Viki

LEADERSHIP
award Recipient

Hal Gregersen

Executive director of the MIT Leadership Center and a senior lecturer in leadership and innovation at MIT’s Sloan School

LEADERSHIP AWARD 2017 SHORTLIST

Angela Duckworth

Hal Gregersen

Heidi K. Gardner

John Mattone

Karl Moore

Margarita Mayo

Simon Sinek

Sydney Finkelstein

radar
award Recipient

Amy Webb

Quantitative futurist and professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business and the founder of the Future Today Institute

RADAR AWARD 2017 SHORTLIST

Alexander Betts

Amy Webb

Katy Milkman

Maja Korica

Mark Greeven

Mona Hammami Hijazi

Zoë Chance

STRATEGY
award Recipient

Richard D’Aveni

Author of a number of influential books including Hypercompetition, Beating the Commodity Trap, Strategic Capitalism and When Titans Rule the World

STRATEGY AWARD 2017 SHORTLIST

Alex Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur

András Tilcsik

Pankaj Ghemawat

Richard D’Aveni

Rita McGrath

Roger Martin

W Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne

Weiru Chen

Talent
award Recipient

Amy Edmondson

Pioneer and champion of psychological safety, studies people, projects and organizations to uncover the secrets of successful teaming.

TALENT AWARD 2017 SHORTLIST

Amy Edmondson

Ayse Birsel

Carol Fishman Cohen

Jennifer Petriglieri & Gianpiero Petriglieri

Laurel Noël & Christie Hunter Arscott

Sallie Krawcheck

Shane Cragun & Kate Sweetman

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Lifetime Achievement
award Recipient 2017

Tom Peters

Tom Peters has been credited with inventing the modern management guru industry. He is charman of the Tom Peters Company, and has several best-selling business books under his name.

Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards

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