About the MEA Business Awards
MEA Markets is excited to announce that the prestigious MEA Business Awards will be returning to our platform once again in 2024! This ever-popular programme is now entering its eighth consecutive year, and with each iteration we strive to make the latest version even better than the last!
The MEA Business Awards encompass the entirety of the Middle East and Africa regions, and as such are our most diverse and wide-ranging campaign. The team at MEA Markets work diligently for months in order to compile a comprehensive list of winners, where only the most deserving companies and businesspeople are selected for recognition. With our years of experience researching both the Middle East and African economic markets, we can successfully reflect the true nature and key attributes of this sprawling business landscape through the MEA Business Awards.
While individual MEA economies often perform at drastically different rates, the overall outlook in the region is positive, with most countries being expected to forge a path to growth in the near future. Despite ongoing turbulence across the global economy, the Middle East has continued to show strength in the face of these challenges – diversifying its business markets, embracing digital transformation, and investing in public service sectors such as Healthcare, Education, and Tourism. GCC countries in particular have striven to reduce their reliance on the dominant Oil sector by implementing government policies and funding initiatives to drive growth in other segments. Thanks in part to the success of these ambitious strategies, the GCC has now emerged as one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the world.
For Africa, in contrast to the recent performance of the Middle East, the path to growth has been more staggered and uneven. African countries have had to contend with high inflation rates, political instability, and underdeveloped infrastructure. While this challenging environment has stunted GDP growth across the continent in recent times, looking forward the African economy is expected to recover over the next couple of years and enter a period of heightened growth once again. Through 2025, Africa will sustain its position as the second-fastest growing region internationally, with forty of the continent’s fifty-four countries’ growth rates set to outpace their 2023 levels. This economic rebound highlights the strength and resilience of Africa and its business markets.
For anyone looking to promote their services to a targeted audience of 80,000 industry peers and potential clients across the Middle East and African regions, taking part in the MEA Business Awards 2024 provides an invaluable opportunity for exposure. Our winners can take advantage of both free-of-charge and commercial marketing tools that have been designed to maximise the promotional benefits of the award. The impressive selection of advertising options we can offer range from editorial content, web articles, and newsletter inclusions, to physical trophies, digital badge logos, and much more!
If you feel that your business – or a high-performance enterprise that you know – are deserving of recognition in the MEA Business Awards 2024, don’t hesitate and get involved today! Nominations for this year’s programme can be submitted by clicking ‘Vote Now’ and completing the form provided. Best of luck to all our 2024 nominees!
Methodology
Researching nominees
Shortlisting our nominees
Judging & evaluating nominees
Reaching out to winners
Make the most of your win
Research
The MEA Markets team work hard in identifying great businesses, driving many of the nominations themselves. The team encourage external nominations from the subscribers of the magazine, web visitors, social media following, clients and wider circulation. Nominating parties are invited to put forward either their own business or third-party companies whom they hold in high regard.
Shortlisting
All nominees are formally requested to accept their nomination, nominees are obviously free to accept or decline if they so wish. Those who formally accept are given the opportunity to submit additional supporting information to cement their nomination. There is no obligation to complete and supply such material, we have found that many nominees value this stage, in the process, as much as our research team do.
Evaluating shortlisted nominees
Our dedicated research team will assess all information presented to them. The team gather information independently from a variety of publicly accessible sources, which are assessed alongside any material supplied by a nominating party or by the nominee themselves. The research team casts their final judgment, based on various criteria such including business performance, longevity, diversification, growth (either sustained or rapid), any significant innovations, feedback from stakeholders.
How winners are determined
Once winners are selected, they are personally notified before any public announcement is made, allowing time for any communications throughout the wider business and the coordination of marketing strategies. Unfortunately, not everyone can be a winner; however, all who take part are encouraged to come back next year. Once the press embargo is lifted, details of our award winners will be made public via the MEA Markets website, award winners’ magazine and subscriber newsletter.
Sharing the news
We offer a range of promotional packages and items to MEA Markets’ award winners, which vary from inclusion in the free-of-charge winners’ directory, to trophies, content in our magazine and on our website.
We encourage all winners to publicly announce their win independently in order to gain maximum exposure. Announcements via company websites, social media, via publicly released press releases, and through local and national press are all great ways of maximising the exposure which can be gained from such a great achievement. If you have need of further advice, on how to publicise your win, please feel free to get in touch. We are more than happy to assist our clients with their needs.
Our Awards Team
Joe Woods - MEA Markets Lead Researcher
Joe joined the research team in 2016 and has been heavily involved with MEA Markets throughout. Joe has an interest in businesses of all shapes and sizes and how they have come to evolve over time making him an ideal Lead Researcher for the brand, researching businesses from across the region and across a variety of sectors. Joe has a natural interest in some of the major economies driving growth within the region and is always looking at what value the publication can bring to growing businesses across the Middle East & African countries.
Laura Hunter - MEA Markets Awards Manager
Laura joined the media group in 2014 and now oversees MEA Markets’ Awards programmes each year. Laura is committed to all nominees and winners to ensure that they receive both a great experience from the team and that winners are supported in gaining maximum exposure from such an amazing achievement.
Jeremy Roe - Head of Research
Jeremy has been dedicated to the research team of AI Global Media since 2015. He leads the team of researchers with utmost dedication and diligence and has a hands-on understanding and awareness of MEA Markets, what the brand’s aims are and the value it brings to its clients and award winners.
Jane Henderson - Director
Jane is one of the founding members of the publishing group and one of three directors driving the business today. Jane is committed to ensuring that each of our MEA Markets’ Awards winners not only has a great experience, but also gain maximum value for their award win.
FAQs
When was the magazine launched?+
MEA Markets was launched in 2015 to aid in reporting news from across one of the most influential business regions in the world. We are a quarterly publication dedicated to researching and publicising the major moves and events as they happen across the entire Middle East & Africa region. MEA Markets is brought to you by AI Global Media, a UK based publisher which has published over 200 worldwide publications to its name since 2010.
How did I or my firm come to be nominated?+
The publishing group frequently nominate candidates themselves. In terms of the process of voting, if you didn’t cast a vote by self-submission it is likely to have been cast via a colleague or client who has received one of our direct invitations. In the interest of maintaining high response rates, we do not ask nominees to reveal their personal identity. The main ethos of our awards system is that your ability to succeed is not linked to the number of votes received, with the most pertinent belief behind this being that all awards will be received purely on merit. As a means of identifying spam votes and countering cyber-threats, we monitor the website for unusual activity.
What happens if I agree to be shortlisted?+
As we look to keep maximum focus on relevant candidates, we ask all nominees to accept their position on the shortlist. This gives people complete control in their decision on whether they would like to be considered further. There is no cost for you to be added onto the shortlist or for any of our winners. Nominees who accept will then be forwarded to our research team. Nominees are given the opportunity to present their own data which gets considered alongside the information collated by our research team. It can take up to 8 weeks for research to be completed.
Who makes the final decision?+
We employ an entirely impartial panel of 5 individuals to conduct our research to high standards. At the helm of the panel we have a veteran academic leader with international academic and training experience. The team are well versed in research, fact-checking and mediation. We believe this method is the most efficient in determining which individuals and companies are most deserving in winning an award and has brought us much success and commendation throughout its use. Our continued use of this panel plays a key part in enforcing MEA Markets’ stance that winners are not determined by popularity of votes, but by their contributions within their industry.
Is there a winner’s ceremony/award dinner and if so, when does it take place?+
We do not focus our efforts on a celebratory event. Despite being enjoyable, it doesn’t support our group’s philosophy of cost-effective marketing. As well as the lack of cost efficiency, MEA Markets is an establishment which runs across a broad region and we believe it would be logistically difficult for some of our winners to attend an awards ceremony. We follow the belief that any of the optional costs involved with the award would be more beneficial in a year’s worth of online marketing for a winner, rather than spending it all on a ceremonial evening. All of our press announcements are made digitally, online and across our network to enforce our position as digital publishers. We aim to arm you with the tools (both digital and physical) to generate real value.
What happens if I am deemed successful?+
There is a short press embargo in place where we ask you not to make the news public, giving us the chance to prepare the different means of coverage we offer for companies. During this period the program manager will liaise with you to agree on the most appropriate coverage for you. Our main feature takes the form of a digital celebratory magazine, but we also offer physical trophies, wall mounted and digital certificates, web-based advertisements and generic press releases which are bespoke to you or your company. This variety of options are aimed to make the awards tailor made to each individual/firm.
Are there any costs?+
As previously mentioned, there are no compulsory costs in accepting a nomination or winning an award with MEA Markets. We do offer a variety of paid additional benefits for our winners, but these are completely optional and merely supplementary to your award rather than essential. To demonstrate our commitment to no mandatory fees, all winners are offered a free of charge promotional package. Our company policy will always remain: regardless of budget, our clients should always be able to garner the full value of the award and our seal of approval. We offer a variety of promotional opportunities to our winners, as we have an extensive network and we know, more than anyone, the wider business benefits from promoting industry awards.
Why does your email domain differ from your website domain?+
Because we send a large volume of emails, we separate our campaign email sends from our transactional ones. This structure helps to ensure a prompt and thorough response from one of our diligent team members. The sending email address will always be recognisable but please contact us via the address on this page if you have any concerns.
Need Help With Your Nomination?
We can point you in the right direction.
The Nomination Team can assist with answering any queries that you have regarding a nomination, or the process involved in taking part in one of our award programmes.
Please get in touch with us via email or over the phone if you have any questions - we are happy to help!
Key Dates
Entries Open:
Sunday 11th August 2024
Entries Closed:
Monday 30th September 2024
Winners Announced:
December 2024
