The best kept employer branding secret of the year

The inaugural Employer Brand Leader of the Year Awards were presented at a ceremony in Budapest on 27 April at the International Employer Branding Summit, part of World Employer Branding Day 2017, an employer branding global industry gathering of around 400 leaders from more than 40 countries.

The Global Leader award was taken out by Aradhna Maingi who was responsible for driving the transformational employer brand strategy at Airtel. Whilst Aradhna’s award was announced at the ceremony, the 400 delegates were asked to keep it a secret until she arrived from India in the afternoon due to delays with her visa. Aradhna was presented with her award at the end of the Summit which capped off an emotion filled week as she didn’t know if she was going to be able to make it to Budapest for the event.

"Worldwide companies spend big money on attracting employees. At the same time many employees leave after the first year. It is important to promote the holistic attitude towards employer branding and lift up the leaders who focus on delivery of employee experience equal to or greater than candidates expectations. It was a big honour to award the Kantar TNS Employer Brand Leader of the Year prize to Aradhna said Larissa Hällefors from Kantar TNS, sponsors of the award.

The Emerging Leader award was won by Zuzana Zahoranova, a rising employer brand leader at Poštová banka in Slovakia who has displayed talent well beyond her experience in putting employer branding on the strategic agenda at her company by developing its first ever employer brand strategy.

World Employer Branding Day founder, Brett Minchington said, “Zuzana is one of those rare talents that has a strong grasp of the key HR, marketing and communication competencies required to lead an employer brand strategy at a strategic level. Her personality and ability to influence at the C-suite level at such a young age and experience, along with her hunger for learning, have all the makings for an extremely bright future ahead in employer branding.

Paul Greenaway, General Manager of "Attract," the emerging leader award sponsor added, "It was an absolute pleasure to be involved with judging the Global Employer Brand Leader Awards. It was great to see such a high standard across the nominees - in particular the case studies where projects were undertaken with a clear objective of building the employer brand across the whole employee experience journey. This demonstrates a maturing of the global employer branding market, where previously the majority of branding was focused solely on talent attraction.

Both Aradhna and Zuzana are alumni members of the Employer Branding College which offers qualifications and certifications in Employer Brand Leadership.

The 2018 awards will open when the host city for World Employer Branding day 2018 is announced in the coming months.