Winners named in Transformational Leadership Awards

Smart Industry is pleased to announce the winners of its first Transformational Leadership Awards. The awards program was created to identify and honor those individuals and organizations leading the way to Industry 4.0. This year’s winners, chosen from across the global industrial landscape, have successfully envisioned, planned and executed the digital transformation (DX) of one or more aspects of their business through the application of digital and disruptive technologies.

The Transformational Leadership award categories and selection criteria are aligned to reflect today's most critical business transformation challenges. They recognize the importance of executive vision and organizational communication; the ability to build talent, manage change and collaborate across functional siloes; and the successful reinvention of operational processes, customer relationships and business models. The five award categories include two individual award categories as well as three organizational awards as described below. Smart Industry congratulates all those who were nominated, as well as the winners named today.

We’re also pleased to announce that our awards program sponsor, Rockwell Automation, has invited all Transformational Leadership Award winners to share their lessons learned at the upcoming DX Strategists Conference. This complimentary virtual conference will be held June 10^th, on the first day of the company’s ROKLive Experience virtual event, which runs through June 19th. Visit DX Strategists Conference for more information and to register.

Five categories of digital innovation

In our first Transformational Leadership Award category, three senior executives were recognized for the vision, innovation, perseverance and growth mindset to inspire and lead their organizations to embark

on a journey of DX. The honorees in the category of DX Visionary are:

Sudhi Bangalore, Global VP, Industry 4.0, Stanley Black & Decker
Mike Carroll, SVP Innovation, Georgia-Pacific
Kevin Seaver, Executive GM Automation & Digital, Cytiva (formerly GE Life Sciences)

Three executives with direct responsibility for implementing DX initiatives were recognized for their demonstrated ability to create teams and lead them to desired goals. The honorees in the category of DX Champion are:

Matthew Boudjouk, Control & Automation Program Lead, Ecolab
David Gustafson, Executive Director, Process Systems Development, Bridgestone Americas
Hiram J. Sosa, Senior Automation Manager, EMEA, Doosan Bobcat

Three organizations were recognized for their ability to foster productive collaboration across traditional functional siloes resulting in the successful DX projects. The organizations honored in the category of IT/OT Teamwork are:

Three end-user organizations were recognized for the successful execution of DX in one or multiple areas of their business and at scale, ranging from operations to product/service offering to customer service. The end-user organizations honored in the category of DX Trailblazer are:

Last but certainly not least, three machine builders, or industrial original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs) were recognized for the successful leverage of digital technologies to increase value for their customers and generate new revenue streams. The industrial OEMs honored in the category ofIIoT Pioneer are:

Once again, congratulations to the winners of this year’s Transformational Leadership awards, thank you to our sponsor Rockwell Automation, and a quick reminder that many of the winners will be sharing their stories of digital transformation at the upcoming DX Strategists Conference.