In contemporary business culture, awards often spotlight founders, valuations, and headlines. Yet behind every credible distinction sits a quieter mechanism, the people who decide. For the 2025 season of the European Business & Finance Award, the composition and selection of the jury became a defining part of the story itself.
The organisers are known for selecting jurors through a filtered process of their own, assessing independence, operational credibility, sector diversity, and the absence of conflicts of interest. The result is a panel constructed not to celebrate visibility, but to examine substance; not to reward the most recognisable name, but to identify the case that withstands scrutiny.
Throughout the season, the selection process was followed attentively, stage by stage, decision by decision. Over time, its internal logic became apparent: applications were not evaluated solely for presentation, but for consistency, defensibility, and practical consequences. Observing this progression allowed certain patterns to emerge, and with them, a set of questions that appear to guide the evaluation framework.
Among them: what distinguishes measurable impact from well-presented growth; when innovation moves beyond concept and becomes operational reality; how resilience can be recognised not after disruption, but within the structure of the model itself; and whether business performance today is better defined by rapid expansion, by scale, or by durability over time.
These reflections naturally lead to broader considerations. What gives an award credibility in a landscape crowded with recognition platforms? How does a jury separate genuine operational achievement from persuasive narrative? When does innovation truly begin, at announcement, or when it survives cost pressure, regulation, and scale? Can a company defend its metrics, assumptions, and structure when stripped of presentation? And ultimately, what defines business excellence in the current cycle: speed, scale, or the capacity to endure?
For Hovhannes Tovmasyan, the invitation to join the jury carried particular weight. He described it not simply as recognition, but as a professional responsibility shaped by the nature of the award itself, one that emphasizes real economic contribution rather than visibility.
From his perspective, participation in such a panel means engaging with businesses at a structural level: understanding how they operate under uncertainty, how decisions translate into long-term stability, and how measurable results are built over time rather than presented in isolated moments. The significance of the invitation, he noted, lies in the trust placed in the jury’s independence, the expectation that evaluation remains grounded in evidence, practical impact, and professional integrity.
The structure behind the award reflects these concerns. The 2025 cycle moved through staged filtration, submission, and compliance in spring; preliminary screening in summer; shortlist formation in September; followed by expert evaluation and jury review from October until the final decision was announced on 10 February 2026. At each step, visibility mattered less than defensibility. Originality, practical viability, and measurable outcome remained the core filters, reinforced this year by closer examination of resilience, risk governance, and what jurors described as “metric honesty.”
Cormac Folan summarised the mindset succinctly:
“Ambition is common. Operational discipline is rare. We look for teams that respond to reality, transparent finances, respect for the customer, and the ability to keep delivering when conditions change.”
Within that framework, the final discussion tends to orbit four enduring questions: what has tangibly changed, can the success be replicated, how the model behaves under stress, and whether responsibility for data, people, and market is demonstrable rather than declared.
Against this backdrop, the winners themselves appear less as isolated success stories and more as case studies in applied credibility. Among them, Mission Zero Technologies represented the climate-technology frontier, advancing carbon capture from the experimental phase toward industrial application. Dmitry Masyuk was recognised for translating artificial intelligence from technological promise into practical product performance, where reliability and real-world usability matter more than conceptual reach. In another sector, Еmmа Mаyе reflected long-cycle leadership in construction, where disciplined portfolio execution often outweighs market timing. ArPreview (opens in a new tab)tem Nikonov was noted for business leadership in the fintech sphere, including the development of structured risk and money-management systems designed to operate under volatility rather than ideal conditions. Meanwhile, Rohlik Group illustrated resilience in operational scaling, with growth sustained not by expansion alone but by automation, efficiency, and controlled execution.
Beyond individual outcomes, the award itself has gradually become a fixture in the European business calendar. Held over multiple years and shaped by evolving economic conditions, it has positioned itself as more than a ceremonial distinction, rather as a platform highlighting credible, practice-driven progress across industries. Its continuity matters: in an environment where recognition can be fleeting, consistency builds institutional weight.
Reflecting on the final stage of deliberations, several jurors noted that the difficulty of selection this year lay not in identifying strong candidates, but in distinguishing between them. The overall standard, by most accounts, was unusually high, with many applications demonstrating not only growth but operational depth, clarity of metrics, and long-term thinking.
Kasyapp Ivaaturi acknowledged the challenge of the process:
“What made this year particularly demanding was the consistency in quality. Many applicants showed real substance, not just momentum, but structure behind it. The final decisions came down to nuance: durability of the model, clarity of execution, and whether performance could be sustained beyond favourable conditions.”
In that sense, the outcome reflects less a narrow competition and more a rigorous calibration , an attempt to recognise not the loudest success, but the most resilient one.
Equally significant is the role the award plays in reinforcing a culture of responsible entrepreneurship. By focusing on measurable achievement, governance quality and long-term resilience, it contributes to a broader conversation about what sustainable business leadership should look like. For many participants, whether shortlisted or awarded, the process itself serves as validation within the professional community, signalling that serious, methodical work still defines the benchmark of success.
Taken together, the jury and the institution behind it do more than select winners. They shape a signal to the market: credibility in modern business is earned not by visibility alone, but by what holds up under scrutiny, over time, and in practice.