Grant Thornton wins five Stevie® Awards for innovation and disruption

Chief Transformation Officer Jamie Fowler honored as Maverick of the Year and Woman of the Year

Three technologies take home prizes: alyx™, SOC.x and a powerful pandemic-resiliency tool

CHICAGO — Grant Thornton LLP has won five Stevie® Awards in the 19th Annual American Business Awards® competition — making it one of only a handful of companies to have won five or more awards this year, based on a record-setting 3,800 nominations. Grant Thornton brought home its quintuplet of awards, all focused on innovation and positive disruption, in the following areas:

Gold Stevie® Winner
Category: Management
Subcategory: Maverick of the Year - Business Services Industries
Entry: Jamie Fowler, Chief Transformation Officer, Grant Thornton LLP
View award video submission here.

Gold Stevie® Winner
Category: Management
Subcategory: Woman of the Year - Business Services Industries
Entry: Jamie Fowler, Chief Transformation Officer, Grant Thornton LLP
View award video submission here.

Silver Stevie® Winner
Category: Product Management & New Product Awards
Subcategory: Governance, Risk & Compliance Solution
Entry: Grant Thornton LLP's SOC.x Tool
View award video submission here.

Bronze Stevie® Winner
Category: Product Management & New Product Awards
Subcategory: Integration Solution
Entry: alyx™ Powered by Grant Thornton LLP
View award video submission here.

Bronze Stevie® Winner
Category: COVID-19 Response Awards
Subcategory: Most Valuable Service
Entry: Grant Thornton LLP's Pandemic Resiliency Assessment Tool
View award video submission here.

The American Business Awards are one of the nation’s leading business-awards programs. All organizations operating in the United States are eligible to submit nominations — public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small.

“These awards show what is possible when an entire organization aligns around transformation and focuses on how business should be done,” said Chris Stephenson, national managing principal and Grant Thornton’s leader of Product Innovation. “Winning five Stevie® Awards in a single year validates that we are bringing innovative solutions to our clients and to our firm — and we are humbled to be among the winners. Our focus now is on maximizing the tremendous marketplace potential of our offerings and our people.”

Jamie Fowler honored as maverick and female leader

Grant Thornton’s chief transformation officer, Jamie Fowler, won two Gold Stevie® Awards — one for Maverick of the Year and another for Woman of the Year. Both awards were in the Management category, under the Business Services Industries subcategory.

Fowler has more than 35 years of experience as a change agent and leader. In 2019, she assumed her current role creating new products and services for Grant Thornton’s clients, while also steering the firm’s own technology infrastructure and internal transformation efforts. She previously served as the firm’s national managing partner of Tax Services. Prior to that, she was the firm’s managing partner for the Atlantic Coast Territory and the office managing partner for the Washington, D.C., area.

“Jamie embodies the idea of positive disruption that has proven critical to our clients — and to our firm itself,” Brad Preber, CEO of Grant Thornton . “Winning two Stevie® Awards is the culmination of years of visionary leadership, as well as an indication of exciting developments to come. It also shows that diversity in leadership helps drive new thinking and new solutions in the business and technology communities.”

New alyx platform takes home the bronze

Grant Thornton’s alyx platform won a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Product Management & New Product Awards category, under the Integration Solution subcategory.

The alyx digital platform, which the firm publicly announced in September 2020, was initially available to all of Grant Thornton’s service professionals so they can solve business problems for clients with new and emerging technologies. The platform uses a ‘concierge-enabled’ system that shares problems with teams of subject-matter specialists and technologists. These teams subsequently develop solutions by combining know-how in Grant Thornton’s core service areas — accounting, tax and consulting — with technologies such as intelligent automation, data extraction, data cleansing, analytics and blockchain.

Grant Thornton is currently adding features to make the platform even more powerful, such as a chatbot using Microsoft Teams functionality. It is also working to provide its clients with access to the alyx platform so they can participate in creating solutions tailored to their needs.

“With alyx, we set out to create a platform that connects the people who identify challenges with those who build technology-driven solutions,” said Joseph Brown, Grant Thornton’s national managing partner of Market Innovation and Release Management. “Winning a Stevie® Award for alyx demonstrates we are doing just that — marrying innovation and knowledge in ways that lead the market.”

Grant Thornton has used alyx to launch four products over the past year, including: cta.x, an app to develop and deploy automated internal-controls tests.

A Silver Stevie® Award for the SOC.x tool

Grant Thornton’s SOC.x tool won a Silver Stevie® Award in the Product Management & New Product Awards category, under the Governance, Risk & Compliance Solution subcategory.

Grant Thornton launched SOC.x in November 2020 to more efficiently produce reports covering System and Organization Controls (SOC). SOC reports allow service organizations to demonstrate to their customers that the services they perform meet frameworks for areas such as financial reporting, security, availability, confidentiality and privacy.

“Winning a Stevie® Award for SOC.x shows that we are bringing our clients the reporting solutions they need to create trust and confidence with their customers,” said Nicole Julius, the national leader of Grant Thornton’s Strategic Assurance and SOC Services solutions. “Moreover, the award demonstrates that we are combining innovation with industry-leading, market-accepted quality.”

Pandemic tool cited as bronze winner for Most Valuable Service
 

Grant Thornton won a Bronze Stevie® Award for its Pandemic Resiliency Assessment Tool — winning the award in the COVID-19 Response Awards category, under the Most Valuable Service subcategory.

Grant Thornton launched the Pandemic Resiliency Assessment Tool in April 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was sweeping the nation. The tool helps companies assess their financial and operational performance using risk factors applicable to the pandemic and its impact on business resilience. It provides organizations with a framework to think through COVID-19’s business effects based on data they enter into a quantitative risk-modeling engine, which then generates tailored resiliency scorecards that include financial forecasts. More than 600 companies have used the tool to prioritize how they respond to COVID-19.

“Our goal with the Pandemic Resiliency Assessment Tool was to present businesses with new fact patterns and provide additional viewpoints they can use to sharpen their response and recovery plans,” said Yvette Connor, a principal in the Risk Advisory Services practice at Grant Thornton. “Winning a Stevie® Award for Most Valuable Service demonstrates that we are successfully committed to helping our clients find new ways to overcome their biggest challenges.”