Does your company have a story to share? 2021 FT/IFC Transformational Business Awards are looking for forward-thinking companies and investors working to transform lives and markets with innovative solutions in urban infrastructure, climate-smart agriculture, sustainable supply chains, post-COVID disruptive tech, impact investing and gender-lens finance. 

The Transformational Business Awards are open to all financial and non-financial private sector organisations, as well as NGOs that can meet the judging criteria. 

Aside from the impact investing category, which is centred on the performance of funds, the focus is on specific projects and transactions and the impact those initiatives have or promise to have on the problems they are targeting. 

While the focus of all categories is on transformational impact in developing economies, the awards are also open to projects that address similar market deficiencies in the developed world and that could be replicated in severely under-supplied regions.

The aim is to recognise, showcase and reward private sector innovation, impact, replicability, financial viability and sustainability across a number of key areas. The emphasis this year is on addressing climate change, harnessing disruptive technologies and business models to achieve impact and scale, and achieving best practice in impact and gender-lens investing.

Entries are particularly welcome from institutional investors and other large holders of capital that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and from organisations with initiatives that may provide solutions in fragile and conflict-affected states and the world’s poorest countries.

Projects or transactions must have passed the implementation stage and result in measurable impact. Only initiatives that have been implemented since 2015, and have annual revenues of at least US$5 million, will be eligible.