Ten of Jamaica’s most worker-centric companies have been nominated for the inaugural Gordon “Butch” Stewart Business Leader Award.

The programme, which is being staged under the theme ‘Business Leader: Employer of Choice’, will highlight the success that many of the country’s forward-looking boardrooms have had in introducing global best practices culture to their workforce.

The Jamaica Observer Media Group, which promotes the award project will, within the next few days, begin publishing stories on the firms that made the final list of 10 nominees. These institutions were trimmed down from an initial group of 60, then 40 which were further culled to 25. From this list, the final 10 nominees ultimately floated to the top
— separated in part by the compelling responses they submitted to an exhaustive and multifaceted questionnaire that, in its totality, teased out the most telling aspects of their industrial relations ethos and practices.

“All the companies that participated in the survey dedicated valuable executive time to provide granular details of their industrial relations practices,” said Moses Jackson, chairman of the Award Selection Committee.

“This was an unusually competitive group that all deserve to be nominated and to have their stories shared with Jamaica,” Jackson noted. “Even though they didn’t make it to the nomination stage, they contributed to the invaluable insight that the committee gained into the global best practices trend that Jamaica must continue to embrace so as not to fall behind. But the 10 nominees in particular are at the forefront of a positive transformation now underway at our workplaces.”

These nominees represent a wide range of industries — though not the country’s full breadth. From BPOs to financial services, manufacturing, utilities and tourism, the group of 10, both individually and collectively, present a leading-edge profile of modern management practices within corporate Jamaica.

But there are notable absences — not the least of which is the zero representation of private security services, one of the largest employers of labour in the country.

According to Jackson, that’s in part because while employers in this sector tend to lean disproportionately into contract employment, the award programme has a strong bias towards companies that offer permanent, full-time engagement. The job security and clear pathway to upward mobility that are fundamental features of this latter business model is a central value of the award programme.

To qualify for nomination, companies must have a minimum permanent staff count of 300, Jackson added.

“The Business Leader Award is by design a big business programme,” he explains. “We are interested in critical mass and the ability of employees to climb up a well-defined corporate ladder and organisations that can offer meaningful careers at scale.”

The Observer will chronicle the industrial relations successes of the 10 nominees in both its printed and electronic platforms.

However, readers will have to wait until Sunday, December 13 to learn which company in Jamaica is deemed the Employer of Choice — at least in large measure by the evaluation of the six independent individuals who make up the Award Selection Committee.

Five of the six committee members are themselves past nominees for the award. They are:

Ambassador Audrey Marks, founder and principal of Paymaster Ja;

Audrey Hinchcliffe, founder, principal and chair of Manpower and Maintenance Services Ltd;

Gassan Azan, founder, principal and chairman of MegaMart and Bashco Ltd;

Charles Ross, principal and chairman of Sterling Asset Management Ltd; and

Fred Smith, principal and chairman of Tropical Tours Ltd.

Ian Neita, former managing director of Yellow (Pages) Ltd, stands as the sole committee member who was never nominated for the award.

Importantly, employee voices will also be heard in the voting process; they will be polled to render their own verdict of the quality of the work environment that their bosses provide for them.

The award presentation and dinner will take place at AC Hotel Kingston on Lady Musgrave Road. In this regal setting the Gordon “Butch” Business Leader for 2026 will be announced as one of the final acts of an event that will begin with cocktail reception at 4:30 pm followed at 6:00 pm by the formal presentation and dinner.

The Business Leader Award is celebrating its 30th year to the very month, since its first staging in December 1996. It was branded then and up until days ago as the Jamaica Observer Business Leader Award. Earlier this month the Stewarts — family members of Sandals/ATL/Observer late patriarch Gordon “Butch” Stewart — consented to have the award renamed as a permanent tribute to their father. The rebranding was announced at a press conference at the Jamaica Observer headquarters in St Andrew.

Butch Stewart, as he was affectionately called, was known to have revered the award programme, viewing it as a vital and effective platform for the encouragement of business growth in Jamaica, and the direct promotion of local entrepreneurs.

This is the first time that the award is recognising businesses specifically for the quality of the work environment they provide staff — a particular corporate feature for which Butch Stewart was famous within the enterprises he founded and chaired. In fact, this point was emphasised by his son Brian Jardim who spoke at the press conference to announce the rebranding.

Jardim recalled his father’s obsession with staff welfare, and noted the convergence of this philosophy with the theme of the award that bears his name: Gordon “Butch” Stewart Business Leader: Employer of Choice.