2022 Nominations Open
Nominations are open for the 2022 Global Business & Interfaith Peace Awards (access Nomination Google form). The awards will be presented at the global Dare to Overcome conference on May 24, 2022, at the Busch School of Business at Catholic University in Washington, DC, in partnership with American Airlines. Business CEOs will be recognized for their work in interfaith understanding and peace. All of the leaders are recognized for using their businesses to build bridges of authentic connection between people of diverse backgrounds.
Problems with the form? Email Nominations.
Winners of the fourth Global Business & Interfaith Peace Awards will express their thoughts on faith and work as they are presented with Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals at an in-person global ceremony on Tuesday, May 24.
Medals are given in three categories: Core Business, Philanthropy, and Advocacy.
“Successful CEO nominees will join a growing global cohort of CEOs and top executives who show that business is a powerful force for building interfaith understanding, covenantal pluralism and peace in workplaces, marketplaces and in societies at large. Indeed, civil society and governments have much to learn from these amazing champions.” – Brian Grim, president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation and global chair of Dare to Overcome
Winners from 2021 who only received their medals virtually due to the pandemic, will also be honored. All past award recipients from 2016 and 2018 will be honored guests as well.
The short video from the Templeton Religion Trust (TRT), “Covenantal Pluralism,” describes the philosophy of the awards. TRT is a supporter of the awards.
Background
Previous Global Business & Interfaith Peace Awards were presented in Rio de Janeiro (2016), where Nassar Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, former High Representative if the UN Alliance of Civilizations, gave the keynote. In Seoul (2018), former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama gave keynote addresses.
And in Tokyo (2021), CEOs received their awards virtually. They came companies including the Intel Corporation and Tyson Foods, adherents a variety of religious backgrounds and leaders of companies and multi-national enterprises based in Australia, India, Iraq, Israel, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The awards are presented by the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, a US-based nonprofit, in cooperation with Dare to Overcome initiative. The foundation helps educate the global business community about how religious freedom is good for business and how they can promote respect for freedom of religion or belief.
Dare to Overcome
Dare to Overcome is the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s annual in-person gathering for Fortune 500 faith-oriented employee resource groups (ERGs) and corporate chaplains to come together to share best practices and to build supportive, intersecting networks nationally and globally at the three-day event. All faiths and beliefs are welcome.
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— Our 2022 theme is “Better Together,” reflecting an emphasis being strong allies of others and the critical value of face-to-face meetings coming out of the pandemic.
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— Dare to Overcome will be held in Washington DC in partnership with the Busch School of Business and American Airlines, May 23-25, 2022. This is the third annual national faith-oriented ERG conference.
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— Dare to Overcome’s international conference will be in Delhi, India, in 2023. Previous events were in Rio de Janeiro, Seoul and Tokyo.
Dare to Overcome also showcases how faith-oriented ERGs build allyship among diverse communities in the workplace and marketplace, with a special focus on being allies of those with differing abilities. Why? It’s good for business, the economy and society!
- – Conference website
- – Tickets are $250 (early bird until March 1, $200)
Dare to Overcome Partner: American Airlines
2021 Gold Medalists
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and executive vice president Sandra Rivera have helped create a culture where people can bring their whole selves to work — faith and all — thanks to solidly incorporating religious diversity into their overall diversity and inclusion commitments. Intel’s embrace of religious inclusivity is seen in their willingness to officially sponsor a wide range of faith-based employee resource groups. These groups not only support members of their particular faiths, but also work together in an interfaith association to support all employees at Intel to succeed in work and life, indeed, a positive model for society at large.
Medinol CEO Dr. Judith Richter founded the NIR School of the Heart to help high school students not only understand cardio-vascular career opportunities but also connect the hearts of people from different cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Dr. Richter helps students build bridges across cultures through the process of learning. As one graduate summed up the experience, The NIR School of the Heart “will make the whole Middle East a better place.” The program has become widely popular and currently has 826 graduates who are functioning as ambassadors for peace, out of which 225 are also pursuing careers in medical-related professions.
King Husein, Chairman and CEO of Span Construction & Engineering, has played a critical role addressing the rising global tide of restrictions on religious freedom. King’s efforts range from helping found the South Asian Consortium for Religion and Law Studies, to helping kick off the first-ever Business Roundtable to advance International Religious Freedom during the 2019 UN General Assembly. In diverse venues such as the Horasis Global Conference in Portugal and the IRF Summit in Washington DC, King shares how religious ethics benefit business. His advocacy also looks toward the next generation by his helping launch an initiative at BYU Hawaii to equip students from across Asia to know how to advance religious freedom when they return home.
2021 Silver Medalists
John Tyson, Chairman of Tyson Foods, was an early pioneer of building a faith-friendly workplace by recognizing the spiritual needs of team members. John was instrumental in the program that today has about 100 chaplains of various faiths on staff, providing compassionate pastoral care and ministry to Tyson’s team members and their families regardless of their religious affiliations or beliefs. The program is implemented in over 150 facilities and has allowed many of Tyson’s 141,000 employees to feel more supported. The Tyson Foods Chaplain Services has been providing compassionate care to team members and their families since 2000.
Maurice Ostro, Chair of Ostro Fayre Share Foundation, has been an interfaith champion for decades, including being involved in advising the UK Governmental, most recently on the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission. He has promoted religious inclusion in the businesses he has started and grown, providing workplace prayer rooms for all faiths represented by his employees to ensure that all feel comfortable practicing their faiths during the workday. Maurice has also established a social enterprise making jewellery in Burma, providing dignified, well-paid jobs to Buddhist and Muslim women and building bridges between these communities.
Peter Mousaferiadis, founder of Cultural Infusion, is a pioneer in using cultural and artistic expression as a means of promoting social cohesion and interfaith understanding. Cultural Infusion has developed award winning and world leading platforms that can transform diversity and inclusion in organizations and communities and people’s understanding of cultural diversity. Also, Peter led the development of Cultural Infusion’s Diversity Atlas, an online survey tool to assess and monitor diversity within companies and organizations.
2021 Bronze Medalists
Khalid Khowshnaw founded the Hemn Group, which combats any form of discrimination — in his Iraqi construction company — including that of race, religion, ethnicity, or sectarian groups. The Hemn Group promotes inclusion of differing nationalities working alongside one another, oftentimes sharing in each other’s celebrations and feasts. They are also credited for providing jobs for countless Christians, Muslims, and Yezidi in areas that are safe to practice their faith and beliefs free of discrimination and facilitates the free practice of worship. This also creates an inclusive, sustainable economy, an antidote to sectarian conflict.
People with differing physical or emotional abilities often feel like outsiders in life. Dr. John Gathright believes principles of kindness, love, peace, understanding, diversity, and a sense of global family can bring different groups together. Dr. Gathright founded Tree Climbing Japan, helping children of differing faiths, abilities, and challenges come together to find an increased self-confidence through embracing the challenge of climbing trees. The program’s goal is to help all children grow up like magnificent trees, standing tall and strong, kind and unique, and helping each other.
To provide rights and freedoms for all religions and beliefs in the workplace, Candice Corby, CEO of Cobra Legal Solutions, promotes the celebration of religion and belief, encouraging employees to be their full selves including bringing their faith and beliefs to work. Cobra Legal Solutions accomplishes the goal of being a religiously inclusive workplace by observing every festival and religious holiday world-wide, and also by hosting a commemoration for religions in a week known as “Cobra Life Week”. Candice is actively involved with many prominent organizations, working for greater gender empowerment and interfaith understanding within Cobra and the global community they serve.