Awarding Excellence in Business Leadership

The CNBC European Business Leaders Awards (EBLA) recognise and honour the most outstanding executive leaders in Europe today. CNBC, in partnership with the Financial Times and with the support of chief executives from Europe’s top-ranked companies, acknowledges Europe’s most influential CEOs. Now in its sixth year, the Awards have become one of the most prestigious in the business world.

EBLA is a unique awards programme. Nominations are made by CEO peers from Europe’s top-ranked companies. The shortlist is then assessed by a distinguished panel of expert judges, which includes past CEO winners. The panel is chaired by Sir William Castell, Chairman of the Wellcome Trust.

The underlying motivation behind the Awards is to discover which CEOs are creating a culture of entrepreneurship, developing best practices and carving out powerful and sustainable models of business in the global economy.

Those honoured at EBLA 2008 included Fiat’s CEO, Sergio Marchionne as European Business Leader of the Year; Aditya Mittal, Business Leaders of the Future and L’Oréal’s Chairman, Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. A complete list of past winners can be found here.

Nominations for CNBC EBLA 2009 have now closed. The finalists will be announced on 28 January 2009.