Recognition that reaches the whole team: Rose Ross shares the Tech Trailblazers story

What does winning an award really mean? Is it a trophy for the reception desk, a useful marketing opportunity or something capable of recognising every person who helped build a brilliant technology company?

That was one of the questions explored when Rose Ross, Founder and Chief Trailblazer of the Tech Trailblazers Awards, joined Marco Ciappelli on his An Analog Brain in a Digital Age podcast.

In an expansive conversation titled Tech Trailblazers: Recognition That Reaches the Whole Team, Rose and Marco discussed how the Awards began, what makes their judging model different and why meaningful recognition should reach far beyond the founder or senior leadership team.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube

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From a rejected idea to a global awards programme

The Tech Trailblazers story began with an idea Rose originally proposed to a client: an awards programme created specifically for enterprise technology startups.

At the time, innovative young technology businesses were often expected to compete for attention against large, established vendors with significantly greater resources, brand recognition and marketing budgets.

The client decided not to pursue the idea. Rose did.

What followed was the creation of the first independent global awards programme dedicated to enterprise technology startups. Joe Baguley was among the first industry figures Rose approached to become a judge. His immediate enthusiasm helped confirm that the idea addressed a genuine gap in the market.

Fifteen years later, the Tech Trailblazers Awards span fields including AI, cloud, cybersecurity, networking, storage, quantum computing, robotics, sustainable technology and many more. There are also categories celebrating founders, executives, investors and the organisations helping to create a more diverse technology industry.

Not just another awards night

During the podcast, Marco contrasts the Tech Trailblazers approach with awards programmes that culminate in a dinner, a photograph and a trophy that may soon be forgotten.

From the beginning, Tech Trailblazers was designed to work differently.

There is no lavish awards ceremony. Instead, the focus is placed on independent assessment, industry credibility and creating useful, sustained visibility for the companies taking part.

Rose does not personally select the winners. Entries are assessed by experienced practitioners, analysts, technology leaders and industry experts who understand the sectors they are judging.

Crucially, startups and scale-ups are assessed in an environment created for companies like them. As Rose explains during the conversation, the aim is to compare “apples with apples and pears with pears”, rather than asking an emerging business to win a popularity contest against a multinational incumbent.

Judges consider factors including technological innovation, commercial potential, leadership and market readiness. They are also given room to apply their own experience and professional instinct when identifying something genuinely exceptional.

The shortlisted companies are then placed in front of a wider international audience, including CIOs, CISOs, senior technology buyers and the global technology community.

Recognition belongs to the people who built it

One of the most important moments in the podcast comes when Marco asks Rose what winning a Tech Trailblazers Award is actually worth.

There are clear commercial benefits. Recognition can provide greater visibility, strengthen credibility, support investor conversations and give customers additional confidence in a company and its technology.

However, Rose quickly turns the conversation towards the team.

Behind every successful technology company are engineers, developers, researchers, product specialists, designers, marketers, sales teams, customer support staff and many others who may have spent months or years bringing an idea to life.

They are not always the people appearing in press interviews or delivering investor presentations. Yet they are essential to every milestone the company reaches.

External recognition tells those people that their work has been noticed and that what they have built matters. For Rose, that value is “priceless”.

It is a sentiment that sits at the heart of the Tech Trailblazers Awards. Although the trophy may be collected by one individual, the achievement belongs to the whole team.

The award should keep working after the announcement

Winning or becoming a runner-up is not intended to be the end of a company’s Tech Trailblazers story.

The Awards continue to follow and promote alumni as they grow, secure investment, enter new markets, develop new technologies and receive further industry recognition.

Our regular #FoundersOnFire News Flash features celebrate the latest achievements of previous winners and runners-up. Award winners are also invited to join Rose for their own podcast conversations, giving them an opportunity to explain the thinking behind their technology and introduce the people responsible for building it.

The podcast highlights Risk Ledger as one example of an alumnus whose story has continued to develop following its success in the Security Trailblazers category. The company has since grown, expanded its influence in supply chain cybersecurity and secured significant new investment.

As Marco neatly summarises it during the conversation, the award keeps working after the award.

Mission, money and the determination to keep going

The conversation also explores whether today’s technology founders are primarily driven by money or by a desire to solve meaningful problems.

Rose resists choosing between the two.

Building a successful company requires commercial ambition. Founders need customers, investment, growth and a sustainable business model. But financial opportunity alone is rarely enough to carry someone through the setbacks, long hours and uncertainty involved in creating a startup.

Rose reflects that the founders she has interviewed are not simply waiting for an exit. They are usually deeply invested in the problem they are trying to solve and the difference they believe their technology can make.

The strongest businesses therefore combine mission and commercial ambition. They care about the problem, but they also understand that achieving meaningful impact requires a company capable of surviving, scaling and succeeding.

Could your team be the next Tech Trailblazer?

The 2026 Tech Trailblazers Awards are now open to eligible enterprise technology startups and scale-ups from around the world.

Companies must be privately held, under ten years old and privately funded or backed at Series C or earlier. Eligible early-stage, pre-VC companies under three years old can also apply for support through the Firestarter bursary programme.

Entries close at 23:59 Pacific Time on 3 September 2026.

Starting an entry does not mean it has to be completed immediately. Entrants can create their submission, save their progress and return to refine it before the final deadline.

So, who in your team deserves to hear that their work has been noticed?

Perhaps it is time to put their achievements in front of our global judging panel and show the technology industry what you have built together.

Start your Tech Trailblazers Awards entry today

And do not forget to watch Rose’s full conversation with Marco Ciappelli:

Tech Trailblazers: Recognition That Reaches the Whole Team