MONDRAGON Corporation, winner at the Boldness in Business awards organised by the Financial Times

MONDRAGON Corporation has won the Drivers of Change category at the Boldness in Business awards, organised on an annual basis by the London-based daily newspaper the Financial Times (FT) and the Indian corporation Arcelor Mittal (AM). The awards ceremony was held yesterday, 20 March, at the exclusive RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) building in London. Representatives from businesses worldwide were present, together with the Chief Executives of the FT and AM, Lionel Barber and Lakshmi Mittal respectively, and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

The award was received on behalf of the Corporation by Josu Ugarte, Director of International Operations, who declared that this award “will enable us to ensure that our Corporation continues to have a global impact and to set out our proposal for building a more just, united and equal society, in short, a better world”.

It is worth remembering that a total of 260 companies worldwide, put forward by a jury, were competing for these international awards organised jointly by the Financial Times (FT) and Arcelor Mittal (AM). The finalists were the US oil company Continental Resources, the Chinese industrial machinery corporation Sany Heavy Industry, the multi-sector Tata Group from India, the Japanese entertainment holding Square, the German publishing company Axel Springer, and MONDRAGON Corporation.

MONDRAGON Corporation has been awarded this prize “for what it represents in terms of a real proposal for a new type of business model, “Humanity at work”, based on co-operation, working together, solidarity, and involving people in the work environment”.

To get a better idea of the importance of these awards, it is worth highlighting that the three previous winners in this category were Fiat in 2009, Apple in 2010, and Amazon in 2011, and the finalists have included firms of the stature of Al Jazeera, Amazon, Google and Master Card.

As far as the other categories are concerned, the winners this year are: in the Technology category, the winner was 3D Systems Corporation from the USA; in “Corporate Responsibility”, Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals from India; in the Smaller Company category Gopro from the USA; in Emerging Markets, the Indian multi-national Mahindra & Mahindra; and in Entrepreneurship Softbank from Japan. As for the Person of the Year, the winner this year was Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of Glencore International.

What are the Boldness in Business awards?

This will be the fifth year that these annual awards have been held. Their aim is to internationally highlight and celebrate companies that are drivers of change and inspire innovation in their sectors. They are organised by the Financial Times and Arcelor Mittal and there are a number of different categories: Corporate Responsibility, Entrepreneurship, Emerging Markets, Smaller Company and Person of the Year.