What Is the ISOUL Women Leadership Award?

Three years ago, I sat across from a woman in a San Francisco co-working space. She had built a community of 200 women in São Paulo, launched two social enterprises, and mentored 40 first-generation founders — all while raising a toddler. Nobody had given her an award. Nobody had even written a headline about her.

That conversation started the ISOUL Women Leadership Award.

Not because women need trophies. But because recognition — real, substantive recognition from a global peer community — changes what women believe is possible. And what women believe is possible determines what they build next.

What the Award Actually Recognizes

The ISOUL Women Leadership Award honors women who lead with impact, not just visibility. That distinction matters.

There are plenty of lists. “30 under 30.” “Top 50 Female Executives.” Most of them measure press coverage, funding raised, or social media following. The ISOUL award measures something harder to quantify: community impact, cross-border influence, and the kind of leadership that multiplies other women’s ambitions.

We look at five categories:

• Community Builder — women creating ecosystems where other women grow
• Entrepreneur of the Year — founders scaling with purpose
• Social Impact Leader — women solving problems that don’t get funded but need solving
• Rising Star — leaders under 35 who are already changing their industry
• Global Ambassador — women bridging cultures, languages, and geographies

Each category has one winner per year. The selection is made by a committee of ISOUL presidents — leaders themselves, chosen from our 29-country network.

How Nominees Are Selected

The nomination process is community-driven, not top-down. ISOUL presidents across 29 countries nominate women from their local networks. Nominees don’t need a certain follower count. They don’t need a unicorn exit or a book deal.

The committee evaluates each nominee on three questions:

1. Has this woman created measurable change in her community?
2. Is her leadership style one other women would want to replicate?
3. Would recognizing her inspire the next generation?

The third question is the one I care about most. The ISOUL award isn’t a historical medal. It’s a signal — to every woman watching — about what kind of leadership we value.

Recognition from a peer community carries something no PR campaign can manufacture: legitimacy built from actual relationships.

The 2026 ISOUL Awards Ceremony in Paris

The 2026 ceremony took place in Paris. Five winners. 200 attendees. A room full of women who had flown in from 19 different countries.

What I remember most isn’t the speeches. It’s the moment after — when the women who didn’t win came up to the women who did, and the conversation that started between them. A founder from Kyiv talking to a community builder from Seoul. An entrepreneur from São Paulo exchanging contacts with a social leader from Lagos.

That’s the award working.

We presented trophies, yes. But we also presented something more durable: the evidence that a woman building something meaningful in her city is seen — by 5,000+ women across 29 countries.

Why Recognition Changes What Women Build

I’ve talked to hundreds of women founders who have the same resistance: “Awards aren’t my thing.” I understand it. Most formal recognition systems were built by and for a different archetype of success.

But here’s what I’ve watched happen: the women who receive the ISOUL award don’t just celebrate and move on. They use it. They share it with their local press, their communities, their clients. They reference it when negotiating speaking fees or partnership terms.

One winner from 2025 — a school director who had built a 3,000-student network in Central Asia — told me the award was the first time anyone external had validated that what she was doing was leadership. She thought of herself as just “running a school.”

She’s now building her second school and advising two government ministries.

That’s the compounding effect of recognition.

ISOUL’s Philosophy: Community Over Competition

We started ISOUL with one idea: women’s leadership communities should be non-competitive. Not because competition is bad — but because the leadership challenges women face are systemic, not individual. You don’t solve systemic challenges by optimizing one career. You solve them by raising the tide.

512 events. 5,000+ participants. 29 countries. That’s not a networking directory — that’s a decade of proving that women support each other when the structure invites it.

The award is an extension of that philosophy. It says: here is a woman who understood that her success and her community’s success are the same thing. Here is what that looks like. Here is what it produces.

Women who lead this way deserve to be named.

Nominations for the Next Cycle Open in Q3 2026

Any ISOUL member can nominate a woman from their country or region. Self-nominations are accepted and encouraged.

If you know a woman who has built something quietly extraordinary — a community, a movement, a company, a school — this is the right place to put her name.

To learn more about ISOUL’s global events and women’s leadership programs, visit our homepage.