Judging Industry Awards: How a Jury Seat Builds a CEO's Reputation and Trust in the Company

In 2026 Alexander Likhtman, founder and CEO of ITCOMMS, joined the jury of the EMBRAS award, whose ceremony took place in Tashkent on 23 October. On 5 December he will judge the PR Room Awards in Astana. We asked him how jury work affects trust in an expert and their company, how it differs from entering an award with your own case, and how to get practical use out of it.

How is judging an award different from entering one?

An entry shows off a company's project. A jury seat shows off a person's expertise. You can join a jury without submitting anything yourself and see the market from the other side of the table.

Aspect	Entering with a case	Serving on a jury
What you need	A completed project and an entry that meets the award's requirements	Expertise and a professional reputation
What you get	An assessment of one project and a chance to win	A view of the whole market, recognition among peers, a signal of trust
What to watch for	Other people judge your project, and the result depends on how strong the entry is	The award's reputation and its conflict-of-interest rules

Why does a jury invitation build trust in an expert and their company?

Decision-makers choosing a contractor or partner look at a set of outside signals: the public expertise of the company and its CEO, peer recognition, independent assessment. A jury invitation is one of those signals, and it feeds the executive's personal brand. The professional community has trusted this person to judge other people's work, and the market can see that.

Research on executives' public expertise shows how much these signals weigh. In Edelman and LinkedIn's 2024 report, a survey of 3,484 executives in 7 countries, 73% of decision-makers said a company's thought leadership is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities than its marketing materials. And 86% said they would be moderately or very likely to invite an organisation that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership to take part in a tender.

In research by Weber Shandwick and KRC (surveyed in 2014, published in 2015), more than 1,700 executives in 19 countries, from managers to the C-suite, attributed 45% of a company's reputation, on average, to the reputation of its CEO. Asked about engaging external audiences, 82% of respondents put speaking at events at the top of the list.

How does judging change your view of the market, and what makes a strong award entry?

An expert at an agency mostly sees their own projects, and an in-house one even more so. On a jury they see the full range of problems that communications and marketing are used to solve. Alexander says this changes how you look at the profession:

The bubble gets thinner and you've simply seen more. In our profession, having seen a lot and staying curious matter a great deal.

When he scores entries, he looks first at how they are written up. A strong entry sets out the objective in detail, spells out the KPIs and shows how the creative idea meets that objective.

Criterion	Strong entry	Weak entry
The objective	Stated and described in detail	Not described, so it is unclear why the project was done
KPIs	Metrics are spelled out in detail	No metrics are given
Link between idea and objective	You can see how the idea meets the objective	Eye-catching execution with no explanation of what it did for the objective

This is how Alexander describes a weak entry:

We did an eye-catching project, everything about us is great. But it's unclear why any of it was done or what it did for the problem we were solving.

What does a jury seat do for the company, and how do you use it?

Jury work makes ITCOMMS more visible: the company turns up in publications more often than many others. In the PR industry that counts for a lot:

Agencies are often a case of “the cobbler's children have no shoes”: we do excellent work for the client and forget about ourselves. Jury work gets you known both among peers and among potential clients.

That only happens when the jury seat is turned into communications material. Alexander explains:

I always say that everything that happens is content. If you make content out of your time on a jury, you're getting the most out of it. If you don't, the best you end up with is networking.

Networking here means the contacts you make among the other people in the judging session and stay in touch with afterwards. Alexander has described how he works an event in a step-by-step guide to networking at business events on WE Project. The basics apply to jury work too:

Stage	What to do
Before the event	Set a goal and KPIs: who you need to meet and what you want to come away with. Go through the list of attendees and speakers and follow them. A few days ahead, post an announcement and tag the event page and the key speakers
During the event	Listen closely and take notes: they will become material for posts. Ask questions, and introduce yourself when you do. Take selfies and group photos
After the event	Message your new contacts while the connection is fresh. Sort the photos and publish posts, tagging the people and the event. Write a recap post with the main ideas and credit the people who gave you them. Spread the posts over several days

How are conflicts of interest handled on an awards jury?

Serious awards deal with conflicts of interest up front and write the procedure into their rules, as the E+ Awards do. A judge either declines to score entries where they have a conflict or tells the organisers straight away, and those entries are not sent to them.

How do you know when to turn an award down?

Check the award's reputation before you say yes. Alexander names two warning signs: the award has a history of scandals, or, for example, its entrants include sanctioned companies and the risks that come with them.

Which PR, marketing and HR awards are there in Central Asia?

Which award to choose depends on your field: employer branding, PR or marketing. Below are three awards in the region that Alexander mentions, described from the organisers' own websites.

Award	Field and entrants	Organiser	Jury
EMBRAS (Employer Brand Award)	HR projects and employer branding. Open to companies from Central Asia, the CIS and Europe. Ceremony on 23 October 2026 in Tashkent	The consulting group Person Hunters; the award has run since 2018	Around 30 experts from different countries, chaired by Tatyana Koval. The website does not say how the jury is selected
PR Room Awards	PR projects and original content from Kazakhstan. Entry is free, and the winners are announced at a creative industries forum in December	The PR room community, founded by Ainur Baigozha	PR industry professionals, with Ainur Dzhumadilova as permanent chair. The website carries no call for jurors
E+ Awards Central Asia	Marketing projects from Central Asia with measurable results for business, society and the industry	The Central Asian Advertising Association and the Marketing Association of Uzbekistan (as of 2023)	One jury for all countries: brands, agencies, research companies and media. In 2023, 47 specialists voted

None of these awards explains on its website how to join the jury, so Alexander's advice applies: contact the organisers directly. EMBRAS can be reached by email at [email protected] and on Telegram at @EMBRAS_award. PR room answers in its Telegram channel, t.me/PRroomkz. The E+ Awards website gives the address [email protected].

Frequently asked questions

How do you become an awards judge?

The awards' websites describe no formal procedure. Don't wait to be invited: find an award that fits your field and write to the organisers. Contact details for EMBRAS, the PR Room Awards and the E+ Awards are in the overview of regional awards above. Published articles and speaking engagements improve your chances of being accepted.

How do you turn jury work into value for the company?

Make content out of it: articles and posts, media commentary, speaking engagements. Media training helps you prepare for talking to journalists. Skip that work and networking is usually all you are left with.

What happens if you know the companies behind some of the entries?

The judge declines to score those entries or tells the organisers about the conflict in advance. Some awards, the E+ Awards among them, write the procedure into their rules.

Which awards should you turn down?

Those with a history of scandals, and those whose entrants include sanctioned companies.

Can a PR agency help an executive get onto a jury and use it in PR?

Yes. Getting executives onto awards juries is part of our Employer branding and internal communications service: we help choose suitable awards, approach the organisers and turn the jury seat into publications and speaking engagements. Media commentary is handled under our PR and media relations service.

How ITCOMMS helps build expert reputation

ITCOMMS works as a PR agency in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries. We build communications strategies, develop the personal brands of experts and executives, and run media training. Jury work, speaking engagements and publications are all parts of that system. Our other areas of work are listed on the ITCOMMS services page.

Key takeaways

A jury seat gives an expert two assets: a broad view of the market and recognition. Both pay off once you turn them into content and new contacts. You don't need a case of your own to join a jury: write to the organisers and back up your reputation with a public track record.

Got a project in mind? Let's talk it through. Get in touch.

Translated with an AI translator