The nomination phase involves confidential forms being returned to us by individuals that are deemed as qualified by our research team.

Our research department conducts extensive reviews, draws insight from business leaders throughout the world and takes suggestions over the proceeding 6 months to produce a shortlist of firms for each category. In particular we spend the last few months leading up to the award announcements working through tens of thousands of nomination forms that we receive back from the following sources:

• The readership of Corporate INTL magazine, which is distributed to over 70,000 individuals each month, all of which are either investors in business, leaders of companies or advisers for those businesses on a global level
• Our database of over 300,000 individual partners of law firms
• Our database of over 250,000 CFOs, CEOs and Directors of public & private businesses around the world
• Our database of over 50,000 in-house counsel of businesses operating publicly and privately, varying in size from private mid-market to leading publicly listed companies around the world
• The financial community, Investment Managers, Private Equity Investors, Investment Bankers, Hedge Fund Managers, Business Bankers, Asset Based Lenders and Wealthy Individuals
• The Specialist Advisory Community – PR Firms, Marketing & Business Development Professionals, Due Diligence Providers, Consultancy Firms, Property Advisers, Pension Firms, and other experts that assist businesses and advisers with the services they require to run their businesses