SOTA and AdTech Holding Receive Gold at the 2026 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards
SOTA, with its client AdTech Holding, has received a Gold Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Award 2026 in the Best Business Strategy category, within the Future of Work program area.
The award recognizes "AdTech Holding Becomes Strategy-First Organization," a nine-month program that implemented an adaptive strategy framework and transformed strategic planning with a continuous operating discipline across the group and its flagship platform, PropellerAds.
The program: strategy as an operating discipline
Three company objectives. A long list of initiatives was reduced to three company-level objectives, and the distinction between strategic priorities and routine operations was made explicit so that the list could not grow back.
Single ownership. Each key result was assigned to one accountable owner rather than distributed across teams, with the authority to concentrate people and budget on the outcome.
Outcome-based measurement and early signals. Key results that tracked activity (calls made, features shipped, content published) were replaced with metrics that move only when the underlying work creates value for the business. In each objective, there was at least one leading key result to fast-track the hypothesis.
A governed cadence. Quarterly planning and regular reviews became the forum in which key result owners test assumptions, surface blockers, and re-prioritise as market conditions change, with leadership decisions visible to the teams responsible for delivering them.
Implementation ran in three phases over nine months: establishing the basics and separating strategic work from business as usual; deepening the key result owner role through individual coaching; and, in the final phase, teams planning and reviewing independently with minimal external support. SOTA's involvement covered the full arc, from the preparation and data work before the first leadership session, through facilitation of the sessions themselves, to the operating cadence in the quarters that followed.
Results
In the first year of operating under the new model, AdTech Holding reported:
Double-digit revenue growth;
Strategy clarity among leaders: 94%;
OKR effectiveness: 88% (according to a leadership pulse survey).
Beyond the financial outcome, the program changed the relationship between leadership decisions and day-to-day work. Teams gained visibility into company priorities; key result owners received defined accountability and the mandate to act on it; and strategy moved from an event on the leadership calendar to part of how each quarter is run.
What the evaluation assessed
For more than 30 years the Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards have recognised organisations whose workforce and business strategies produce measurable results. Every submission is reviewed by an independent panel of Brandon Hall Group analysts, industry experts and senior practitioners against four published criteria: alignment to the business need and environment; program design, functionality and delivery; adoption, integration, innovation and creativity; and overall effectiveness, impact and measurable benefits.
Gold in the Best Business Strategy category therefore attests not to a well-run session but to a program that was adopted, sustained and shown to have changed business performance under independent review.
In their words
"Becoming strategy-first means turning direction into a shared operating discipline. We have built a system that helps our teams make clearer choices, stay aligned and translate priorities into measurable action. This recognition reflects the commitment of everyone who made that change part of how we work every day." said Elena Dolya, Chief Administrative Officer, AdTech Holding
"Every year, the HCM Excellence Awards® remind us that innovation is ultimately about impact. The organizations recognized this year have demonstrated that great HR and learning strategies don’t just improve programs; they strengthen organizations, empower people, and deliver measurable business results. We are honored to celebrate their achievements." said Rachel Cooke, COO of Brandon Hall Group™ and HCM Excellence Awards® Program Leader.
"Most strategy programs are evaluated on the quality of the plan. This one was evaluated on adoption and measurable impact nine months later, which is the only test that matters." - Kate Miroshnichenko, Co-founder, SOTA
"AdTech Holding did something most leadership teams find harder than agreeing on a strategy: they kept the discipline through a full year of operating pressure. Our role was to design the system, hold the line on it in the early quarters, and make ourselves progressively unnecessary. That the model now runs without us is the result we set out to achieve." - Marina Stasevich, Co-founder, SOTA
About SOTA
SOTA works with founders and leadership teams of Series A–C technology companies across the EU, Cyprus, the UK, and the UAE. The firm runs the full arc of strategy work: preparation and data before the session, facilitation of the session itself, OKR-based execution, and leadership development in the quarters that follow. Clients include Fundraise Up, SplitMetrics, AdTech Holding, and other tech companies.
About AdTech Holding
AdTech Holding is an international group of technology companies building advertising and marketing technology. Since 2011 it has developed products powered by applied AI, machine learning and big data, and its projects reach a monthly audience of 1.2 billion users.
Its flagship platform is PropellerAds, a multisource advertising platform operating across more than 195 geographies. Among the group's other projects are Adex, real-time ad fraud detection; Notix, push notifications for websites and apps; Remoby, a contextual non-IDFA DSP for e-commerce; and AppLabz.
More than 400 experts work across the group, headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus. AdTech Holding holds over 40 industry awards, is a certified Great Place to Work and a Deloitte Technology Fast 50 winner. adtechholding.com
About Brandon Hall Group
Brandon Hall Group is a research and advisory firm whose HCM Excellence Awards have recognised excellence in human capital management for more than 30 years. Entries are evaluated by an independent panel of analysts, industry experts and executives on business need, program design, innovation, adoption and measurable organisational impact. The 2026 honourees are listed on brandonhall.com.