The LDP Innovation Award: Recognizing excellence in early talent development
The 2026 Award Winners Have Been Announced!
Have you done something transformative this past year with your early talent development program? Do you know of a colleague or peer who has? Nominate a colleague, or yourself, for the Early Talent Development Innovation Award – in recognition of creativity and excellence in early talent program leadership.
What is the LDP Innovation Award?
The LDP Innovation Award recognizes outstanding initiative and creativity in contributing to the measurable success of an early career talent development program and the program’s participants. The initiative can be in any element of managing or recruiting for a development program for early career professionals.
Nominations will be collected through March 19th, 2027. Winners will be announced during the LDP Summit on May 5&6 in Dallas. (Winners need not be present to win. But it would be great if they were!) Nominate someone today (or yourself!)
EVALUATION CRITERIA
NEED
What was the business need and what was the potential impact of leaving the issue unaddressed? What was the measurable risk?
SOLUTION
What was the proposed solution? What alternatives were explored? Why was the innovative idea/practice/process designed in the manner it was? Why was the proposed solution considered innovative?
EVALUATION STRATEGY
What metrics were identified to be used in assessing the success of the innovative idea/practice/process. What was the plan for evaluation?
IMPLEMENTATION
How was the innovative idea/practice/process implemented? What challenges were encountered and how were they addressed?
RESULTS
What measurable impact did the innovative idea/practice/process have on the business, the program and/or program participants?
2026 LDP Award Recipients
WINNER: In recognition of Samantha Dray’s innovative launch of ServiceNow’s AI Accelerator Sprint, enabling early-career talent to deliver real AI solutions that unlocked business innovation, saved 4,200+ annualized hours, and built lasting AI capability.
HONORABLE MENTION: For Lisa Krause’s teams innovative work in unifying fragmented early-career programs into a single enterprise talent ecosystem, creating a 400-person Engage Conference that boosted engagement, retention, collaboration, and ROI while eliminating redundant costs.
HONORABLE MENTION: For Liana Knudsen’s work in Dell’s supply chain early talent program, reimagining the design thinking training into a scalable, human-centered development experience, nearly doubling participant NPS while boosting engagement, retention, and innovation readiness.
HONORABLE MENTION: For Jess Medina Peralta’s work devising and implementing an innovative “learn–apply–showcase” model combining real-world simulations, mentoring circles, and manager-integrated reinforcement to drive practical skill adoption and sustained growth.
