Technology Excellence Awards 2026 Featuring:
AI Global Media, Ltd. (AI) takes reasonable measures to ensure the quality of the information on this web site. However, AI will not assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, correctness or completeness of any information that is available through this web site. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them. The information available through the website and our partner publications is for your general information and use and is not intended to address any particular finance or investment requirements. In particular, the information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by us or any of our partner publications and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making or refraining from making any investment or financial decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. Any arrangement made between you and any third party named in the site is at your sole risk and responsibility. Recognising those turning today’s ideas into tomorrow’s solutions. Corporate Vision is proud to announce the launch of the CV Technology Excellence Awards, a brand-new programme celebrating the visionaries transforming the global technology landscape. Technology drives modern business – shaping how we connect, create, and compete. From agile startups to established industry leaders, the CV Technology Excellence Awards will honour the companies and entrepreneurs redefining industries and setting new standards for technological advancement. Sofi Parry, Senior Editor Website: www.corporatevision-news.com Technology Excellence Awards 2026 Editorial Team Sofi Parry, Senior Editor | Kita Thomas, Writer | Joshua Beardsmore, Writer Design Team Emma Hunt, Creative Team Manager | Lauren Baldwin, Graphic Designer
Contents 4. GC Cybersecurity: Redefining Enterprise Data Protection 5. Going the Extra Mile with Managed IT Support in Bicester 6. GN: Technology That Touches Lives 7. Thesis SM: Where Ongoing Success Builds Momentum 8. Optimised E-Commerce Hosting with maxcluster GmbH 9. Make Wealth Management Simple with Zoe FinancialAIM 10. Modern Banking and Efficient Payments Processing with Finastra 11. The Unified Frontline Begins with Backbase 12. Future-Proof Your Workforce with Florence’s Flexible Staffing Solutions 14. RepRisk: Advanced Artificial Intelligence, Driven by Human Insight 15. Empowering Executives, Protecting People, and Staying Safe with AtlasNXT
Corporate Vision GC Cybersecurity: Redefining Enterprise Data Protection In today’s rapidly evolving world, one cybersecurity company has identified a glaring problem within security architecture: the cybersecurity threat landscape has crossed a threshold across which static security tools will never catch up. To address this growing problem, GC Cybersecurity has developed a platform acknowledged as the industry’s most advanced defence against malicious and purposeful acts of information and data exfiltration. We spoke with Co-Founder and CEO Tarique Mustafa for more, as GC Cybersecurity is named in the Technology Excellence Awards 2026. Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, GC Cybersecurity is the proud provider of innovative, advanced data protection solutions that promote data security. The company was founded by security industry veterans and now operates with the support of the industry’s leading authorities. With a stellar reputation across the sector, GC Cybersecurity serves marquee name clients in the financial, government and security, oil and gas, education, hi-tech, and transportation industries. To these clients, GC Cybersecurity offers the Information Security and Enforcement (ISE), a 5th generation cybersecurity platform. Powered by a breakthrough DeepAI engine, ISE delivers fully autonomous, zero-trust data protection across generative AI, email, cloud storage, SaaS applications, and collaboration platforms. It is the world’s first autonomous data protection platform that continually observes, understands, and protects sensitive data in real time, without human interaction. This solution has become essential across a wide range of sector; as state-sponsored bad actors leverage AI to execute much more sophisticated, comprehensive, and increasingly asymmetric attack vectors, the static protection afforded by most legacy cybersecurity platforms is decreasing over time at a rapid rate. “By the time an AI-powered cyber-attack has been detected, stopped, and diagnosed, valuable enterprise assets like sensitive enterprise data are already gone,” explained Tarique. “Cyber attacks of any scale will not break out autonomous, AI-powered data protection.” The average number of days to identify and contain a cyber attack is 287, with 83% of enterprises suffering multiple breaches at an average cost of $10.2M. The ISE platform autonomously observes and classifies all data in transit, as well as actors sending and receiving this data. It understands their behaviours and acts autonomously, shutting down sensitive data being exfiltrated. It covers 100% of the data attack surface and stops exfiltration in less than one second, with 90% less policy management overhead and zero manual policies. Developing such an industry-leading product has not been a journey without obstacles. “The biggest challenge has been achieving real-time, orchestrated protective action to protect 100% of the data by the collaboration between our security agents,” Tarique told us. “In short – achieving truly autonomous, advanced data protection and security. We achieved this using the AI-first principles of ontology, semantic meaning, and domain language models.” By leveraging the deep AI disciplines of knowledge engineering, in combination with a semantic layer, enterprise ontologies, and domain specificity, ISE can very accurately and confidently classify massive amounts of data in transit. Its real-time actor profiles and autonomous managed policy rules result in fast, effective, and real-time decision-making for data in transit for a variety of critical enterprise use cases such as data moving into LLMs out of enterprise email, into or out of cloud data platforms, SaaS applications, and even into or out of collaboration systems. Internally, GC Cybersecurity operates as a lean organisation that is entirely customer centric. The team ensures that every release addresses a real customer need that is critical path, building innovative, disruptive, and often new-to-market products based on first AI principles and cybersecurity. Whilst these initiatives can be hard to execute, they are proven to create a large competitive moat and unique positioning that GC Cybersecurity enjoys, leveraging its competitive work environment to deliver such next-generation solutions. Looking ahead, GC Cybersecurity anticipates growth to stem from its channel partner centric go-to market. Recognised as the Best Cybersecurity and Compliance Platform 2026, the ISE platform has earned renown for providing the highest level of advanced enterprise data protection at attractive margins, with very high customer retention. This success demonstrates GC Cybersecurity’s ability to provide very high margins to its channel partners across any regulated industry, from government, military, and healthcare to insurance, oil and gas, and finance. Reflecting on GC Cybersecurity’s success, Tarique concluded, “Our team realised long ago that the Era of AI is going to usher in a new era of Cyber-Insecurity. We committed our team to collaborative, fully autonomous, advanced data security solutions and have been at the leading edge of innovation to deliver these AI-powered cybersecurity solutions that protect 100% of the data landscape. No other cybersecurity platform offers actorbased, autonomous, and advanced data protection in our enterprise data security category.” Contact: Tarique Mustafa Company: GC Cybersecurity by GhangorCloud, Inc Web Address: www.gccybersecurity.ai
Technology Excellence Awards 2026 | 5 Small Business Awards 2023 | 15 January 2026 | 15 only this, but also the increased cybersecurity brought about as a result of this same AI progress. In navigating these developments, the company behind these business IT security services is doubling down on its security focus, as well as helping its customers to understand which AI tools are best for their environment, underpinning its rigorous approach. In the face of AI’s widespread adoption, Daniel seeks to remind SMEs that having strong IT is not about the most tools, but the right foundation. For most businesses, this means standardising their setup, patching everything, using proper endpoint protection, having a robust backup strategy, building a simple cybersecurity baseline, implementing efficient onboarding/offboarding to prevent the likes of data leakages, monitoring and maintaining (not just reacting), documenting their environment, and planning for downtime. Having a trusted partner on hand like TCCB is essential in both building this foundation and accessing managed IT support as a business grows. And, with the company set to continue improving how it delivers this comprehensive IT support for small businesses in Oxfordshire and beyond, its team are proud to be driving smarter standardisation, automation, and a security-led service delivery in this space. Daniel added: “Our goal is to remain the trusted partner SMEs rely on for stable, secure, well-managed IT.” The value of working with an IT support partner that blends support and security with process across a full-service approach is clear for those who rely on the Computer Clinic Bicester, and it is this distinction that has led to us naming the company as offering the Best Computer Repair & IT Support Service 2026 – Oxfordshire in this feature. Contact: Daniel Reeves Company: The Computer Clinic Bicester Web Address: https://thecomputerclinicbicester.co.uk/ The reality SMEs across the UK face is lots of responsibility, small teams, and limited time, making the need for practical solutions paramount. Nowhere is this more true than across their IT, which, as mentioned above, is often crucial for their business. Making IT simple, secure, and useful for SMEs in Oxfordshire and across the UK, the Computer Clinic Bicester ensures customers can focus on running their businesses, sound in the knowledge that their technology is being protected, supported, and modernised by experts. Putting security first – always – TCCB’s values of accountability, customer empathy, continuous improvement, and professional integrity position it as the true technology partner that its customers seek, not simply another ‘break/ fix’ provider. Customers also value TCCB’s process-driven, business-minded nature, with the company standing out on the back of the fast, structured support it provides, its Cyber Essentials support and certification, and its deep capability across the likes of Microsoft 365 support and management. However, this barely scratches the surface when it comes to pinpointing TCCB’s excellence, which is best seen through some of the recent projects it has carried out. Examples include Azure AD and Intune standardisation and migration being completed for multi-site organisations, as well as the redesign of new-starter processes in cases where HR and office management inputs were not aligned. This alignment reduces risk and improves employee experiences, as a strong onboarding process helps protect businesses. Making all of these projects successful was TCCB’s blend of a clear scope, setting expectations up front, leveraging standardised processes and checklists, and retaining strong communication with the teams. In short, this reflects the company’s baseline approach of ‘secure by default’, rather than performing a one-off fix. Regarding this, Daniel commented: “It’s not just about fixing issues – it’s about understanding what the business is trying to achieve and then designing a solution that genuinely supports that goal.” “Technology is one of the few areas where you can take something complex, simplify it, and immediately improve how a business operates day to day.” With many businesses turning to AI tools in an attempt to achieve these goals and ensure they are not left behind, one of the biggest developments for TCCB is managing not For many SMEs in the UK, it does not bear thinking about how they would function if their IT infrastructure was unavailable for just one day, underscoring the heavy reliance we as a society have on this technology. Recognising its importance, the Computer Clinic Bicester (TCCB) makes sure that its customers can access fast, reliable, and problem-free IT. On the back of its recognition as having the Best Computer Repair & IT Support Service 2026 – Oxfordshire, we caught up with the founder of TCCB, Daniel Reeves, for more on how it achieves this. Going the Extra Mile with Managed IT Support in Bicester
Corporate Vision GN: Technology That Touches Lives Communication is a fundamental part of the human experience, present in every aspect of our lives. The world would be a much different place without it, absent of the social bonds and understandings that such connection allows us to build. Based in Ballerup, GN is a leading company empowering people around the world through an expansive portfolio of life-changing audio, video, and gaming technologies. For bringing people closer to what matters most to them, GN has been named the Most Innovative Smart Hearing Technology Company 2026 in this year’s Technology Excellence Awards. We heard more from GN’s very own Elitsa Borislavova Georgieva below. GN was established by C.F. Tietgen, a Danish financier and industrialist whose remarkable entrepreneurship played a pivotal role in advancing the industrialisation of Denmark. Envisioning a world that was more connected, Tietgen founded GN in June 1869 as Det Stire Nordiske Telegrafselskab A/S (The Great Northern Telegraph Company), with the aim of creating a worldwide telegraph company. This launch sparked the beginning of an ambitious journey that has taken the team from telegraph cables and radio waves to intelligent audio and video engineering. As the world around GN has evolved, the team have remained wholly committed to responsive adaption. GN has pioneered a number of world-first audio solutions and advancements in technology, building a legacy defined by telephone headsets for call centres; Bluetooth headsets; 2.4 GHz technology in hearing aids; made-for-iPhone hearing aids with direct stereo sound streaming; new-normal-ready intelligent video bars for video conferencing; the first all-in-one earbuds with advanced hearing technology, and more. Today, GN strives to honour its longstanding legacy by conquering new frontiers and bringing people together. The company has dedicated more than a century to developing an unrivalled portfolio of leading intelligent hearing, audio, video, and gaming solutions that are enjoyed by consumers across 100 countries around the world. Through its specialist solutions, GN helps people with hearing loss overcome reallife challenges, improves communication and collaboration for businesses, and provides exceptional experiences for audio and gaming enthusiasts. “There’s a reason why our commitment of ‘Bringing People Closer’ is strongly and frequently embedded in our internal processes and priorities,” Elitsa states. “And why it’s the first thing we see plastered on the GN headquarter entrance!” she adds emphatically. “This commitment drives us to help people thrive in their daily lives. Hearing health is crucial to a person’s cognitive health and overall well-being. We’re proud that this commitment drives what we do to improve hearing health around the world.” “Innovation is in our DNA, and our curious, caring, and courageous people make it real.” GN maintains its position at the forefront of the industry by leveraging its team’s unique expertise, ranging from audio, video, and speech to wireless technologies, software, and miniaturisation. Combining this knowledge with invaluable client feedback, the company has produced a comprehensive portfolio of solutions comprising globally recognised brands such as ReSound, Jabra, SteelSeries, Beltone, Interton, BlueParrott, Danavox, and FalCom. Company culture also plays a key role in GN’s success, ensuring that all employees are aligned around innovation, customer focus, and collaboration. “Ultimately for us, it’s all about the people we help,” Elitsa emphasizes. “Success at GN means to improve how people hear, communicate, and connect through our technology. At the same time, prioritizing sustainable business growth means we can continue to stay resilient and innovative in the hearing industry.” Driven by its dedication to ongoing evolution, GN has entered a definitive agreement for the sale of its hearing business to Amplifon, a leading global retailer in hearing care. Expected to complete by the end of 2026, this transaction values the hearing business at DKK 17 billion. Together, GN and Amplifon will create an integrated global leader in audiology, combining hearing technology leadership with high-quality, innovative hearing care to offer comprehensive solutions to both audiology professionals and patients, benefitting audiologists, consumers, and investors alike. Following the transaction, GN will focus its attention on driving success in the audio and video peripherals markets. The company is well-positioned to accomplish this mission, with close connections to leading brands, premium product differentiation, and technology leadership in sound processing and low-power edge AI. From a financial perspective, GN will drive margin expansion supported by its product differentiation and its scalable operations setup, whilst the asset-light business model will support healthy cash flows. Elitsa shared: “This period marks a strategic transformation, with the goal of driving the sustainable and innovative growth of GN’s strong brands while improving profitability, maintaining a strong financial position, and investing in future technologies.” We at Corporate Vision would like to congratulate GN on its recent successes, and wish the company the best of luck as it embarks on this new, bold journey. Contact: Ceri Whittaker- Senior External Relations Manager Company: GN Store Nord Web Address: www.gn.com
Technology Excellence Awards 2026 | 7 Corporate Vision I am proud that, as a Student Information System (SIS) provider, Thesis SM is the trusted partner to a diverse range of higher education clients in the UK from small specialist institutions including the Royal College of Music to large, complex institutions such as Manchester Metropolitan University. We’re motivated every day to make the student and staff experience efficient and empowering, and we’ve dedicated ourselves to streamlining mission-critical student management processes. We have done this so that institutions can focus on what truly matters: student experience, staff time and academic excellence. To achieve this, our cloud-native SIS covers the entire student lifecycle, from application through to award. Hosted on Microsoft Azure, our SaaS solution was developed in close collaboration with the UK and Canadian higher education sectors, ensuring that it meets both common institutional demands and regionspecific requirements. Our feature rich solution covers all the core functionality expected in a SIS, including admissions, curriculum, registry, assessments, progression and billing. Our team has deep roots in the UK sector, with many of us, myself included, having previously worked within higher education institutions. This means our team is shaped by practical insight and a shared commitment to institutional success. We are industry experts who have a deep understanding of the sector pain points, especially as we have experienced many of them first-hand. This fuels our focus every day as we strive to create value from our expertise and deliver a solution that improves the student experience while reducing the burden on staff. As with any spin-out from a larger company, it can sometimes be a challenge to communicate that our modern, flagship product is still underpinned by a significant depth of experience and institutional knowledge to the market. We want to ensure future customers understand that Thesis SM is not a startup; while our name and brand are relatively new, our history ensures that our expertise and track record are extensive. Our SIS product reflects this: built on the collective knowledge, lessons learned, and experience of our team, without the legacy baggage that can limit innovation. Over the next five years, we plan to further innovate the student experience by deepening our collaborations with partners across the sector. We will do this to deliver an even smarter, configurable, more intuitive SIS built for trust and ready to scale and evolve ing to reflect changing institutional needs. We recognise that many institutions live with legacy constraints created from past requirements that no longer reflect the modern sector landscape. These may be functional constraints but equally how the overall service reflects the technical and financial challenges currently facing UK higher education. We at Thesis are committed to working with institutions to ensure that our SIS does not stand still and nor does our organisation. We get up every morning and consider what we can do better. To realise this vision, we have built a product roadmap centred on four strategic pillars, guiding our approach to digital transformation across the sector. Awarded in Corporate Vision’s Technology Excellence Awards 2026 not only for its innovative product but for its team’s deep rooted experience, Thesis SM is built for trust and ready to scale . Its pioneering cloud-based SIS was designed to streamline and enhance core institutional operations for the UK, Irish, and Canadian education sectors, and it’s a pleasure to hear more from CEO Louise Thorpe below. Thesis SM: Where Ongoing Success Builds Momentum Our four pillars are: enhancing self-service to improve student experience and make effective use of staff time; empowering end users through automation, no-code workflow tools, and reduced reliance on IT; optimising regulatory and statutory processes as embedded core functionality; and streamlining integration with other campus systems to enable cohesive, data-driven operations. And yes, we do all know them off by heart. Across all four, our goal is to deliver technology that is configurable, intuitive, and built around the real-world needs of higher education institutions, today and in the years ahead. We will continue investing in secure, scalable infrastructure and growing our team’s expertise, so we can deliver consistent value and support to every institution we serve. Our strategic pillars recognise that mere compliance is not enough and that it is imperative for a SIS provider to optimise regulatory and statutory processes, ensuring institutions remain compliant and with minimal operational overhead. We operate as the backbone of an institution’s edtech ecosystem, and we strive to deliver streamlined integrations with other campus systems to enable a cohesive experience for users and support data-driven decision-making across the student lifecycle. We aim to deepen our presence across the markets we serve, with a clear commitment to being the leading local SIS provider for higher education in the UK, Ireland, and Canada. Alongside this, we are focused on strengthening our long-term engagement with the higher education community, A core part of our growth strategy is to collaborate closely with our surrounding communities, users, partners, and thought leaders, and translating their feedback into meaningful product improvements that solve real challenges in the student lifecycle. It is this unwavering dedication to continuous improvement and innovation that has earned Thesis SM recognition as the UK’s Best University Student Management Software 2026. Contact: Louise Thorpe Company: Thesis SM (Thesis Student Management) Web Address: www.thesis.sm
Corporate Vision Optimised E-Commerce Hosting with maxcluster GmbH The difference between 99.80% and 99.99% may seem small, but as anyone in finance will attest, it is really not. It was with this in mind that Sebastian Ringel established maxcluster GmbH, a company offering maximum e-commerce hosting for agencies and shop operators. Trusted by more than 1,000 customers, maxcluster’s guarantee of 99.99% availability across the year has played a huge part in its recognition here as the Leading Web Hosting Company of the Year 2026 – Germany. Founded in 2011, maxcluster has been providing its managed hosting and infrastructure services for business-critical e-commerce platforms for 15 years, including the likes of Shopware, Magento, and Hyvä. Keeping ecommerce shops online is a crucial part of its mission, but it is far from the only way maxcluster supports its clients. Driven by the belief that ambitious ecommerce businesses need a hosting partner that actively supports their success, maxcluster takes a proactive approach to optimising and securing customer environments. The three values of partnership, responsibility, and continuous improvement support maxcluster as it works towards its goal, which is simply to give merchants and agencies total confidence in the platform that their business relies on to succeed. This confidence has been shaken to its core over the last few years, thanks to hosting becoming increasingly commoditised. Servers can today be rented almost anywhere, but what cannot be found anywhere is the expertise, trust, and real partnerships that the most successful businesses have when it comes to their hosting. Fortunately, maxcluster prides itself on offering exactly this, providing its clients with proactive support from its highly experienced Linux administrators, people who understand what really goes into a complex e-commerce environment. With support from many of its contemporaries still delivered in the form of a person sitting in a call centre and following a script, it is immediately clear that maxcluster is a cut above the rest. A common thread across the company, its team continue to invest in tech that aligns with its goal, from Tidewayspowered application performance monitoring to managed web application firewall studios and high-availability hosting designed for online stores. As well as this, maxcluster makes sure its roots run deep within the e-commerce ecosystem, seen through its partnerships with platforms, agencies, and developers and its conversations at events, workshops, and with its customers. “We believe that listening is one of the most underrated forms of innovation.” As this shows, maxcluster upholds the balance between people and technology, with its different departments working closely together to come up with ideas and move the business ahead. This was seen recently in the expansion of the company’s proactive security services, the strengthening of its monitoring capabilities, and the introduction of additional performance insights to help customers spot bottlenecks before revenue is impacted. All of this helps build trust long before something goes wrong. Then, of course, there is the small matter of AI, which promises to fundamentally change hosting and infrastructure management over the next few years. The team at maxcluster expect routine analysis, anomaly detection, and optimisation to all become increasingly automated, a development they are embracing. They hope that the tools they are working on right now will identify issues and solve problems before customers notice them. One of the side effects of automation is that it risks severing the relationships between the experts and the customer, but maxcluster is passionate about seeing that this is not the case. Its vision for AI-driven efficiency is one where human expertise remains central. With technology evolving faster than most people can keep up, the focus for maxcluster remains on trust, and that is why its hosting surpasses servers and allows digital businesses to operate faster and more securely, scaling with confidence. Named Leading Web Hosting Company of the Year 2026 – Germany on the back of all that it stands for in this space, maxcluster GmbH embodies everything that we here at Corporate Vision look for in the businesses we recognise. As a spokesperson for the company commented: “Receiving the award is a recognition of our entire team and the customers, agencies, and technology partners who continuously challenge us to improve.” It is a bright future for the company with all of these people and businesses by its side, and we urge those looking to know more about maxcluster to do so via the link below. Contact: Nicole Mentzen Company: maxcluster GmbH Web Address: https://maxcluster.de/
Technology Excellence Awards 2026 | 9 February 2026 | 9 Zoe Financial, Inc. (“Zoe Financial”) is an investment advisor registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Zoe Financial provides investment advisory services and access to independent registered investment advisors through its platform. Zoe Securities, Inc. (“Zoe Securities”) is a broker-dealer registered with the SEC and a member of FINRA and SIPC. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalised investment advice or as an offer to buy or sell any security. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. Zoe Financial is independent and not affiliated with advisors and registered investment advisors (RIA) in our network. Comments made by the advisors/RIAs are their own and do not reflect those of Zoe Financial, and those firms/individuals were not compensated. Clients do not pay Zoe a fee to connect with advisors or use the wealth platform. Instead, advisors compensate Zoe in a revenue-sharing model. Clients should be aware that advisor fees may reflect costs associated with platform usage. Zoe Financial did not pay any fee or provide any compensation to Corporate Vision in connection with its consideration for or receipt of the “Best Wealth Management & Financial Planning Platform 2026 – New York” designation. Selection criteria included company innovation, industry impact, client satisfaction, and social responsibility. This award is not indicative of Zoe Financial’s future performance, the experience of any individual client, or the quality of investment advice provided. Clients and prospective clients should not rely on this award as the sole basis for evaluating Zoe Financial’s services. For full details regarding the award methodology and selection process, please visit https://www.corporatevision-news.com/awards/cv-technology-excellenceawards/. This content appears in Corporate Vision magazine, a UK-based publication. Zoe Financial’s services are available to US-based clients only and are regulated by US authorities. Zoe Financial is not authorised or regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This content does not constitute a financial promotion under UK regulations Contact: Sofia Pedraza Company: Zoe Financial Web Address: https://zoefinancial.com/ Founded by trailblazer Andres Garcia-Amaya, CFA, Zoe Financial simplifies how prospective clients connect with fiduciary advisors and works to solve operational inefficiencies for RIAs. Zoe provides a curated network of advisors to clients through the aforementioned marketplace and equips advisors with the technology to streamline their practices through the Zoe Wealth Platform, for which Zoe has received its title in this feature. In addition to cutting-edge custodian, cashiering, and investment capabilities in one place, the Zoe Wealth Platform offers automation, direct indexing capabilities, and multi-manager models to deliver personalised investment strategies and white-glove service to every client, regardless of portfolio size. An all-in-one dashboard allows clients and advisors to monitor performance, whilst Zoe’s client success team helps simplify and accelerate client onboarding. In short, Zoe makes smart investing solutions more accessible to more clients without increasing the burden on advisors. With Zoe, RIAs do not need to cobble together single-point solutions to make their business run. Zoe’s end-to-end platform allows everything to be performed in one place, from portfolio rebalancing to custodial duties. These capabilities, combined with task delegation to Zoe’s teams, help unlock business growth for RIAs. Zoe aims to provide a seamless experience that reduces administrative headache and operational strain for advisors. This allows advisors to scale whilst improving client outcomes. Zoe measures its success directly against its mission. Because Zoe prioritizes the client experience, clients do not pay Zoe a fee to connect with advisors or use the wealth platform. Instead, advisors compensate Zoe in a revenue-sharing model. As a result, Zoe’s success aligns directly with the success of both the advisors and the clients. “At Zoe, we understand that wealth management deals with the life savings and life’s work of clients. We treat our work with the gravity it deserves and build our culture around it.” —Andres Garcia-Amaya, CFA, Zoe Financial CEO and Founder | Feb. 20, 2026 A successful Series B funding of $30 million positions Zoe and the wealth platform to continue to innovate with client-first solutions. Recognising that much of people’s financial lives happen on their phones, Zoe is working to develop a highquality, mobile-first experience for those on the platform, as well as improving advisor insights and AI reporting. These planned improvements will allow Zoe to continue to redefine modern wealth management and drive value for advisors and clients in the future. More on Zoe Financial’s wealth platform can be found at the link listed below. Zoe Financial, a US-based investment company operating out of New York, has one mission: to protect and grow clients’ wealth. Through the ‘Find an Advisor’ marketplace and the Zoe Wealth Platform, Zoe works to do exactly that. These integrated offerings help stimulate business growth for RIAs whilst delivering a seamless wealth management experience for clients. Zoe has been named the Best Wealth Management & Financial Planning Platform 2026 – New York. Make Wealth Management Simple with Zoe Financial
Corporate Vision Modern Banking and Efficient Payments Processing with Finastra A modern enterprise payments hub, Finastra Global PAYplus helps financial institutions modernise payments, simplify operations and compliance, and accelerate innovation. Built for scale, resilience and the real-time era, the ISO 20022-native, cloud-agnostic, multi-rail platform sits at the centre of Finastra’s payments portfolio. Following Finastra’s recognition as Best Payments Software & Solutions Company 2026 in this year’s Technology Excellence Awards, this feature explores how Global PAYplus is helping banks transform payments with greater control, flexibility and efficiency. Finastra is a global financial services software provider trusted by banks, credit unions, community banks, corporates and financial institutions to deliver secure, reliable and missioncritical technology. Finastra combines deep financial services expertise built over two decades serving some of the largest banks in the world with continued investment in open, modern platforms. Its payments solutions support more than 600 customers globally to deliver growth and superior customer experiences. Across its portfolio, Finastra helps financial institutions modernise complex payment environments, reduce operational friction and respond faster to evolving customer, market and regulatory expectations. Global PAYplus is Finastra’s enterprise payments hub for financial institutions that need to centralise processing, support multiple payment types and scale securely across high-volume environments. The platform helps banks manage real-time, high-value, cross-border payments and Mass Payments through a single, configurable architecture, supporting faster time to market while reducing complexity and risk. The need for this capability is clear. The rapid adoption of instant payments, ISO 20022, alternative payment models and cloud-native technologies has exposed the limitations of many legacy payment systems. High maintenance costs, fragmented architectures, slower processing, limited flexibility and weak data visibility can make it difficult for banks to meet rising expectations or introduce new services quickly. By moving to a centralised payments hub, financial institutions can standardise processing, improve resilience and support growing digital payment volumes. This is particularly important for global and large super-regional banks that must compete with fintechs while maintaining control, compliance and reliability across markets. Global PAYplus enables centralised processing for incoming and outgoing payments while supporting compliance with market and scheme requirements. Its ability to process multiple payment types through one hub can improve straight-through processing, reduce manual intervention and give banks a stronger foundation for operational efficiency. The platform also simplifies IT and payments architecture by reducing the number of interfaces and systems required compared with fragmented legacy estates. This supports faster, more accurate data, improved regulatory reporting, lower operational costs and the ability to process millions of payments daily. Designed to integrate with existing bank architecture, Global PAYplus supports deployment across cloud and on-premises environments. Its cloud-agnostic approach, containerisation and microservices-based architecture help institutions modernise progressively without locking themselves into a single infrastructure model. Finastra is also extending the value of its payments hubs through AI-enabled capabilities such as exception handling, repair support and advanced analytics. These capabilities are designed to help operations teams improve visibility, reduce manual effort and make better-informed decisions across the payments lifecycle. By combining AI with human-in-the-loop, analytics and payments-specific intelligence, OperatorAssist helps streamline exception management and simplify day-to-day payment operations. For financial institutions, this can support better efficiency, improved responsiveness and stronger operational resilience. Named Best Payments Software & Solutions Company 2026 as part of the Technology Excellence Awards, Finastra continues to demonstrate the role modern payments technology can play in helping banks simplify operations, improve resilience and create room for innovation. Global PAYplus is a clear example of that focus: a scalable, configurable enterprise payments hub built for the demands of modern banking. Contact: Larisa Alexandra Ciobanu Company: Finastra Web Address: https://www.finastra.com/
Technology Excellence Awards 2026 | 11 July 2026 | 9 What’s more, client banks implementing front-to-back orchestration for lending journeys have seen conversion improvements of 10 to 15 percent, alongside meaningful reductions in cost per origination. The ability to run deterministic and agentic workflows side by side has been central to these results. Additionally, banks utilising Studio, Starter Packs, and Delivery OS to build and deploy new capabilities have reported change velocity improving by a factor of three compared to previous delivery models. Reflecting on these exceptional results, Stefan shared, “The most rewarding part is seeing what production AI looks like inside real banks: loans approved in minutes; disputes resolved without manual case-building; AI agents executing within defined guardrails, producing a complete audit trail. These are not pilots. They are live operations. Watching that happen – at scale, with control, is what makes this work genuinely satisfying.” Recently, Backbase was named a Leader and a Customer Favourite in The Forester Wave™ Q2 2026. In a rigorous, independent assessment of the banking technology landscape, assessed 11 vendors across current offering, strategy, and market presence, recognising Backbase for the commercial traction it has achieved worldwide. Forrester commented, “Backbase is a good fit for banks seeking a platform with state-of-the-art tech, useful off-the-shelf capabilities, CX tools, and a foundation for future initiatives.” This month, Backbase has seen further success in Corporate Vision Magazine’s 2026 Technology Excellence Awards, recognised for the instrumental role it has played in reshaping the banking landscape for the better. The company has unified the frontline operations of countless clients since its inception, eliminating fragmented systems and empowering banks across sectors to operate with confidence, clarity, and consistency. It is for this reason that we at Corporate Vision Magazine are delighted to recognise Backbase as Europe’s Best AI-Native Banking Systems Provider 2026. Contact: Stefan Maritz Company: Backbase Web Address: www.backbase.com “Banking is one of the most consequential industries in the world. It touches every person, every business, and every economy. When banks work well, they enable livelihoods and underwrite ambitions. When they work poorly, the consequences are equally widespread.” With headquarters in Amsterdam and teams around the world, Backbase is an innovative fintech company in 2003 by Jouk Pleiter’s clear conviction: banks deserve better technology, and their customers deserve better experiences. This conviction led to the development of the AI-native Banking OS, a system designed to turn fragmented banking operations into a Unified Frontline in which customers, employees, and AI agents are united to work as one across digital channels, front-office, and operations. Backbase has designed the AI-native Banking OS to solve a structural problem impacting the banking industry. Banks run across multiple disconnected systems, while the real work – such as handoffs, exceptions, decisions, and coordination – happens in the whitespace between them. No system owns this work, and humans are left to bridge it manually. This is where significant operational cost lives, and Backbase believes that it has developed the solution. While most banking technology vendors add AI features to existing platforms, Backbase has built the AI-native Banking OS from the ground up. The Control Plane sits above systems of record and coordinates execution across the entire banking frontline. Rather than replacing cores, CRMs, or data platforms, Banking OS works on top of existing banking infrastructure – including core systems, payments, cards, risk tools, and CRM software – without replacing them. Through the development of the Banking OS, Backbase aims to create the Unified Frontline, a new category in banking technology that focuses on integrating digital channels, front office, and operations into a single coordinated system powered by an AInative banking OS. This model eliminates the fragmentation of banking operations by creating a shared customer view and coordinating activities across systems, whilst supporting the facilitation of Elastic Operations across organisations. More than 120 leading banks have chosen Backbase to deliver these exceptional benefits, spanning Retail, SMB and Commercial, Private Banking, and Wealth Management. Client banks automating highvolume servicing domains have reported cost-to-serve reductions of 30 to 40 percent. This result has been driven by the combination of Nexus’s unified semantic layer and Sentinel’s Decision Authority framework which, together, gives agents complete customer context whilst governing every action before execution. Banking technology has evolved significantly over the decades, distinguished by improved digital channels and expanded mobile adoption. But the operational foundation – how banks actually coordinate work across employees, systems, and customers – has remained largely untouched. Enter Backbase, the brilliant mind behind the AI-native Banking OS promising to reduce fragmentation across financial institutions’ frontline activities. We spoke with Stefan Maritz, Head of Content Marketing, as Backbase is named in the Technology Excellence Awards 2026. The Unified Frontline Begins with Backbase
Corporate Vision Future-Proof Your Workforce with Florence’s Flexible Staffing Solutions There are more than 1.5 million people working within the UK’s social care sector, even more than the NHS. This figure has risen by 2.2% from the previous year and, as more individuals join the workforce, care providers are finding it increasingly difficult to streamline their operations and practice effective workforce management. Today, we sat down with Dr. Charles Armitage, Co-Founder and CEO of Florence, a leading platform reshaping the world of workforce management within the health and care sector. Dr. Charles gave us more information, as Florence is named in the Technology Excellence Awards 2026. “Florence is building the technology to power the social care workforce.” The story of Florence began with Dr. Charles Armitage, an NHS veteran who had witnessed first-hand how difficult it was to fill staffing gaps in hospitals. He found that the process was slow and inefficient, whilst agencies overwhelmed nurses and carers with constant calls and emails. At the same time, these agencies were not able to approve timesheets or pay wages on time. Believing that there had to be a better way, Dr. Charles joined forces with social care expert Dan Blake. They built a team of health, care, and technology specialists, united by a desire to develop the tools that would heal the sector’s pain points and make flexible staffing simpler, faster, and more effective. Together, they created Florence. Since its inception in 2016, Florence has been on a mission to make the healthcare industry simpler and fairer for everyone in the UK and beyond. The platform’s end-to-end workforce technology enables healthcare providers to manage all their workforce requirements within one place. From hiring, compliance, training, and HR through to rostering, T&A, payroll, and agency management, this all-in-one solution has been instrumental in helping healthcare providers run an efficient, compliant, and cost-effective workforce. “Everything we do is driven by our core values: care about what you do, ask another question, build a positive team, put yourself in their shoes, and embrace the adventure!” In a competitive market, Florence stands out as the only endto-end workforce platform built specifically for social care. “For us, the user is at the heart of everything we do,” said Dr. Charles, “and ‘putting yourself in the shoes’ of our users is fundamental to everything we build. Everyone at Florence is encouraged to spend time on the frontline and gain an understanding of how the work they do impacts the people that use our products.”
Technology Excellence Awards 2026 | 13 June 2026 | 9 Designed to support employers and employees alike, Florence makes delivering care simple and stress-free. Florence Rota is loved by both managers and frontline staff, ensuring that everyone knows exactly where each staff member should be and when. Managers can easily organise leave and training for all employees and even save time with its AI-Native Rota Generator. Through Florence HR and Payroll, employers can manage multiple sites and roles through customisable setups that can build organisations from individual units up to multiple sites, regions, and companies. The easy-to-use employee database allows for centralised, streamlined management of employee HR records, as well as centralised document storage and automated renewal schedules. Florence Agency Manager offers a Neutral Vendor Agency Manager tool that gives organisations complete control over their agency workforce costs. A part of the flexible-workforce management platform, it helps users to fill health and care shifts with speed and ease, reduce temporary staffing costs, and keep compliance under control. It is often reported by clients to be the easiest-to-use neutral vendor solution on the market, playing a key role in saving significant time and money on contingent staffing. Organisations can quickly fill rota gaps through Florence Bank Manager, prioritising cost-effective quality care from their own bank or perm staff. By simply sending a shift notification and reviewing responses, managers can fill open gaps within seconds whilst mitigating the endless phone calls and texts messages typically circulated amongst their bank staff. When used in conjunction with Agency Manager, any unfilled shifts will automatically cascade to the organisation’s chosen agencies. Florence Temporary Staffing is an invaluable resource for organisations across the country, offering a carefully sourced selection of over 100,000 quality health and care workers for temporary gap filling. Florence combines cutting-edge technology with expert checks to verify that each applicant is a fully compliant and accredited professional possessing specialist skills, from first aid to frailty. Every engagement is supported by Florence’s governance team, who are prepared to step in if an issue ever arises. The platform is complete with Florence Academy, a flexible online option to attaining a world-class education. Replacing the often expensive route of face-to-face training, Florence Academy gives organisations complete control over their staff’s learning, with the ability to add custom courses and assign training in a click. With full training oversight, managers can keep track of compliance, generate reports, and gain meaningful insights. Florence Academy offers more than 100 CPD-accredited and CSTF-aligned training courses which, when combined with its customisation features, enables team leaders to create comprehensive, high-quality training programmes for their team. Organisations can maximise its staff’s time and cover all 15 Care Certificate standards online, propelled by bite-size courses, automatically-scored tests, online workbooks, and email reminders that help learners stay on track. Together, these individual tools combine to deliver a powerful platform that provides organisations with complete control over their care workforce costs. To date, more than 2,000 health and care organisations have placed their trust in Florence, spanning residential care homes, nursing homes, mental health services, private hospitals, NHS hospitals and trusts, children’s services, supported living environments, and domiciliary care providers. More than 100,000 health and care professionals utilise Florence every day, with 95% of clients reporting a positive experience with the platform. The Operations Manager of Mariposa Care, a network of elderly care and nursing homes across the UK, shared: “Florence gives us the visibility we need across our entire group. Since implementing the platform, we have seen our agency spend decrease significantly while our staffing compliance rates have never been higher.” While Angela Boxall, CEO of luxury care provider Majesticare, commented: “What I love most about working with Florence is the honesty, transparency, and communication, which has been there from the start.” Striving to reshape the sector for good, the team behind Florence is continuously looking for new ways to improve the platform. It recently integrated an AI-driven scheduling tool to help automate complex rota patterns, allowing managers to fill gaps instantly and ensure safer staffing levels are met. Over the last year, the team has also worked hard to develop a selection of tools that help employers and employees navigate the new employment rights changes introduced in the Employment Rights Act 2025. With this in mind, the team upholds an ongoing commitment to placing people at the heart of its operations. “While we are a technology-first company, our goal is to give time back to our customers,” Dr. Charles told us. “We want to emphasise that tech is not just about efficiency; it is about allowing organisations to restore the human element of care.” Looking to the future, Florence will continue to grow and develop within the field of social care in the UK. With more than 1.5 million people working in this sector, there is significant opportunity for future growth. At the same time, the industry’s fast-paced nature demands that the team evolves alongside funding challenges and regulatory changes. By maintaining close relationships with its clients and listening to their complex needs, however, Florence remains confident that its team will continue to deliver a service it can be proud of, to the same standards that earned Florence its status as the UK’s Best Health Workforce Management Platform 2026. “To us, success is helping over 2,000 organisations gain better control over their workforce and compliance, allowing them to focus on what really matters: care.” Contact: Charles Armitage Company: Florence Web Address: www.florence.co.uk
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