"When you hear innovation, embrace it. You can leapfrog competitors if you stay humble." You might think that quote came from a big-company CEO, but it was actually spoken by Roland Kanichuk, manager of product for SafetyNow, in accepting his SIIA Emerging Leader Award at last month's BIMS event. (SafetyNow is part of Bongarde, a division of SIPA member Greenhaven Partners.)

Kanichuk told a story about starting a company when he was in high school, launching the website, getting business cards—his mom even signed for office space. "It was a humbling experience," he said. "We lost sight of our clients and their needs. We had the biggest library of things that nobody wanted. But [it showed that]the exponential opportunities are there."

Other finalists from SIPA companies included: Sarah Gefter, senior analyst, Reorg Research, Christina Karabetsos, executive vice president, QCSS, Inc., Jacob Perry, database marketing manager, Business Valuation Resources, and Kalani Rosell, vice president & publisher, NewsRx. Having five of the 15 finalists in the SIIA-wide competition was quite a coup for SIPA.

Celebrating the next generation of leadership in B2B media, content and information, the Emerging Leader Awards are presented to five rising stars under 35 years of age. They were judged by a screening panel of SIIA executives, based on the individual's record of success, impact, leadership and professional recommendations

Karabetsos and Perry have both been well-received speakers for SIPA. Karabetsos spoke on New Marketing and Sales Strategies for Customer Acquisition Conference at the SIPA event in San Francisco in October. (See her 11 takeaways here.) Perry spoke at a session at BIMS on Marketing Automation Case Studies. You can see the slides from that presentation here. (I'll also be reporting soon on a successful lead scoring campaign that Perry conducted at BVR.)

At the presentation of awards at BIMS, another winner, Robert Dippell, VP, corporate development, Praetorian Digital, said that it was nice to see recognition of the positive contributions of millennials versus the perhaps more typical "invasion of millennials." Rachel Bennett, director, marketing for Gordian, said that her "success was due to those who had the time to invest in me. So let's invest in the next class [because] leaders are not born, they are made."

Here were the 15 finalists:

• Alexandria Alati, Sales Manager, SourceMedia
• Rachel Bennett, Director, Marketing, Gordian
• Caroline Celano, Executive Brand Manager, McGraw-Hill Education
• Robert Dippell, VP, Corporate Development, Praetorian Digital
• Sarah Gefter, Senior Analyst, Reorg Research
• Alexandra Schultz Hodges, Sr. Marketing Manager, McGraw-Hill Education
• Roland Kanichuk, Director of Product, SafetyNow
• Christina Karabetsos, Executive Vice President, QCSS, Inc.
• Bill Mulford, Sr. Brand Manager, McGraw-Hill Education
• Chris Napolitan, Director, Business and Corporate Development, Everyday Health Professional
• Shareen Pathak, Managing Editor, Digiday
• Jacob Perry, Database Marketing Manager, Business Valuation Resources
• Kalani Rosell, Vice President & Publisher, NewsRx
• Tara Tesimu, SVP - Digital Products and Audience Development, Winsight, LLC
• Johanna Wetmore, CEO / Co-Founder, EvoText Inc

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Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 and SIIA in 2013 as editorial director…