Miami, Florida May 31, 2026 (Issuewire.com) - Adriana Rivas has been named the Gold Stevie® Award winner for Thought Leader of the Year in the Business Products category at the 24th Annual American Business Awards® (ABA), the premier business awards program in the United States. Adriana Rivas received the only Gold award in this category among more than 3,700 nominations submitted by organizations of all sizes and sectors across the country.
Over 230 business professionals from around the world served on the judging panel. The Gold Stevie Award for Adriana Rivas recognizes her award-winning book, How to Implement Self-Service Without Failing (Amazon #1 Hot New Release, Silver Nonfiction Book Award 2025), and her publishing platform at adrianarivas.tech, which retail decision-makers across the United States and Latin America use as a practical reference for technology implementation.
"This recognition belongs to the retailers and operators who used these guides to make better decisions, and to every professional who believed that technical knowledge, shared openly, is its own form of leadership," said Adriana Rivas. "My mission is to keep translating technical complexity into tangible human value."
What the Judges Said About Adriana Rivas
Members of the international judging panel offered the following assessments:
"Top-quartile nomination with unusually strong evidence and differentiation. Adriana Rivas combines live operational impact with an award-winning field manual and global credibility signals, putting her clearly above typical single-channel or purely theoretical thought leaders."
"This is standout, practitioner-led thought leadership with real credibility. Adriana combines hands-on execution, award-winning publishing, and community impact in a way that is rare and genuinely valuable to the industry."
"Adriana is a practitioner-educator, not a disruptive thinker, but that probably makes her influence real. What sets her apart is her bilingual, cross-cultural leverage serving both U.S. and Latin American markets with genuinely different insights for each."
"Very strong nomination with broad industry recognition, thought leadership, and well-documented achievements across multiple areas. Adriana shows clear expertise through publishing, awards, and public industry influence."
Why Adriana Rivas Won Gold
Most industry voices build their platforms around abstract trends. Adriana Rivas built hers from direct field deployments across four countries. Three areas define her work:
Practical Education. The book by Adriana Rivas addresses the real gap between the intent to adopt technology and its actual implementation. It debuted as an Amazon #1 Hot New Release and earned the Silver Nonfiction Book Award 2025, becoming a go-to guide for operators at every stage of their self-service journey.
Cross-Border Influence. The publishing platform of Adriana Rivas delivers bilingual, implementation-level guidance grounded in actual deployments across the United States, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras, connecting U.S. industry knowledge with Latin American operational realities.
Community Leadership. As a WomenTech Network Global Ambassador and Circle Leader, Adriana Rivas advances inclusive technology adoption and mentors professionals navigating their own paths through an engineering-dominated industry.
The Gold Stevie Award winners will be celebrated at a gala ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on June 9, 2026. The complete list of 2026 winners is available at https://aba.stevieawards.com/awards/aba-winners/Thought-Leadership-Category-Winners.
About Adriana Rivas
Adriana Rivas is a retail technology executive with 18 years of experience leading large-scale technology implementations across the United States and Latin America. She is the Gold Stevie Award winner for Thought Leader of the Year at the 24th Annual American Business Awards® 2026, and the author of How to Implement Self-Service Without Failing (Amazon #1 Hot New Release, Silver Nonfiction Book Award 2025). A WomenTech Network Global Ambassador and Circle Leader, Adriana Rivas, publishes retail technology insights at adrianarivas.tech and speaks on the intersection of AI, self-service, and store-level infrastructure across the Americas.
About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in nine programs and receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. The American Business Awards® is the premier business awards program in the United States. Learn more at stevieawards.com.
Media Contact
Adriana Rivas *****@adrianarivas.tech http://adrianarivas.tech
