Jacqueline Shaulis of Awesome Enterprises LLC is Alignable’s 2022 Businessperson of the Year

The largest online referral network for small businesses, Alignable.com is announcing the results of its national search for leaders who’ve gone above and beyond guiding peers and supporting entire communities as they strive to recover.

Today, Alignable’s network has chosen Jacqueline Shaulis of Awesome Enterprises LLC as Sunnyside’s 2022 Businessperson Of The Year!

The 2022 contest is the most popular competition Alignable has ever hosted, marking a 64% increase in participation over last year. In all, 2,400+ small business owners were elected by their peers to be their Local Businesspeople of the Year across the U.S. and Canada.

During the contest, which ran from Jan. 10 to Feb. 11, 2022, 160,000+ votes and 32,000+ testimonials were posted praising thousands of local leaders for helping their peers and communities through a turbulent year with many challenges: skyrocketing inflation, labor shortages, supply chain problems, and COVID variants.

Because of these issues, 70% of small businesses have yet to recover and recovery rates have declined 13% since December, according to Alignable’s latest poll of 6,305 small business owners. This recovery reversal highlights how important it is for the contest winners to continue their work helping even more businesses bounce back from pandemic-era hurdles.

Giving Is The Glue Holding Us Together

“Despite the challenges our Queens community has encountered, support for our peers struggling to keep their businesses afloat is prevalent,” said Shaulis. “While I’m thrilled to receive this award, it’s a testament to our entire Sunnyside community and what can be accomplished as fellow business owners collaborate and creatively uplift one another.”

Shaulis received a special badge on her Alignable profile, recognizing this big win. In past years, the awareness generated through similar contests has spurred expanded connections, as well as new business for many winners.

Driving Recognition Is Key

“This has been a fun and rewarding contest to watch unfold,” said Alignable’s President & Co-Founder Venkat Krishnamurthy. “Local business owners are the heart and soul of their communities and they ought to get way more recognition for all they do. Friendly competition aside, this contest generated some incredible peer testimonials (to the tune of 32,000+), showing exactly why small business owners are stronger together.”

About Jacqueline Shaulis

Jacqueline Shaulis guides introverted women of color to get seen, heard, and respected by embracing their AWESOME. As an intersectional introvert™, her challenging but accomplished upbringing birthed an international speaker, global bestselling author, and advisor to top executives…all while honoring her introversion. Her shenaniGEMS wow audiences in over 20 countries & are featured in Forbes, The Washington Post, Doctor Oz, The Independent, TEDx, and Yahoo!Finance.

About Alignable

Alignable.com is the largest online referral network for small businesses in the U.S. and Canada. With 7 million+ members across 35,000+ local communities, Alignable is the network where small business owners drive leads and prospects, generate referrals, land new business, build trusted relationships, and share great advice.

About Awesome Enterprises LLC

Awesome Enterprises LLC is the leader in transformative communication-based personal leadership for introverted women of color. Nearly 1,000 public and private sector organizations have benefited from our founder Jacqueline Shaulis’s Embrace Your Awesome™ philosophy to recognize and support emerging and established leadership, increase on-going employee satisfaction and engagement, and improve diversity, inclusion, and equality (DEI) from the spectrum of BIPOC womanhood.