Business
NEQSOL Holding Wins 2026 ATD BEST Award for Enterprise Talent Development
August 2, 2026
3
Min
NEQSOL Holding has been named a 2026 BEST Award winner by the Association for Talent Development (ATD). The award recognises organisations that demonstrate enterprise-wide results from talent development programmes aligned with business strategy, and it places the Netherlands-headquartered group, with roughly 20,000 employees across 11 countries, among the companies recognised this year.
For a diversified group operating in energy, telecommunications, hi-tech, construction and mining (with portfolio companies including Nobel Energy, Vodafone Ukraine, Bakcell, Azerconnect Group and UMCC Titanium), the recognition lands at a moment of deliberate organisational build-out. NEQSOL has spent recent years standardising leadership development across markets as varied as Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Türkiye and the United States, betting that a common talent architecture can hold a multi-industry group together better than structure alone.
"Organizations that succeed in the long term are those that continuously invest in their people and leadership capabilities," said Kirill Rubinski, then Senior Advisor to the Shareholder, in the award announcement of 12 March 2026 carried by The National Law Review. The programmes behind the win are specific: a Succession Readiness Program, the Leadership Journey and LEAP acceleration tracks, the in-house NEQSOL Academy and Peerstack Academy, and the PARLA Female Scholarship & Development Program aimed at widening the leadership pipeline.
Chief Human Capital Officer Meric Tunc framed the award as a continuity signal rather than a milestone: "At NEQSOL Holding, talent development is not a one-time initiative, it is a continuous commitment to our people." According to the announcement, 10% of senior management performance targets are linked to succession planning and leadership development outcomes, reinforcing executive accountability for talent growth.
For the South Caucasus business community, the signal is worth noting. Groups anchored in the region are increasingly competing for recognition, and for executive talent, on global rather than regional benchmarks. Head of Learning and Development Dilara Jafarli pointed to the mechanics behind that shift: "Our focus is on creating a learning environment that strengthens leadership capability."
The recognition came shortly before a period of leadership renewal at the group level, and fits a broader pattern of regional groups investing in institutional capability as a precondition for international scale.
