2026 is off to a rocking start! Businesses from around Southwestern Family of Companies recently held their annual kickoff meetings and 2026 awards ceremonies last month. Click below to jump to each section, or read the full article below.
Southwestern Advantage – Freddie Awards, Jan. 18, Renaissance Hotel, Nashville
Southwestern Real Estate – 2026 Awards, Jan. 18, Amerigo’s Restaurant, Nashville
ThinkingAhead Executive Search – Compass Awards, Jan. 23, Hotel Fraye, Nashville
SBR Consulting – 2026 Sales Kickoff, Jan. 23, Leonardo Royal Hotel, Brighton, U.K.
Southwestern Consulting – Spencer Awards, Jan. 29, Nissan Stadium, Nashville
Southwestern Advantage
Southwestern Advantage recently held their Global Leadership Summit (GLS) and 27th Annual “Freddies” Awards in Nashville, TN. Held at the Renaissance Hotel, keynoters included former SWA President Dan Moore, SWA alum Dr. Jason Kolb, SWA alum and TN Senator Marsha Blackburn, SWA VP of Communications and Government Relations Trey Campbell and SW Consulting Partner and Professional Sales and Leadership Coach Dave Brown (SWA alum). GLS and the Freddies events were hosted by former SWA District Sales Leader (DSL) Danny Gamboa.
This year, top sales honors went to Sindija Loze (Top Experienced in Sales) and Maxwell Paulin (Top First Year in Sales). Lauren Myers (First Year) and Mariliis Kalinina (Experienced) took honors for Top LEAD Revenue, and Robert Veide (First Year) and Kristaps Rupmanis (Experienced) for Top Online Subscribers.
Teams and team leaders were also awarded for their excellence on the field, including Top Team Leader Patrik Roostfeldt (In School & Top B Leader), and Ray Petroski (Full Time).
Bruno Binovskis won the prestigious Student Excellence Award, among nominees including Patrik Roostfeldt, Tyler Brittingham and Sandra Perez. These students were recognized individually for their commitment to excellence both on and off the book field. The Top Campus Worldwide award went to TalTech once again in Tallinn, Estonia.
See below for a full list of winners:
Top First Year in Sales: Maxwell Paulin, 3,906 units
Top First Year in Sales (Honorary): Robert Veide, 4,066 units
Top Experienced in Sales: Sindija Loze, 20,334 units
Top Experienced in Sales (Honorary): Kristaps Rupmanis, 17,620 units
Top LEAD Revenue – First Year: Lauren Myers
Top LEAD Revenue – Experienced: Mariliis Kalinina
Top Online Subscriber – First Year: Robert Veide, 53 units
Top Online Subscriber – Experienced: Kristaps Rupmanis, 100 units
Top Team Leader – In School: Patrik Roostfeldt, 10,101 units
Top Team Leader – Fulltime: Ray Petroski, 10,956 units
Top B Leader: Patrik Roostfeldt, 8,325 units
Student Excellence Award: Bruno Binovskis
Top Campus Worldwide: TalTech, 158,831 units
Congratulations to all the 2026 award winners! We look forward to seeing you and all the talented teams again soon.
For more about Southwestern Advantage, click here.
Southwestern Real Estate
Southwestern Real Estate, led by President Pat Roach, recently celebrated their 2026 Kickoff and Awards Jan 16-18 in Nashville, TN.
The team participated in a welcome mixer at Party Fowl, followed by two days of training at HQ in Nashville featuring sessions by Dr. Amy D’Aprix of LifeBridge Strategies and EQ speaker Jules Wilhelm, as well as an evening activity at Top Golf. The event culminated with an awards dinner at Amerigo’s Restaurant in Nashville’s West End.
Top awards went to Breakout Agent of the Year Stacey Long and Founder’s Vision Award winner Sarah Goss. The Excellence Award went to Dr. Meredith Gardner Kelly, and The State of the Union Award went to the Texas team.
Congratulations to all the 2026 award winners and SW Real Estate team!
For more about Southwestern Real Estate, click here.
ThinkingAhead Executive Search
ThinkingAhead recently held their 2026 kickoff and awards ceremony in Nashville, Jan. 21-23. The Award Ceremony was held at Hotel Fraye, where emcees Alex Grove and Zach Troutman kicked off the night with entertainment and awards. This year’s Incentive Trip award winners qualifying for the 2026 trip to Porto, Portugal, were announced, as well as the location for next year’s trip to Edinburgh, Scotland.
The 2025 Top Producer Award went to Kay Linder, and the prestigious Mosley Award was given to Jay Boone. The Mosley Award is awarded to the team member who personifies outstanding ThinkingAhead core values in areas of attitude, leadership, consistency and work ethic.
A full list of awards is below:
Personal Growth Award: Kadri Lumsden
Bronze Award: Heather Campbell, Chris Gray, Alex Grove
Silver Award: Ryan Rasmussen, Brian Blasko, Jessica Martinez, J.W. Heflin, Jay Boone
Gold Award: Chris Spagnola, Derek Schlender, Dan Kuhar, Courtney Rice, Stephanie Maas
Platinum Award: Josh Karamol, Brian Vogt, Kay Linder
Top Producer 2025: Kay Linder
Mosley Award: Jay Boone
Congratulations to all the award winners and to the ThinkingAhead team on a great start in 2026!
For more about ThinkingAhead, click here.
SBR Consulting
SBR Consulting gathered for its 2026 Sales Kickoff on Jan. 22-23 Leonardo Royal Hotel, Brighton, U.K. This year’s theme was “Execute,” with a focus on rolling out a new proposition to market and significant investment in internal AI development, supported by Jason Heath from Southwestern IT, who also attended the kickoff.
Last year’s kickoff theme was “Impact,” with a focus on achieving an NPS 25% greater than the industry average. SBR now has five £1million+ clients and was joined at the kickoff by client RBC Brewin Dolphin, who testified to how SBR helped uncover over 1.6 billion in untapped revenue from their current team’s potential.
Other highlights include: five new consultants won the company’s Sizzler Trip for their sales success (a record number of new winners). SBR Managing Director Stuart Lotherington celebrated 20 years with the company and the company record for lifetime sales.
The prestigious MVP Award went to Bill Bauer and SBR Consultant of the Year was awarded to Kryštof Hon.
Below is a list of all the individual award winners:
Delivery Award: Petya Nikolova
Sales Target Attainment: Kryštof Hon
Sales Growth Award: Dave Duke
Associate of the Year: Emily Edwards
Support Team Person of the Year: Oliver Booker
Value Champion of the Year: George Clarke
MVP Award: Bill Bauer
Consultant of the Year: Kryštof Hon
Congratulations to the award winners and the entire SBR Consulting team for a great year!
For more about SBR Consulting, click here.
Southwestern Consulting
Southwestern Consulting recently held its January Global Summit and Spencer Awards in Nashville TN, Jan 28-30. The Spencer Awards were held at Nissan Stadium, hosted by emcee Sara Hodges, recognizing outstanding performance in the areas of professional sales and leadership coaching, student coaching, speaking and training, as well as operational/admin excellence.
Highlights of the event included: announcement of 2026 Incentive Trip winners to Porto, Portugal, and the reveal of the Incentive Trip destination for 2027 to Croatia. Professional Sales and Leadership Coach Matt Kirby was named a new SWC Partner and broke the record for Top Producer Lives Changed.
Student Coaching
Some of the Student Coaching awards given included:
Top Producer (Most Lives Changed): George Lovera
Tutor Award: Whitney Armstrong
Comeback Kid: Camilla Kong
Top Rookie Producer (Revenue): George Lovera
Top Rookie Producer (Revenue): Andrew Hovelson
Top Coaching Coach (Retention): Whitney Armstrong
Top Selling Coach (Retention): Andrew Hovelson
2025 Student Coach of the Year: Whitney Armstrong
Student Coaching Impact Award (Professional Coaching): Steve Reiner
Speaking and Training
Speaking and Training awards included the following, including a sweep by leader Emmie Brown in all three categories:
Top Producers (Contract Signed): (#3) Teej Cummins, (#2) Christina Gradillas, (#1) Emmie Brown
Top Producers (Revenue Delivered): (#3) Peter Varberg, (#2) Christina Gradillas, (#1) Emmie Brown
Top Producers (Revenue Realized): (#3)Teej Cummins, (#2) Christina Gradillas, (#1) Emmie Brown
Professional Sales and Leadership Coaching
The SWC Sales and Leadership Coaching awards recognized Coach of the Year Matt Kirby, as well as “Extrallence” Award Winner Steve Reiner. Top First Year Producers included Dovydas Zalieckas (Most Lives Changed) and Jay Cashubec (Revenue).
In the veteran coaching division, Matt Kirby and Ron Alford took Top Producer Awards for Lives Changed and Revenue, respectively. SWC also recognized three Million Dollar Producers Ron Alford, Steve Reiner and Matt Kirby.
Student Coach Vance Philips received the Fighter Award, Victoria Cline was awarded the Gaye Haynes award for Operational Excellence, Shannon Simon was honored as Admin of the Year and Joel Beaver-Meholic took home the Designated Hitter Award.
Some of the individual award winners include:
Coach of the Year: Matt Kirby
Extrallence Award: Steve Reiner
Top First Year Producer (Lives Changed): Dovydas Zalieckas
Top First Year Producer (Revenue): Jay Cashubec
Growth Award: Sarunas Rapalis
Finish Strong Award: Matt Kirby and Steve Reiner
Fighter Award: Vance Philips
Top Team Growth: Kertu Martin
Team Leader of the Year: Dave and Emme Brown (Invictus)
Top Org Growth: Dave and Emmie Brown
Org Leaders of the Year: Dave and Emmie Brown
Gaye Haynes Award (Employee Excellence): Victoria Cline
Admin of the Year: Shannon Simon
Designated Hitter: Joel Beaver-Meholic
Top Coaching Coach (Retention): Nate Zinn
Top Selling Coach (Retention): Bob Moses
Top Client Results: Karla Lewis
2025 Top Producer (Lives Changed): Matt Kirby
2025 Top Producer (Revenue): Ron Alford
Million-Dollar Producers: Ron Alford, Steve Reiner, Matt Kirby
Congratulations to all the 2026 award winners! For more about Southwestern Consulting click here.
