Professional & Business Services

San Francisco – September 15, 2026 -- The Globee® Awards has opened nominations for the 18th Annual Globee® Awards for Innovation, also known as the Golden Bridge Awards®, seeking organizations and professionals that have applied artificial intelligence to produce measurable business results.

Program targets AI achievements across enterprise functions

The awards accept submissions covering generative AI, AI agents, enterprise AI, machine learning, and intelligent automation, alongside sector-specific applications in healthcare, cybersecurity, financial services, manufacturing, and research. Categories also extend to customer experience, data and analytics, accessibility, employee enablement, decision support, and product and service innovation.

Pasadena, Calif. – September 15, 2026 -- The share of U.S. consumers using AI tools for local business recommendations jumped to 45% in the past 12 months, up from 6% in 2025, according to new research cited by digital marketing agency Cybertegic.

Consumer trust in AI recommendations coexists with heavy verification habits

Among the 455 consumers surveyed who reported using AI for local recommendations, 63% said they trust AI-generated suggestions, while 88% said they still check the source or legitimacy of AI-presented information. The data comes from BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, based on a representative SurveyMonkey panel of 1,002 U.S. adults, with AI-specific findings published March 10, 2026.

Louisville, Ky. -- September 9, 2026 -- Soar Higher Leadership and Business Coaching has launched the SOAR HIGHER LEADERSHIP program, a training course designed to address leadership skills gaps created by rapid AI adoption in the workplace. The company is enrolling students for September and October cohorts.

Retired Air Force Colonel builds curriculum from combat and corporate command experience

Jason Ballard, CEO and Founder of Soar Higher Coaching, developed the program after retiring as a Colonel from the U.S. Air Force following more than 30 years of military combat and leadership service. Ballard subsequently led 12 companies that received industry awards, drawing on that operational track record rather than academic theory to structure the course content.

Washington and London – September 15, 2026 -- Delta Consulting Group, Inc. has acquired Osborne Partners Ltd., creating a combined advisory platform of 179 professionals across eight global offices. The transaction closed on August 14, 2026, though financial terms were not disclosed.

Combined firm operates from Washington, DC to Singapore

The merged entity maintains main offices in Washington, DC; New York; Toronto; Madrid; London; Mumbai; Dubai; and Singapore. Osborne Partners will operate during the transition period under the name Osborne Partners, A Delta Consulting Group Company.

Boulder, Colo. – September 15, 2026 -- State sales tax audits drag on for an average of 223 days and can stretch as long as 682 days, according to internal data released by tax compliance firm TaxValet, which has guided 38 clients through such audits.

TaxValet has managed $458,492 in historical tax exposure accumulated by clients before they joined the firm

Defending a single audit consumes more than 20 hours of expert support, TaxValet reported. The firm noted that 45 current clients switched directly from popular sales tax software providers after those tools failed to close compliance gaps.

Iselin, N.J. – September 15, 2026 -- Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis LLP, a New Jersey law firm with more than a century of operation, has launched a fully redesigned website and rebranded its public-facing identity to Greenbaum Law.

Firm retires decades-old four-name-partner logo for simplified Greenbaum Law brand

The rebrand replaces the firm's longstanding visual identity with a new logo, color palette, modernized font, and a stylized graphical icon, while Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis LLP remains the formal legal entity name. The changes are rolling out immediately across all firm communications and digital platforms.

Boston – September 14, 2026 -- H.I.G. Capital has completed a significant investment in Click Here Digital, a Baton Rouge-based performance marketing agency serving the automotive, legal, and government sectors, through one of its affiliates.

H.I.G. Capital deploys capital from its $75 billion platform into digital marketing

H.I.G., a global alternative investment firm managing $75 billion in capital, backed Click Here as part of its middle-market equity strategy. The firm's equity funds typically target management buyouts, recapitalizations, and corporate carve-outs across manufacturing and service businesses.

Ettlingen – September 14, 2026 -- German restructuring advisor Ulrich Kammerer of UKMC has outlined six concrete criteria executives can use within the first sixty minutes of a consultation to distinguish qualified crisis advisors from those offering false reassurance during liquidity emergencies.

Kammerer, who has personally overseen more than 400 insolvency and restructuring cases over the past decade and secured over €300 million in assets during those proceedings, warns that choosing the wrong advisor risks missed legal deadlines and personal liability for managing directors. He previously led an IT services company with roughly 700 employees through a protective shield procedure, emerging debt-free after eight months and one week.

San Diego – September 13, 2026 -- Only 9% of 1,000 C-suite executives surveyed by the Return on AI Institute report realizing significant value from generative AI, a gap Scaled Agile, Inc. (SAI) aims to address at its SAFe & AI Summit San Diego, running September 14-18 at the Gaylord Pacific Resort & Convention Center.

Survey data exposes an operating-model failure, not a technology gap

SAI, provider of the SAFe business agility framework, points to the Return on AI Institute findings as evidence that the barrier to AI ROI is organizational rather than technical. The company argues that enterprises lack the operating models needed to govern AI initiatives and convert pilot projects into measurable business outcomes.

Vancouver, BC – September 13, 2026 -- Time Out and Rival Technologies have won a 2026 Esomar Award for Excellence in Global Research, announced at the Esomar Congress in Valencia, Spain.

Global City Survey engaged 18,500 people across nearly 60 countries

The award-winning project surveyed participants in 45 languages, generating approximately 1.6 million data points and an 86% completion rate. The research underpins Time Out's Best Cities ranking, a decade-long global editorial initiative built on resident feedback and Time Out's journalism.

Rival's conversational platform replaced traditional survey formats

Time Out partnered with Rival Technologies to shift the Global City Survey from a standard survey format to a mobile-first, chat-like research experience while preserving the scale needed for a global program spanning dozens of markets.