Central Property People Awards Nomination

Hello there, future award winner

The Central Property People Awards celebrate the people in property, recognising excellence and innovation in our region.

We encourage both member and non-member companies within the greater Central region to submit a nomination and consider joining us for the Awards Gala Dinner.

Please note:
  • All information will be treated in the strictest confidence.
  • The Awards are open to both members and non-members of Property Council New Zealand who are based in the Central region.
  • There is no cost to submit a nomination.
  • The submission is to be written in the appropriate form with a maximum word count of 2000 words excluding references (if applicable).
  • Please ensure you have the nomination guide alongside you and have prepared answers in a Word document or similar for ease of copying and pasting into the nomination form.
  • We encourage nominees to carefully read the applicable criteria for your category as outlined in the nomination guide. This is what the Judges use to score nominations and it is vital that you use this as the basis for your nomination to improve your likelihood of success.
  • You will also need 1-4 high-resolution images ready and available for upload with your nomination. These images must have the correct licence for public use and photographers should be credited where possible.

Nominations close
5:00 pm, Friday 15 August 2025

Nomination is simple

Step 1

Download and read the Nomination Guide.

Step 2

Complete and finalise your nomination in a Word doc or similar before copying it into the nomination form.

Step 3

Choose whether you will be nominating an individual or team, then click the appropriate button below to complete your nomination.

Individual categories: Young Achiever of the Year Award, Outstanding Leadership Award, Property Professional of the Year Award, Women in Property Award

Team categories: Best Team Award

Either individual or team categories: Sustainability Champion Award, City Shaper Award (if nominating an individual, please complete the individual form, if nominating a team, complete the team form).

Please note: The Long Service, Judges’ Choice and Supreme Awards are not open for nomination.

Nomination Masterclass

Don’t know where to start?

In this free on-demand masterclass, we’ll guide you through the nomination process, highlight what makes a winning nomination and teach you how to make your entry stand out thanks to two of our judges Andrew Evans and Julia MacPherson, as well as Property Council Chief Executive Leonie Freeman. 

Tips from the Judges

I’m just going to take a moment to talk a little bit about the judging process, as that may help you understand how to navigate writing a really good submission. There are five judges, and each brings a different perspective and also industry experience to what they focus on when reviewing a nomination. So something that may not overly capture me may well appeal to another judge. The process is: each of the judges scores the entry based upon the scoring criteria, and then we come together as a judging panel to discuss each entry, before arriving at the winning entry.

We have, in the past, had vigorous debate amongst the judging panel on the nominations, and that debate is good as it forces the judges to clearly articulate what makes an entry stand out. So, it’s your job to help the judges identify why your entry stands out. But it also means that if you write something that doesn’t resonate with me, it’s not to say it won’t resonate with other judges. 

To follow are a few tips to get you started.

Write in plain English. Avoid flowery language and convey things as simply and in as few words as possible.  Less is more, try not to use any unnecessary technical language or acronyms. Be succinct in making your points. Avoid copy and pasting, repeating the same points under different headings.

If you want to re-emphasise a point from, say, the Introduction in another section, reword it so you get the point across, but think about framing it differently or using different language.

Bring the passion out, but evidence factual statements made. Create a submission that is engaging, and the judges will enjoy reading.

Lastly, ask someone to proofread your submission to test readability and the appeal factor.

The judges have many nominations to review, so to help your submission stand out, let it tell a story. Bring the personality of the person or team out. 

Provide examples to visibly demonstrate the impact the person or team has had on the community or people around them.  As mentioned above, use storytelling, sensory language that evokes vivid imagery, and emotional contrasts to create a memorable and impactful submission.     

Highlight the best qualities of the individual or team so the judges understand why they are an excellent choice for the award.

Identify and highlight what makes the nominee unique, the qualities, and use examples.

State why you are nominating this person/team, get other endorsements for the nomination, say peer group, colleagues, and/or clients.

Don’t go off course.  Answer the submission questions, which are clearly detailed in the Nomination Guide. 

Make it as easy to read as possible. Organise your material so that the judges can navigate through the submission easily and logically. 

Don’t repeat yourself.

First impressions matter.  The Introduction (300 words max) provides the opportunity to wow the judges, highlight the key points you want to make about the person or team and why the person or team is special/different.  Your objective should be for the Introduction to give the judges a lasting impression of the nominee or team, so spend time to get this section right.

Think of it as an elevator pitch, if you were talking to someone about the person or team face-to-face, what would be the main points you wanted to get across?

The Detail section of the nomination form is typically worth the most marks. I suggest you spend some time constructing a well-defined structure in your nomination that leads the judges smoothly from one point to the next. And if possible, builds on the previous points or adds to the credibility and credentials of the nominee.

I would suggest prior to starting to write the nomination, have a read of the Nomination Guide and in particular take note of what information is being asked for or questions being asked in other categories. This may provide some ideas and expansion for your submission.  For instance, by way of a random example, there is no reason why a possible Young Achiever of the Year nominee doesn’t have the characteristics or display the behaviours that are called out in the Nomination Guide for Property Professional of the Year, Outstanding Leadership or something else. 

There are at least three nominations per category, and a person could fit into more than 1 category.  If you are in this position, think carefully about which category to enter.  I would suggest entering only one category rather than multiple, but that’s only my view; others may suggest otherwise.  Think about which is most compelling, but you may also want to overlay this with which category is likely to have the least or most nominations.  You have a far better chance of winning, all other things being equal, if you are 1 in 7 nominations compared to 1 in 17 nominations. 

You wouldn’t be nominating the person or team if you didn’t think they were special and deserving. However, there is a need for a bit of awareness between personalising your comments in a modest, humble, and unpretentious way and having a nomination that makes it sound like the nominee does everything, without any assistance from anyone else. If it comes across as brash, brazen and bold, then this is probably not the tone that will capture the right sort of attention of the judges. Certainly make the submission strong and ambitious, but not over the top or lacking credibility.