The awarded companies must simultaneously fulfill the next 4 criteria:

•  Are part of the most profitable 500 companies in Romania (based on EBITDA at December 2019)
•  Have the highest EBITDA in their industry
•  Record an increase or at least the same number of employees as previous year or an increase (after having excluded the ones with less than 10 employees in 2019)
•  Fall within the A1-B2 Scoring bands (Very Low risk band and Low risk band) and have values greater than 70 for COVID Company Index;

The first step in the selection process is to create a top based on EBITDA, calculated according to December 2019 financial data. State owned companies are excluded from this selection, as well as banks, insurance and non-banking financial institutions.

Out of these 500 companies, the True Leaders awarded companies will be selected.

The industries are formed based on the companies’ main activities. The industry is given by the main NACE code declared by the companies, the NACE division or group of activities. The selection between the NACE division (first two digits of the NACE code), group (first 3 digits of the NACE code) or NACE code is made based on the diversity of activities comprised within the same division.

Scored companies:

• Have the legal form of a company (examples: S.A., S.R.L., S.C.S.)
• Companies that do not belong to the following industries: banking, insurance and other related activities, as these companies declare their financial data differently than all other types of corporations
• Are active companies according to the Trade Registry assigned status