LAKE FOREST, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 23, 2025--
Toshiba America Business Solutions' Debra Anne Kellogg wins the Bronze Stevie ® Award for "Culture Transformation Leader of the Year."
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"We congratulate all of the winners in the 10th edition of the Stevie Awards for Great Employers for their outstanding performance," says Stevies President Maggie Miller. "Toshiba's Debra Anne Kellogg is a sterling example of one who goes above and beyond to educate and inform her teammates while making a distinct and positive impact on her company."
The Stevie Awards for Great Employers recognize the world’s best employers and the human resources professionals, teams, achievements and HR-related products and suppliers who help to create and drive great places to work.
More than 100 professionals from around the world participated in the judging process to determine this year’s honorees. Winners in the Employer of the Year categories were determined by a combination of ratings from Stevie Awards judges and more than 130,000 public votes.
Toshiba's Difference Maker
Kellogg led a cross-country Toshiba task force to create a new nationwide culture training program for nearly 1,950 company employees. Implementing input from company leaders, she completely revised the organization's training program with all new content emphasizing Toshiba’s values, which include empowering others, seeking innovation and delivering the exceptional. The resulting multi-tiered rewards platform, recognizing employees who go above and beyond, while also demonstrating the company’s values, is the hallmark of Kellogg’s aptly named ‘Be the Difference’ program.
Stevie judges believe Toshiba's learning and development leader is a difference maker at her company. One judge comments, "Debra Kellogg reads like the steady, quiet force in the background, the kind of leader who isn't chasing the spotlight but whose fingerprints are on everything that actually moves the company forward. Thirty-three years at Toshiba isn't just tenure; it's a lifetime of learning how to stitch people and values into the fabric of an organization. What strikes me most here is the humility and the hands-on craft behind 'Be the Difference,' no outside consultants, no flashy gimmicks, just deep, earnest work to create something that feels real and owned by the company itself. This is culture-building at its purest, thoughtful, slow and genuinely people-centered."
"Upon working for more than a year to create our 'Be the Difference' national culture training program, Debra brings our mission, vision and values to life here for everyone at our company," states Toshiba America Business Solutions Vice President of Human Resources Kim Jones. "Thanks to her inspiration, passion and hard work, we now have a practical way for our nationwide employees to connect with what matters most at Toshiba, and it's having a positive impact on how we work together each day."
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About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in nine programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Technology Excellence and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.
About Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc.
Toshiba America Business Solutions is a leading innovator of solutions empowering people to perform efficiently and effectively in their work environment. Serving professionals across the United States, Mexico, and Central and South America, Toshiba delivers secure and sustainable systems, services, and subscriptions to better print, manage, and display information. Toshiba continuously focuses on its clients and communities, is committed to sustainability, and is recognized as a Wall Street Journal Top 100 Sustainable Company. To learn more, please visit business.toshiba.com. Follow Toshiba on LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and YouTube.
Toshiba's Debra Anne Kellogg Wins Bronze Stevie® Award
A federal appeals panel on Thursday reversed a lower court decision that released former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from an immigration jail, bringing the government one step closer to detaining and ultimately deporting the Palestinian activist.
The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t decide the key issue in Khalil’s case: whether the Trump administration’s effort to throw Khalil out of the U.S. over his campus activism and criticism of Israel is unconstitutional.
But in its 2-1 decision, the panel ruled a federal judge in New Jersey didn’t have jurisdiction to decide the matter at this time. Federal law requires the case to fully move through the immigration courts first, before Khalil can challenge the decision, they wrote.
“That scheme ensures that petitioners get just one bite at the apple — not zero or two,” the panel wrote. “But it also means that some petitioners, like Khalil, will have to wait to seek relief for allegedly unlawful government conduct.”
Thursday’s decision marked a major win for the Trump administration’s sweeping campaign to detain and deport noncitizens who joined protests against Israel.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security Department spokesperson, called the ruling “a vindication of the rule of law.”
In a statement, she said the department will “work to enforce his lawful removal order” and encouraged Khalil to “self-deport now before he is arrested, deported, and never given a chance to return.”
It was not clear whether the government would seek to detain Khalil, a legal permanent resident, again while his legal challenges continue.
In a statement distributed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Khalil called the appeals ruling “deeply disappointing."
“The door may have been opened for potential re-detainment down the line, but it has not closed our commitment to Palestine and to justice and accountability," he said. "I will continue to fight, through every legal avenue and with every ounce of determination, until my rights, and the rights of others like me, are fully protected.”
Baher Azmy, one of Khalil's lawyers, said the ruling was “contrary to rulings of other federal courts."
“Our legal options are by no means concluded, and we will fight with every available avenue,” he said.
The ACLU said the Trump administration cannot lawfully re-detain Khalil until the order takes formal effect, which won't happen while he can still immediately appeal.
Khalil’s lawyers can request that the panel's decision be set aside and the matter reconsidered by a larger group of judges on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, or they can go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
An outspoken leader of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia, Khalil was arrested last March. He then spent three months detained in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his first child.
Federal officials have accused Khalil of leading activities “aligned to Hamas,” though they have not presented evidence to support the claim and have not accused him of criminal conduct. They also accused Khalil, 31, of failing to disclose information on his green card application.
The government justified the arrest under a seldom-used statute that allows for the expulsion of noncitizens whose beliefs are deemed to pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests.
In June, a federal judge in New Jersey ruled that justification would likely be declared unconstitutional and ordered Khalil released.
President Donald Trump's administration appealed that ruling, arguing the deportation decision should fall to an immigration judge, rather than a federal court.
Khalil has dismissed the allegations as “baseless and ridiculous,” framing his arrest and detention as a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said on social media Thursday that Khalil should remain free.
“Last year’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil was more than just a chilling act of political repression, it was an attack on all of our constitutional rights,” Mamdani wrote on X. “Now, as the crackdown on pro-Palestinian free speech continues, Mahmoud is being threatened with rearrest. Mahmoud is free — and must remain free.”
Judge Arianna Freeman dissented Thursday, writing that her colleagues were holding Khalil to the wrong legal standard. Khalil, she wrote, is raising “now-or-never claims” that can be handled at the district court level, even though his immigration case isn't complete.
Both judges who ruled against Khalil, Thomas Hardiman and Stephanos Bibas, were Republican appointees. President George W. Bush appointed Hardiman to the 3rd Circuit, while Trump appointed Bibas. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, appointed Freeman.
The two-judge majority rejected Freeman's worry that their decision would leave Khalil with no remedy for unconstitutional immigration detention, even if he later can appeal.
“But our legal system routinely forces petitioners — even those with meritorious claims — to wait to raise their arguments," the judges wrote.
The decision comes as an appeals board in the immigration court system weighs a previous order that found Khalil could be deported to Algeria, where he maintains citizenship through a distant relative, or Syria, where he was born in a refugee camp to a Palestinian family.
His attorneys have said he faces mortal danger if forced to return to either country.
Associated Press writers Larry Neumeister and Anthony Izaguirre contributed to this story.
FILE - Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil holds a news conference outside Federal Court on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025 in Philadelphia (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
