Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — AVO bank has received a silver award at EMBRAS 2026, the international Employer Brand Award held in Tashkent, in the Talent Development: Leadership Potential category. The award recognises the bank's AVO Leaders programme, which prepares employees for management and expert roles. The ceremony took place on 23 October at the Hyatt Regency Tashkent.
EMBRAS has been held in Tashkent since 2018 and took place for the ninth time this year. The award goes to companies from Uzbekistan and other countries in the region for implemented projects in human resources and employer branding. In 2026, 35 nominees presented 76 projects in nine categories. The entries were assessed by an international jury of employer brand experts from more than 20 countries.
How the AVO Leaders programme works
AVO Leaders is the bank's internal programme for developing future managers and key specialists. It has two tracks: HiPo (High Potential) for employees with high potential for leadership growth and HiPro (High Professional) for experts whose knowledge and experience are of particular importance to the bank.
Participants undergo a competency assessment, work on individual development plans, train skills required for leading positions, and receive support from mentors among the bank's top managers. The programme has also produced an internal debate format, AVO Debates, and a knowledge sharing platform, AVO Mind. According to the bank, the first participants have already moved into new roles, including management positions, and some of them now act as mentors for their colleagues.
What stands behind AVO bank's results
The EMBRAS 2026 award is the newest addition to AVO bank’s achievements in 2026. The bank also took gold and bronze at the TAF!26 festival, and at the Silk Road international fintech forum AVO bank representatives held a workshop of their own. These events coincided with a strengthening of AVO bank's reputation, driven by improvements in the quality of its customer service and in its operational efficiency. In the third quarter of 2026, AVO bank's score in the Central Bank of Uzbekistan's quarterly index of customer appeals, often referred to as the complaint index, fell from 4.42 to 1.25, the largest improvement among the ten banks listed.
The bank sees this result as important evidence that its chosen development strategy is working. The strategy's main goal is to support customers by creating simpler and clearer financial products.
Today AVO bank operates as an online bank for retail customers and, according to the bank, already serves more than 3 million users. Its product range includes a credit card, microloans, and savings deposits, and all products can be arranged in a couple of minutes in the mobile app.
