Tampa Bay Business and Wealth has announced the finalists for its 2025 Women Who Win Awards.

“Women Who Win is a unique awards program, created by TBBW Magazine, to recognize distinguished women leaders whose dedication to their industries and communities deserves recognition.”

This is a great awards program to recognize authentic and sincere women leaders, but… It also serves as an avenue for opportunistic attention seekers who are in pursuit of social capital.

SPCA Tampa Bay’s President and CEO, Martha Boden, is such a seeker and has inserted herself (with the help of enablers) into this event. Not to anyone’s surprise, she is a finalist in the non-profit category.

“Judging is based on nominations from the public, self-submitted nomination materials and an outside panel of judges.”

“…one of animal welfare’s brightest stars”

A SPCATB promotion page dedicated to the adoration of Ms. Boden:

Member of The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement since: 1999 “…one of animal welfare’s brightest stars – the CEO of SPCA Tampa Bay, chair of The Association’s Spring Conference Committee, and an Association board member to boot. She’s one you wanna know, if you don’t already.

What Ms. Boden would not “wanna” the judges (and uninformed SPCATB donors) to really know is the dark shadow she has cast on the animal welfare industry since taking over the reigns at the SPCA Tampa Bay in 2011.

Does the judging panel know that Ms. Boden was asked to resign from the Florida Association of Animal Welfare Organizations as well as the Florida Leaders in Life Saving?

Are they aware that there have been 2 petitions seeking removal of Ms. Boden?

• Please remove Martha Boden as CEO and replace her with someone who has the community animals’ best interests at heart
• Demand Change in Leadership at SPCA Tampa Bay Due to Puppy Mill & Distributor Partnerships
• Or that Ms. Boden tried to deny free speech to others providing educational outreach regarding the puppy mill industry.

Animal shelter as a safe haven depends on management

Upon her arrival at SPCA TB her administration:

• Excused more than 40 long-time and dedicated volunteers.
• Dismantled the behavior modification program for dogs and replaced it with killing.
• Ended the Family dog training program led by a well-seasoned trainer.
• Terminated the Canine Good Citizen program
• Removed toys for dogs in their kennels
• Implemented a manipulated intake calculation to embellish live outcome numbers

Dismissive of spay/neuter

A well-accepted and established fact is that the best practice to reduce the killing of adoptable dogs and cats in shelters is the availability of targeted, affordable sterilization.

Instead, Ms. Boden’s direction for the SPCA Tampa Bay has been to:

• End the agency’s participation in the spay/neuter voucher program
• Import out of state puppy mill dogs and puppies
• Partner with and endorse the puppy mill industry and retail stores
• Shutter its medical facility that had the potential to offer affordable spay/neutering
• Reduce its number of staff veterinarians

Women Who Win is a unique awards program, created by TBBW Magazine, to recognize distinguished women leaders whose dedication to their industries and communities deserves recognition.

The awards ceremony is May 2, 2025 6:00pm

Will Ms. Boden be recognized as a “distinguished leader” with dedication to the industry of animal welfare and community?

If so, TBBW credibility is lost.