Shortlist announced for the Women in IT Awards USA 2022

See who’s in with a chance of being crowned a role model in US tech

The shortlist for the Women in IT AwardsUSA edition has been announced. Whittled down from an impressive 230 nominations across 21 categories, this year’s entry standard was exceptionally high, spelling hope for the future of IT in the post-pandemic world.

The final winners will be announced at the first in-person awards ceremony since 2019, which will take place on Wednesday, September 14 2022, at the Pier 60, New York.

After over two years of business disruption due to COVID-19, the forthcoming awards will undoubtedly be a time not just for inspiration but for attendees to reconnect and network with other women industry leaders.

It goes without saying that the Woman of the Year category is a cornerstone of the awards, with the judges describing contenders as; “a woman who has demonstrated the highest degree of IT excellence, innovation and leadership over the last two years, and shone a light on the great things women in IT can achieve. Candidates should have demonstrated outstanding business – or technology-focused achievements and given examples of how they have actively sought to bring more diversity into the technology industry. ”

The full shortlist of exceptional women and supporters of women is below:

Advocate of the Year

Diane Chan, BNY Mellon  

Errika Moore, National STEM Funders Network

Gavriella Schuster, Gavriella Schuster, LLC  

Jamie Beason, JLL

Jocelyn DeGance, FirstBoard.io / CBT / Holberton School of Software Engineering    

Mica Syjuco, Avanade

Nancy Wang, Advancing Women in Tech (AWIT)    

Sonja Jones, Mindpoint Group and Risk-q

Teresa Cain, TreviPay

Tina Gravel, Appgate

Ally of the Year

Angel Henry, Genesys     

Barry Shurkey, NTT Data Services     

Brenda Kay, Precisely     

Deborah Schildkraut, CompTIA     

Eugina Jordan, Parallel Wireless

Gavriella Schuster, Gavriella Schuster, LLC

Helen Figge, MedicaSoft / NYS HIMSS         

John Napoli, JP Morgan Chase     

Michael Stein, HSBC Bank USA     

Neil Hirsch, Barclays

Board Director of the Year

Alicia Syrett, Digimarc     

Jocelyn DeGance, Holberton School of Software Engineering     

Niloofar Razi Howe, Pondurance     

Nirvana Farhadi, Rainmade

CIO of the Year

Angelic Gibson, AvidXchange     

Beatriz Copelli, Reynolds American Inc.     

Dee Fitzgerald, Danone     

Enna Zarate, DHL     

Stacey Bernal, Infor     

Suchita Nagale, Syntellis Performance Solutions

CTO of the Year

Barbara Bickham, Trailyn Ventures, LLC     

Janhavi Rao, Barclays     

Mary Kotch, Core Speciality Insurance     

Yao Morin, JLL

Data Leader of the Year  

Ananda Gowri Karthikeyan, Equinix     

Ashley Cheng, JLL     

Candice Linnell, Intel     

Chitra Balasubramania, CircleCI     

Colleen Tartow, Starburst         

Jigyasa Grover, Twitter

Kala Bala, MMIT         

Kelli Pircio, Vertex Pharmaceuticals     

Shibani Sanan, Plaid     

Zhamak Dehghani, Thoughtworks

DEI Initiative of the Year

Advancing Women in Tech (AWIT)     

GN Women’s Network, GN – Jabra     

GRC for Intelligent Ecosystems (GRCIE)     

Learning2Work Pathfinders Apprenticeship Program, Pearson     

NTT Inclusive Programs, NTT DATA Services         

Product Specialists, JLL Technologies

Race and Ethnic Diversity Affinity Group (RED), Morgan Stanley        

The Accelerator Hub, Positive Planet US     

The Great Connect, AvidXchange     

Unleash Your Leadership Potential (UYLP), Broadcom

Digital Transformation Leader of the Year

Alla Gogerman, Pacific Gas & Electric     

Carolyn Ortega, Metropolitan Transportation Authority     

Crystal Crayton, Reynolds Consumer Products     

Dana Parks, BNY Mellon     

Debra Doyle, Hewlett Packard Enterprise        

Mariana Padilha, dentsu

Prajakta Surve, Trane Technologies     

Sandhya Sridharan, JP Morgan Chase     

Teesee Murray, iGrafx     

Tiffany Miller, Fidelity Investments

Employer of the Year

Whitney Cathcart, 3DLOOK

Louisa Marlin, BJSS

Fastly Inc.

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Globant

Joyce Durst, Growth Acceleration Partners

Kathleen Pai, N-able

Get Real Health

S&P Global

Entrepreneur of the Year  

Chaitra Vedullapalli, Women in Cloud     

Joyce Durst, Growth Acceleration Partners     

Kara Collier, NutriSense     

Nataliya Anon, Svitla Systems Inc.     

Rajoshi Ghosh, Hasura         

Srii Srinivasan, Chargeback Gurus

Stacia Nelson, Pivot Strategies        

Tammy Camp, Stronghold     

Vickie Chen, AviaGames     

Whitney Cathcart, 3DLOOK

IT Team of the Year (led by a woman) 

Elizabeth Berna, Allstate     

Elynne Koay, Hewlett Packard Enterprise     

Jo-Anne Dressendofer, Slice Wireless Solutions     

Laura Macca, Eisner Advisory Group, LLC     

MacKenzie Durnovich, Bank of America     

Melissa Ahrendt, Perrigo Company

Merry Anne Hetrick, Hewlett Packard Enterprise     

Monique Edmondson, Cisco     

Sara Nixon, Intel     

Tami Frederick, Perrigo Company

Next Generation Leader of the Year

Alex Keedy, Intel 471     

Allie Lenzmeier, Infor     

Amanda Brown, Accenture     

Jigyasa Grover, Twitter     

Madeline Dawes, ColdQuanta     

Maretta Morovitz, MITRE

Priya Aswani, Microsoft         

Rikki George, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group     

Ting Pan, MURAL     

Xiang Ying (Shar) Shuai, Barclays

Outstanding Contribution of the Year 

Ann-Marie Yap, Stanford Health Care and School of Medicine     

Barbara Hewitt, Texas State University     

Emma Chew, Rolls-Royce     

Ewa Kleczyk, Symphony Health (an ICON plc Company)     

Jacyln Giordano, OneScreen.ai     

Krista Peryer, The Geek Foundation

Laura Jones, Hearst         

Monica Eaton-Cardone, Chargebacks911     

Radhika Aasoori, Morgan Stanley     

Ruchi Mahindru, IBM Research

Security Leader of the Year

Cynthia Hetherington, Hetherington Group     

Dana Simberkoff, AvePoint     

Kavya Pearlman, XR Safety Initiative (XRSI)     

Keavy Murphy, Starburst     

Lauren Zink, Indeed.com         

Monica Converse, Verizon

Nancy (Zhengnan) Wang, Alert Logic by HelpSystems     

Rikki George, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME Group)     

Saryu Nayyar, Gurucul     

Sheila Jambekar, Plaid

Woman of the Year

Anju Chopra, Kroll     

Bonnie Hagemann, EDA, Inc.     

Carolyn Ortega, Metropolitan Transportation Authority     

Cindy Couyoumjian, Cinergy Financial     

Irma Olguin, Bitwise Industries         

Kathleen Pai, N-able

Kavya Pearlman, XR Safety Initiative (XRSI)         

Kitty Chaney Reed, IBM     

Krista Peryer, The Geek Foundation     

Priyanka Sharma, Cloud Native Computing Foundation

To find out more about the Women in IT Awards USA 2022, click here.

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Cheryl Cole

Cheryl Cole is the Editor of DiversityQ and has worked for GSK, The Birmingham Post, Investment Week and Bloomberg.