The winners of the sixth annual Women in IT Awards London 2020 have been revealed at a gala ceremony in Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane.
The awards, organised by Information Age and DiversityQ in partnership with Amazon Web Services, serve to showcase the achievements and innovation of women in technology and identify new role models in a sector where female representation stands at only 19% — a level that is still alarmingly low.
The awards were held in Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane and hosted by British television presenter Naga Munchetty, who revealed 20 winners chosen from over 500 nominations, following her keynote speech in which she discussed her journey from assistant to news anchor.
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A new chapter for the UK
Opening the awards, Lawrence Gosling — editorial director at Bonhill Group plc — said: “As we start a new chapter in the life of this country is so many ways, the importance of the IT sector to the well-being of society and the economy is irrefutable. To achieve the maximum positive outcome we have to continue to promote, recognise and develop the role of women. Tonight’s event and the others we do around the world are modest contributors to that end. The industry has moved significantly since we started these awards, but there is no room for complacency.”
He continued: “Every year the number and quality of entries in creases. The bar is raised so congratulations to everyone who made to this point. A credible awards programme is not possible without the hard work and research of our judging panels, so I’d personally like to thank all them for their diligence and my colleagues at Bonhill for organising the judging process and putting together this wonderful evening.”
‘Passionate people focus on diversity’
“Passionate people focus on diversity,” opened Sonia Ouarti, head of Strategic Engagements EMEA at Amazon Web Services, during her keynote.
“We now need to take diversity and inclusion projects to a place where it is central and not on the side,” she continued.
There is no magic recipe, however, “but everyone can play apart and change can happen through one individual,” Ouarti added.
As an example, she referred to Amazon’s Get IT initiative, now in its third year in the UK. Started by “cohort of passionate women in Amazon” Get IT helps more girls to pursue career in tech by exposing them to trailblazing female technology leaders.
A commitment to driving change
The Women in IT Awards London is the flagship event in an ongoing Information Age campaign to tackle the technology industry’s lack of gender diversity.
Now, the Women in IT Awards Series — originating in London — has become a global initiative. In 2019, we continued the two US editions of the event in New York and San Francisco of the awards, while hosting the second awards programme in Dublin, Ireland. We also hosted the first Women in IT Awards in Singapore, the first edition of the awards in Asia, with further events hosted in Berlin, Bucharest and Canada.
In the UK, we run two further diversity events: Tech Leaders Today, a careers fair for female university students, and Future Stars of Tech, which identifies and promotes the industry’s top female career climbers.
Joining headline partner, Amazon Web Services, as sponsors at the Women in IT Awards 2020 are: premium sponsors — Alix Partners, BMC Software, Frank Recruitment Group, J.P. Morgan, Lloyds Banking Group, Salesforce and Yoox Net-a-Porter Group — our award sponsors — Accenture Security, BP, DAZN, FireEye, Just Eat, Google Cloud, New Relic, Red Hat, Rolls Royce, Sailpoint, UiPath and Veritas — and our event partners — Direct Line Group, HSBC and Oracle.
“We would like to thank all of our sponsors for making the Women in IT Awards possible. Without your support and advice the event would not be the largest technology diversity event in the world and we look forward to continue working with you until the gender gap has closed significantly in this industry,” added Nicholas Ismail, content editor, Information Age.
Women in IT Awards London 2020 winners (in order of announcement)
Data Leader of the Year, sponsored by Veritas
Jackie Shears — NHS Digital
e-Skills Initiative of the Year, sponsored by Accenture Security
Federica Romagnoli — Yoox Net-A-Porter Group
Global Leader of the Year, sponsored by Google Cloud
Chandra Dhandapani — CBRE
Digital Leader of the Year, sponsored by DAZN
Laura Hilliger — We Are Open Co-op
Security Champion of the Year, sponsored by Lloyd’s Banking
Felicity March — IBM
Young Leader of the Year, sponsored by AlixPartners
Josie Young — Methods
Entrepreneur of the Year, sponsored by Yoox Net-A-Porter Group
Christine Telyan — UENI Lt
Innovator of the Year, sponsored by Mastercard
Lucy Mullins — StepLadder
Diversity Initiative of the Year, sponsored by J.P. Morgan
Joanne Rewcastle — DWP Digital
Employer of the Year, sponsored by UiPath
Avanade
Rising Star of the Year, sponsored by New Relic
Anna Zappone — Google
Business Leader of the Year, sponsored by BP
Jenny Davies — M247
Transformation Leader of the Year, sponsored by Just Eat
Karen Hopley — G4S
Advocate of the Year, sponsored by FireEye
Carly Britton — Vualto
IT Team of the Year, sponsored by Rolls-Royce
Juliette French — Lloyds Banking Group
Future CIO of the Year, sponsored by Frank Recruitment
Mel Unsworth, Yoox Net-A-Porter Group
Business Role Model of the Year, sponsored by BMC Software
Naya Giannakopoulou — DMW
CTO of the Year, sponsored by Red Hat
Niki Trigoni — Navenio
CIO of the Year, sponsored by AWS
Amanda Hamilton — City & County Healthcare Group
Woman of the Year, sponsored by Salesforce
Shaheen Sayed — Accenture
