THE WOMEN LEADING
TECH AWARDS
WINNERS 2025
PRESENTED BY ATLASSIAN!
EDITOR'S
LETTER
The technology industry has undergone a rapid and highly publicised change in its approach to diversity, equality and inclusion in the last year—largely driven by changes in the US.
It would be easy, perhaps even trite, to hold aloft the winners of our Women Leading Tech Awards as evidence that we are taking a stance against these short-sighted and dangerous changes. But our winners this year are here because of their own accomplishments. They are not here because there were boxes to tick or quotas to fill. And we have been taking a stance against the matter for several years now.
That’s not to say that DEI policies are not important—they are. Businesses thrive when there is diversity of perspective and thought at all levels and efforts to ensure that they do not suffer from ‘groupthink’ are to be encouraged. And any attempt to remove women of the standing we have below from the industry will only serve to diminish us all.
This year’s winners, as with every year, are a truly remarkable group and they are from an exceptionally broad range of companies—from global tech behemoths to Aussie startups battling away to make a name for themselves. The diversity you seen throughout this year’s winners should inspire confidence and pride in all.
But I’ll make you wait no longer. On behalf of everyone at B&T, my congratulations to this year’s winners and nominees—getting that far is an achievement of some note alone. Thank you to our judges, the time and impartial expertise you give us is invaluable. And thank you to our sponsors for making this important event possible.
Tom Fogden
Editor, B&T
ADTECH
Sorrel Kesby
GumGum
Sorrel Kesby is a powerhouse in adtech world, driving transformative change as global head of commercial operations at GumGum. In just over a year, she has built and scaled a global commercial operations function, seamlessly integrating finance, sales, legal and client solutions to optimise revenue management. Her expertise in has enabled advanced forecasting, structured goal-setting, and a significant increase in annual partner revenue contribution.
Stepping in as interim general manager for JAPAC during a pivotal transitional time, Kesby ensured business continuity following Playground xyz’s rebrand to GumGum. She refined the go-to-market strategy, strengthened key partnerships and led the region to smash revenue objectives. Her leadership in global deal structuring, strategic accounts and revenue modelling has reinforced GumGum’s market leadership.
Beyond commercial impact, Kesby is a fierce advocate for diversity. She has doubled female leadership representation within her teams and founded Even Better, a platform addressing the gender pay gap. As chair of the IAB Talent and Careers working group, she drives industry-wide inclusion initiatives, while her mentorship through the Founder Institute has shaped the careers of emerging tech entrepreneurs.
Keby has been recognised by her peers as a “driven and dynamic leader” and ability to drive business and maintain her deep commitment to equity. is remarkable. Whether transforming commercial operations or championing industry-wide change, her leadership is shaping the future of adtech, proving that strategic innovation and inclusion go hand in hand.
AI PIONEER
Michelle Bauman
wiq, Woolworths Group
You’d be hard pressed to find someone who has had a greater impact on Australia’s business sector with AI than Michelle Bauman.
As general manager of Woolworths advanced analytics unit wiq, Bauman spearheaded Woolworths Group’s AI Acceleration program, setting up an elite team of 20 data scientists, engineers and strategists that specialise in generative AI innovation.
Bauman’s strategic vision for Woolies’ AI operations and leadership has seen her cultivate the grocer’s 350-strong AI community, growing the adoption of GenAI tools by 188 per cent over the last year.
Her transformative efforts have expanded Woolies’ AI use cases from 50 to more than 1,000. These developments have improved Woolies’ supply chain optimisation, customer experience enhancement and operational efficiency.
This has delivered more than $10 million in business benefits within the first year and Woolies estimates that these benefits could more than double in value over the course of this year.
Prior to Woolworths, Bauman has led large scale data and analytics teams at Santos, Lion, PepsiCo and other large corporations.
Her expertise, leadership and ability to inspire colleagues is what sets her apart, according to other leaders within the business.
“Michelle possesses an infectious drive and positive energy that has been instrumental in galvanising support for GenAI across the organisation,” one colleague said.
BUSINESS SUPPORT
Olivia Diamond
Canva
Olivia Diamond lives and breathes excellence in her role at Canva. Keeping operations running smoothly is no easy feat—but she takes it in her stride, leading by example to elevate operations across the design giant.
Diamond takes a holistic approach to business support and operations: streamlining processes, fostering inclusivity and driving strategic alignment to enhance the experience for every Canvanaut.
She uses her role as a force for good, setting the standard for impactful business support. For instance, Diamond leads Canva’s Women in Design Experience (DE) Events & Community Building initiative. As part of this, she oversaw the planning and execution of over five Women in Tech events across multiple cities, creating safe spaces for mentorship, networking and professional growth as well as fostering a stronger sense of belonging for women in tech.
At Canva, she is involved in diversity-focused hiring initiatives, implementing defined hiring goals and recruitment strategies that led to meaningful improvements. The results speak for themselves with the percentage of women in product management increasing from 39 per cent in April to 44 per cent by October 2024.
And it’s not only Canva where Diamond has been indispensable to company operations. She’s held roles at WeWork, News Corp and CBS Interactive, delivering marketing and management services.
Canva’s co-founder and chief product officer Cameron Adams said: “Olivia is an exceptional leader and operator. Olivia plays a critical role in keeping our biggest product launches on track – aligning a complex web of senior stakeholders to ensuring teams are set up for success. She has an ability to turn complexity into clarity, keep momentum high, and ensure we deliver real impact”.
CHAMPION OF CHANGE
Renee Noble
Girls' Programming Network
By day, Rennee Noble is a senior cloud advocate at Microsoft but outside of her day job, she is one of the foremost figures in educating the next generation of female tech leaders.
The Girls’ Programming Network (GPN) is no “one-and-done workshop”. Instead, it is an ecosystem that Noble has carefully constructed to foster community, growth and leadership supporting girls, women and gender-diverse people through their journeys.
Over the last year, Noble has expanded the Network to include students in years 3-6 and featuring content specifically crafted for primary school students. Extending this pipeline to younger girls and women is critical, as gender and technology stereotypes impact girls’ future career thoughts even in primary school. But this expansion has also validated and encouraged GPN’s existing members to become more involved too, tutoring younger students and creating a beautifully virtuous circle.
Without Noble’s leadership, distilling and defining GPN’s ethos pedagogy, it’s unlikely that GPN would have grown to become the beloved and valued operation it is today.
But that’s not all. Noble also founded Tech Inclusion, the charity that now owns GPN and enables it to gain direct funding. It would be easy to say Noble is by nature as she is by name. But that would undervalue her leadership. The industry is far better thanks to her work.
CHAMPION OF CHANGE - HIGHLY COMMENDED
Dr Susan McGinty
Aya Leadership
Dr Susan McGinty has created enduring, systemic change in the development, empowerment, retention and progression of women into leadership roles in technology.
Since founding Aya Leadership five years ago as a professional coaching business for women at all levels, McGinty has worked in-depth with more than 500 female leaders in technology and broader STEM sectors globally.
During 2024, this included: eight tailored leadership programs for 106 women across six continents; 17 global presentations focused on female leadership advocacy and best practice within STEM; eight global industry partnerships focused on elevating women as leaders; and delivery of inclusive leadership training to more than 1,000 leaders around the world. Her impact on the sector is undeniable.
In addition to improving women’s leadership skills and providing meaningful career pathways, McGinty’s approach focuses on the complex problem of limited diversity, equity and inclusion that dominates the technology sector. To overcome the problem, she supports women to navigate the challenge of simply being a woman in tech. She also helps build a strong pipeline of future female leaders, giving businesses the diversity of thought and experience they can often need so desperately.
It’s no surprise that Aya Leadership’s students say they feel more confident, capable and able to pursue opportunities thanks McGinty’s work and guidance. The industry would be a significantly worse off it were not for her drive and leadership.
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Madeleine Marsh
Meta
Madeleine Marsh is a force of nature in customer success, redefining what it means to drive growth and innovation in financial services.
As Retail Banking Lead at Meta, she has delivered unprecedented commercial results, proving that even in a declining digital advertising market, strategic vision and customer obsession can fuel record-breaking success.
Her ability to build trust with Australia’s biggest banks has resulted in a 100 per cent sales advocacy score and an NPS of 67 with C-suite executives, far exceeding Meta’s global benchmark of 40.
Marsh doesn’t just support her clients—she transforms their businesses. When CommBank faced reputational challenges, she pioneered a CMO-sponsored sentiment testing program, leveraging Meta’s platforms to reshape public perception and turn a one-off campaign into an always-on brand strategy.
She has also been instrumental in accelerating AI adoption in Australia’s banking sector, guiding Westpac and CommBank toward AI-driven targeting strategies that outperformed vertical benchmarks by 2.5x. Taking banking executives to Meta’s Silicon Valley HQ, she provided them with firsthand insights into the future of AI and digital transformation.
Beyond her commercial impact, Marsh is a champion for DE&I and industry leadership. She leads Women@Meta, helping women navigate career growth and family life, and founded Meta’s Emerging Leaders program, successfully placing talent worldwide. She is an Asisterhood mentor and Ad Council of Australia’s Champion of Creativity, consistently pushing the boundaries of commercial creativity.
Whether shaping the future of customer success or redefining digital transformation, Marsh’s impact is game-changing, industry-defining, and just getting started.
CYBER SECURITY
Annie-Mei Forster
Securus Consulting Group
In a male-dominated sector, is a trailblazer inspiring more women to get into cyber security.
In 2024, she was one of the Canberra SheLeadsTech subcommittee members, organising and running events including a cybersecurity trivia night, toastmasters and a breakfast for the ISACA conference. Using her social media skills, Forster promotes SheLeadsTech events as well as others for women-led organisations.
She is heavily involved in other organisations such as Women in Cybersecurity and Australian Women in Security Network (AWSN).
In 2024, Forster presented at an AWSN event on the topic of open-source intelligence, discussing the various methods on gathering intelligence and why women are well-suited to this type of work.
Forster has mentored more than 10 women through AWSN. In January, Annie-Mei and one of her mentees (Anika Guenov) launched their podcast Lost In Cyberia.
The podcast helps people navigate the world of cybersecurity in a more digestible way, discussing their own career journeys to inspire other women to pursue a cybersecurity career. So far the podcast has listeners in eight countries across 15 cities.
“Annie-Mei is a highly respected Senior GRC Consultant in the Canberran Cyber Security ecosystem,” Vicki Gardiner, COO, Canberra Cyber Hub said. “Beyond professional accomplishments, Annie-Mei is known for her dedication to mentoring young professionals, infectious enthusiasm, and genuine concern for the well-being of others.”
CYBER SECURITY - HIGHLY COMMENDED
Puneeta Chellaramani
CAPGEMINI AUSTRALIA
Puneeta Chellaramani has forged a reputation for building diverse talent, innovation with trust and privacy and pioneering advocacy for cyber security within Capgemini and beyond.
She has built diverse cyber teams of women from law, IT, content creation, marketing and healthcare, leading to a more inclusive culture and a more holistic approach to security. Her efforts have broken down gender barriers and addressed talent shortages in cybersecurity.
Her most notable projects are varied in the size, scope and client sector. For instance, she implemented a new cybersecurity strategy for a steel manufacturing giant. For a large brewery equipment manufacturer, she migrated digital access management software across its 400-plus apps. She has even led a governance, risk and compliance program for a Big four bank.
Outside of her professional life, Chellaramani has mentored more than 115 schoolgirls about cybersecurity, offered career guidance and educated on topics as varied as the dangers of online pornography, cyber scams, cyber bullying and cyber hygiene. She also runs cyber awareness sessions for elderly participants and aged care residents in her local community.
Chellaramani is an exemplar for the industry because of the leadership she shows inside and outside the office and her willingness to help others.
DATA SCIENCE
Ana Walker
Atlassian
Ana Walker has been described as a one-in-a-million data scientist and it isn’t hard to see why. Currently serving as head of product data science for Atlassian’s Agile&DevOps organisation, she leads a global team of 30 data scientists.
Over the last year, her team have faced critical pressures to inform Atlassian’s strategy and decisions in a competitive and challenging macroeconomic environment. But Walker is never one to back down from a challenge. She circled the wagons and saw an opportunity for Atlassian’s team to deliver business value and she invested in three big bets—all of which paid off.
For one, Walker connected insights from multiple projects to identify a critical underlying business trend. Getting these insights on executives’ radar, she led a cross-organisation war room to investigate the insights. Once the sun had come up and the teams had left the war room, it delivered learnings that reshaped Atlassian’s understanding of user expansion and the importance of user engagement, leading to the establishment of engagement-focused objectives for Atlassian’s three largest products.
Getting ahead of the curve, Walker established an AI data science pod within her team focused on assessing AI feature quality, measuring adoption and developing new and novel approaches to quantify value to the end user. These have transformed Atlassian’s understanding of AI feature performance, shaped the goals of several teams and uncovered cutting-edge learnings on quality which have been key to improving AI generated outputs.
Leading with an empathetic, adaptive and optimistic approach, Walker has nurtured
a high-performing team with a focus on collaboration, quality and opinionated insights. It’s little wonder that the employee satisfaction among her team is through the roof.
DELIVERY
Hayley Crimmins
Ingenuity Partners
Hayley Crimmins is not only deeply committed to fostering diversity in within Ingenuity Partners and the broader STEM community, but her work immediately and tangibly changes lives.
She led a state-wide digital transformation project for the Victorian Department of Education that modernised the process of student administration. This project enhanced operational efficiency and the overall experience for schools, students and parents leading to much-needed improvements in the sector.
After leading the delivery of Salesforce Education Cloud and Public Sector Solutions across the state, staff from more than 1,600 schools experienced a 75-90 per cent reduction in administrative workload—allowing them to focus more on the children. Crimmins’ work also made it easier for parents and carers to submit applications and communicate in real-time with schools. All told, her efforts changed the way more than 600,000 Victorian children, parents, carers and school staff interact with each other.
Crimmins has also been fighting the good fight within Ingenuity Partners. For instance, she created the Ladies at Ingenuity mentorship and development initiative, providing structured career guidance to more than 40 female staff thus far with leadership workshops, sponsorship opportunities and technical upskilling sessions, leading to a 30 per cent lift in women in delivery roles over the past year. She also played a pivotal role in the hiring of four female interns, achieving a 50/50 gender balance in the intern cohort, ensuring a strong talent pipeline.
Crimmins also collaborates with TechDiversity Alliance, Women in Digital and other industry bodies to develop leadership programs tailored for women in STEM and has personally mentored more than 30 emerging female leaders.
It’s little wonder she’s been described as “an exceptional role model” and an “exemplar for the industry”.
DESIGN
Christina (CJ) Jones
Canva
Christina (CJ) Jones is redefining the intersection of design and artificial intelligence, transforming how more than 220 million users worldwide create with Canva.
As the founder of Canva’s Generative AI Supergroup, she built a 200-plus global team, pioneering a Responsible AI Framework that ensures transparency, accessibility, and ethical AI use. Her AI Product Development framework has empowered teams across Canva, leading to a significant increase in adoption of AI-powered features across the design giant’s rapidly growing global user base.
Under her leadership, Canva’s AI design tools have seen explosive success. In October, it launched Magic Media, now used by 7 million users monthly, generating over 3 billion pieces of media. Her team’s latest innovation, Dream Lab, quickly reached 4 million monthly active users, creating 426 million unique designs, while Magic Write has become an essential tool for 6 million users, breaking language barriers and unlocking creativity for non-native speakers. To ensure these tools serve real user needs, she launched Canva’s first global AI beta program, bringing together 12,000 participants from diverse backgrounds to shape each iteration.
As a passionate mentor, Jones supports senior leaders and founders and guides them through business growth and leadership challenges. Her widely read blog tackles the realities of ambition and career progression in tech, sparking honest conversations with over 2,000 readers. Even her romantic comedy podcast, Enemies to Lovers, serves as a testing ground for AI-driven content creation, giving her firsthand insight into the needs of Canva’s creator community.
Jones is shaping the future of AI-driven design, ensuring that innovation remains human-centred, ethically responsible and creatively empowering. Whether mentoring the next generation of tech leaders, developing groundbreaking AI tools, or pushing the boundaries of human-AI collaboration, she is at the forefront of design’s AI revolution, proving that technology should elevate creativity, not replace it.
DEVELOPER
Marika Conomos
UpLift AI Group
Marika Conomos is the force behind Uplift AI, an AI-powered operating system for mental health care. At the heart of Uplift is Astra, the world’s first AI co-therapist. It gives therapists support to automate the mundane tasks they have to manage such as billing and scheduling. One user said they had reduced their manual workload by as much as 40 per cent, freeing them up to focus on caring for their patients.
With UpLift, she has refined and expanded the platform’s capabilities to provide 24/7 personalised support, mirroring the tone, therapeutic style and treatment plans of human therapists. As a result, Astra can offer real-time coping tools, therapeutic interventions and progress tracking.
Through her leadership of Astra’s development, Conomos has improved Astra’s responsiveness and adaptability using advanced AI agents and machine learning.
Conomos has also worked to ensure that inclusivity is embedded into every stage of development with multilingual support and culturally adaptive tools. Ethical AI practices are central to the development of UpLift and Astra too, with robust privacy safeguards, transparent data usage policies and compliance with regulatory standards.
But while Conomos has led the development of a game-changing product, she’s not planning to stop there. She plans to take UpLift global and adapt it for other allied health fields, including speech and occupational therapy, each requiring the platform to have greater development for cross-cultural and cross-specialist sensitivities.
E-COMMERCE
Leah Jackson
GroupM
Leah Jackson is the forward-thinking, innovative group director of commerce strategy at GroupM. In her role, Jackson pioneered a world-first integrated planning model that unified above-the-line and trade investment budgets, optimising media spend across the customer journey.
The results speak for themselves: increased ecommerce traffic, online sales growth exceeding category averages and improved brand performance. Jackson believed in the power of an integrated approach to marketing investment and she took the steps to action it.
She leverages her background in digital and brand marketing, commercial strategy and media to fuel her work. Her expertise has established her as a highly respected voice in the Australian retail media industry.
Jackson is hungry to drive progress within the sector and always do more. Her peers describe her as “always striving to maximise positive outcomes” and demonstrating a “data-driven understanding of best practices in media and strategic partnerships”.
Jackson advocates for retailers to focus on the essential tenet that consumer and retailer exchange is key to building and scaling a retail media network. She champions greater industry standardisation and transparency, especially across performance KPIs and promotes retail media as an avenue for brand building and awareness, moving beyond sales-centric metrics.
Her ability to formulate complex strategies across new ways of working, always one step ahead, makes her stand out as not just one of Australia’s top group directors but a “pioneer to deliver world-class collaboration across retailers and CPG brands”.
EDUCATION/
RESEARCH
Xinyu Zhang
The University of Adelaide
Xinyu Zhang operates at the forefront of one of the most exciting research areas in the world—generative AI.
Her research on the topic has received global recognition, receiving nearly a thousand citations in different journals, monographs and papers. In the last year she published four papers in top-tier CORE A* venues, with six more under review and two patents accepted.
Her most notable contribution is DEVIL, a benchmark for text-to-video generative model evaluation, published at NeurIPS. It enhances AI reliability assessment and was adopted by more than 13 academic and industrial groups worldwide within two months of release. Her work motion simulation in video GenAI has been transformative, creating more realistic human movements in video.
Zhang is also working to make AI more inclusive of women, something that has, thus far, escaped the major players in the space. She mentors others, including through the Development of Women in Machine Learning Through Mentorship program, giving career guidance and industry insights to female students and early-career researchers.
She also plans to collaborate with tech companies, healthcare providers and government agencies, to develop AI-driven applications that address real-world challenges faced by women—ranging from improved healthcare diagnostics to smarter urban services. For instance, she has been working with the Neonatal Medical Project—a collaboration with The Royal Women’s Hospital in Australia to develop an AI algorithm predicting newborn mortality and morbidity.
The depth of Zhang’s work is incredibly impressive and she has been lauded as an “inspiring” educator and for her “unwavering commitment to making technology more accessible to women”.
ENGINEERING
Vivian Shen
Google, Toastie
Next time you are calling on Google Maps to save the day, you might want to remember the name Vivian Shen.
An iOS engineer on Google Maps, Shen is responsible for developing user-generated content flows to increase map reliability and local insights, and her recent projects have resulted in a 30 per cent increase in factual edits.
When Shen isn’t working at her day job she can be found sharing knowledge and supporting the iOS Sydney Development Community, a membership group that she co-founded.
Arguably her most impressive feat, and the one that will have the greatest impact on society was co-founding health startup, Toastie.
Toastie uses AI tools to aid in preventative care and chronic illness management. Current health tracking methods are often manual and laborious, whereas Toastie uses technology to help chronic illness patients stay on top of symptoms, medication and food intake.
Toastie created photo recognition, speech-to-text, and automatic categorisation to make health tracking faster and easier. For example, instead of manually listing ingredients, users could snap a photo of their meal and Toastie will identify all the ingredients.
Shen’s passion for Toastie is partly personal; she is a chronic illness patient herself and has seen first hand how medical gender biases contribute to underdiagnosis and lead to significant disparities in care.
Shen is on a mission to address the $1 trillion-plus gender health gap problem by reducing diagnosis time, addressing misdiagnosis and improving women’s health research.
We wouldn’t bet against this inspirational engineer from getting there.
ENTREPRENEUR/
FOUNDER
Marika Conomos
UpLift AI Group
Marika Conomos is a trailblazing entrepreneur redefining mental health care through artificial intelligence. As founder and CEO of UpLift AI, she has led the creation and development of a revolutionary AI-driven operating system featuring Astra, the world’s first AI co-therapist, transforming how patients and therapists engage with mental health support. Her vision is not about replacing human care but enhancing accessibility, reducing barriers and empowering therapists with AI-powered tools that increase efficiency while maintaining ethical integrity.
Under Conomos’ leadership, UpLift AI has automated up to 40 per cent of administrative tasks for mental health professionals, allowing therapists to focus on patient care. By embedding privacy safeguards, transparent data usage and ethical AI principles, she has set new standards for responsible innovation in health tech. Clinics using UpLift AI report higher patient retention, reduced emergency service reliance and improved therapy outcomes, demonstrating the platform’s scalability and effectiveness.
Beyond technology, Conomos is tackling systemic barriers in mental health care by developing multilingual and culturally adaptive tools to ensure global accessibility. Her commitment extends to subsidised pricing models, making UpLift AI an affordable solution for underserved and remote communities.
Recognised by clinicians and industry leaders, Dr Lara Mangelli credits Conomos with directly improving patient access to therapy, particularly for those with limited government-subsidised mental health support.
A fierce advocate for women in tech, she actively mentors future leaders and shares her journey to inspire others to pursue careers in AI and health innovation.
Looking ahead, Conomos is scaling UpLift AI globally, expanding into allied health fields like speech and occupational therapy, and leading the charge for ethical AI in health care. Her work is not just transforming an industry—it’s revolutionising mental health care worldwide using technology to make it smarter, more accessible and deeply human.
EXECUTIVE LEADER
Jenny Parkes
Audience360
Jenny Parkes is described by her peers as “a principled leader with strong commercial acumen and a tenacious spirit”.
As the managing director of Audience360, she led the business through a year of significant growth despite declining market conditions and economic turbulence.
Her eagle-eyed focus saw her deliver impressive business results through innovation, retention and development of her specialist team and a commitment to a people-first approach.
Parkes believes a strong business culture is the foundation for success and employee satisfaction. The numbers certainly back up her ethos as business engagement scores have risen significantly under her watch.
Championing inclusivity and diversity, Parkes created the Mentor Swap initiative where employees were paired up with team members from other departments to foster learning and coaching, which see new relationships forged for team members.
The adtech sector is constantly changing, and Parkes is committed to ensuring both she and her team are upskilled and ahead of the curve. She focuses on individual development plans and in 2024 completed the AICD Company Director course.
Audience360 is punching above its weight with its technical female talent and was profiled in B&T for having four Women Leading Tech Awards finalists. As a mother of three, Parkes leads by example, and despite being one of Australia’s top executives she openly shares the challenges of striking the right balance between work and family.
GLASS CEILING
Lily Serna
Atlassian
Lily Serna is a familiar face on Australian screens, having served as the mathematics expert of SBS’ Letters and Numbers. Serna hosted the segment on more than 500 shows over a decade. She was also a regular host on ABC’s flagship science program, Catalyst, for seven years. She even helped write and present an ABC Play School series aimed at introducing STEM to three-to-five-year-olds.
That would be enough for most, but not Serna. Outside of her TV, she’s spent the last nine years with Atlassian, rising to become its principal data scientist. She’s also a Women in STEM Roundtable member, appointed by the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources. She also serves on advisory boards for the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, Questacon—Australia’s National Science and Technology Centre—and the University of Technology Sydney’s Industry Advisory Committee, where she provides strategic advice to promote diversity and inclusion.
With Atlassian, she formally mentors junior staff through the Women’s Leadership Network and more informally, makes colleagues feel safe to confide in her about challenges they face.
Her support extends beyond professional guidance, empowering mentees to build confidence and resilience in navigating a male-dominated industry. She also visits schools, including many girls-only schools to encourage women to pursue careers in STEM. In fact, she’s received dozens of emails, letters and personal stories from girls who have gone onto study for careers in STEM thanks to Serna’s visit.
Smashing a glass ceiling is one thing. But smashing it and helping others ascend through the space you’ve created is quite another. Serna is the latter.
INNOVATOR
Rhiannon Ross
Australian Taxation Office
Rhiannon Ross is a visionary leader driving technological innovation at the Australian Taxation Office, reshaping its approach to cloud computing, automation and digital transformation. As program director, she has successfully spearheaded the development and adoption of Cloud 2.0 and the ATO’s Automation Strategy, two groundbreaking initiatives for the organisation.
Cloud 2.0 has modernised capabilities, enhancing security, automation and compliance while reducing costs and improving delivery speed.
Simultaneously, the ATO’s Automation Strategy has streamlined software development, allowing teams to focus on coding rather than manual processes, increasing efficiency across the organisation.
Ross’ impact on operational efficiency is undeniable. She led the creation of a self-service capability within the ATO’s cloud environment, significantly reducing wait times and minimising administrative overhead. By developing a multi-account platform with robust guardrails, she has enabled teams to securely and independently manage cloud resources, reducing central cloud team dependencies. Her innovative approach to FinOps automation has also transformed financial operations by cutting down on manual reporting and creating self-service tools that improve transparency and cost management.
Beyond technical advancements, Ross is a fierce advocate for diversity and inclusion in technology. She has mentored countless women in IT, providing them with the guidance and opportunities to advance their careers. Her leadership has fostered a collaborative culture within the ATO, particularly through the creation of a reusable component library, which has empowered teams to contribute to an internal open-source community, reducing bottlenecks and accelerating innovation.
Her strategic vision is shaping the ATO’s digital future, ensuring cloud adoption remains secure, scalable and aligned with government requirements. With a commitment to mentoring women in tech, advancing automation and fostering inclusivity, Ross is not just driving innovation—she is redefining the possibilities of public sector technology.
MARKETING
Cath Brands
Flintfox International
When Cath Brands joined intelligent pricing platform Flintfox International as CMO, like many software companies the firm was drowning in its own jargon, struggling to connect with decision-makers and clients.
All brands are only as strong as their ability to communicate and cut through. Even in B2B, storytelling matters and Brands set about simplifying messaging, repositioning Flintfox as a profit enabler and building a high-impact demand engine.
She transformed Flintfox’s marketing department from a cost centre into a commercial growth driver, and the proof is in the pudding.
In 2024, Flintfox International delivered double-digit revenue growth, proving marketing’s direct impact on business performance.
Flintfox’s strongest inbound demand year featured higher-quality leads, faster conversions and a significant drop in cost per lead.
Her approach to B2B marketing, combined with her leadership in a traditionally male-dominated industry, earned her recognition as a Top 100 Pricing Leader to Follow in 2025. But this wasn’t just about growth—it was about making Flintfox impossible to ignore.
Previously seen as a technical tool, Brands repositioned Flintfox as a profit optimisation engine essential for financial performance. This led to significant increases in high-quality enterprise leads, faster conversions, shorter sales cycles and a rise in inbound organic demand.
Faced with budget restrictions, Brands turned to AI and automation to scale marketing without increasing costs, reducing video production time from two days to two minutes, and delivering content in more than 55 languages.
She also spearheaded Flintfox’s SAP launch, its first product innovation in eight years.
MARTECH
Theresa Marwah
Canva
When Theresa Marwah joined Canva, she was the sole female on its Martech Leadership team. Through her advocacy, half Leadership team are women and there is gender balance across the division.
Her commitment to fostering inclusivity at both leadership and team levels shines through the work she does. Marwah advocates for women through empowerment, inclusivity and meaningful connections.
As one teammate said, “She not only empowers her team but also connects them with the right resources to succeed”.
Marwah’s work in breaking down organisational silos internally enables female leaders to collaborate on major initiatives, reinforcing their impact across the organisation.
As Canva’s head of marketing technology and experience, she quickly proved to be an innovator, natural-born leader and proactive adopter of new technologies.
In 2024, she not only led the restructuring and building of the Martech Group, a cross-functional delivery team now more than 100 people strong, but she transformed the culture and mindset of her colleagues. By building sets of new and small cross-functional teams, she unlocked huge impact with new tech that achieved an increased number of campaigns delivered and increased site visits.
Marwah led her teams to launch the company’s biggest digital event of the year, Canva Create, smashing registration numbers. She also created Canva’s ‘Droptober’ Experience, a digital release party that delivered the company’s highest-ever single-day sign-ups for free trials.
Marwah also lead her adtech product team in releasing game-changing AI-powered solutions for marketers and Canva users, such as smart recommendations for generative ad copy, video stitching for personalised social video production and an App Store listing manager solution to help Canva stay relevant globally.
With plenty more on the horizon for Canva, we expect this won’t be the last we hear of Marwah.
MENTOR
Belinda Pervan
Veeam Software
Belinda Pervan has been leading data resilience provider Veeam’s marketing across Asia-Pacific and Japan for the last four-and-a-half years.
However, her work is imbued with a higher purpose and she has dedicated significant time to mentoring, championing and supporting emerging female leaders within the business and beyond.
She works in Veeam’s Women In Green and Veeam Elevate mentoring programs and co-leads the Singapore office’s Singapore’s Mentor Walks program. The Women in Green program specifically focuses on the professional advancement of women in mid-senior roles by providing career growth guidance, skills and opportunities. Pervan currently mentors four women in the program, including Dana Balan, a global employee brand manager, based in Romania.
Veeam Elevate, meanwhile, supports women in mid-to-senior management roles by offering tailored mentorship, equipping them with skills and confidence to transition into leadership. Last year, Pervan mentored Kelly Rice, director of channel marketing for Veeam North America, building her skills in stakeholder communication and management, and Aine White, interim VP of field marketing for Veeam’s US and Canada businesses.
Outside the walls of Veeam, Pervan’s co-leadership of Mentor Walks has seen hundreds of female professionals connect with female leaders, discussing the challenges they face, and setting career goals and strategies to achieve them.
It’s no surprise that one of her mentees described her as not just leading but making a “lasting impact”.
PEOPLE AND CULTURE
Manon Pietra
Canva
Manon Pietra is a driving force for inclusion and belonging at Canva, reshaping workplace culture and advancing gender equality, neuro-inclusion and diverse leadership pipelines.
As global belonging lead, she developed and launched the Women at Canva Program, a bold and data-driven initiative that has transformed hiring, leadership development and industry engagement. Partnering with Canva’s CTO, she introduced the company’s first-ever gender representation goals, leveraging predictive modelling to increase women’s representation in technology by a quarter and boost women engineers in Canva’s leadership pipeline by more than a third.
However, Pietra’s impact goes far beyond recruitment. She led a groundbreaking review of gender disparities across hiring, performance and promotions. She used AI-driven analysis to eliminate bias in performance reviews, drive unconscious bias training and establish one-on-one coaching for high-performing women. To amplify women’s voices, she revamped Canva’s recruitment materials, garnering millions of views in the process, launched a leadership blog series and personally coached 20 women for the 2024 Women Leading Tech Awards, resulting in 18 shortlists and three wins. Her Women in Tech events and Tech Leaders Dinners have strengthened the industry network for female engineers and executives.
Beyond Canva, Pietra is shaping the broader tech landscape through Dress for Success job readiness workshops, She Codes scholarships and Career Spark Days with Black Girls in Design. She also co-led the creation of the Trans Inclusive Workplaces report with Deloitte, providing actionable strategies for fostering trans and non-binary inclusion across industries.
A visionary in workplace belonging, she has embedded Inclusion at Canva training for more than 1,300 employees, launched Canva’s first employee Collectives (Women, Pride, People of Colour) and pioneered neuro-inclusion initiatives that shift mindsets from awareness to action.
Her work has not just elevated Canva’s culture but set a new standard for inclusivity in tech. With a focus on embedding allyship into every level of the business, Pietra is ensuring that Canva—and the industry—moves from passive support to meaningful action.
PRODUCT
Kristin Perchal
Atlassian
In the face of significant and wide-ranging challenges, Atlassian’s senior group product manager, Kristin Perchal, has delivered exceptional results.
Facing enterprise sales stagnation and funding constraints, she drove a business strategy to acquire AirTrack, addressing the top sales blocker for Atlassian’s IT product offering, Jira Service Management.
Her ability to seamlessly integrate the acquisition helped Atlassian unlock multiple millions of dollars in incremental revenue, leading to faster engagement growth with enterprise customers and significant revenue growth.
Perchal was tapped to drive a transformation in Jira, Atlassian’s flagship product. Early on, she faced two major challenges: uniting a newly formed team and shifting the culture toward experimentation. Making this challenge harder, she lost group managers to medical leave within the first month.
Collaborating with the Engineering and Design departments, she led a 200-person team toward experimentation, shipping visible improvements each quarter while still achieving nearly all of its milestones on time.
Perchal achieved all of this under significant time and resource pressure but rose to the occassion, developing and coaching skills within the team and embedding a new culture.
“Kristin is a powerhouse, not only leading Product for Jira Transformation, but also spearheading the global navigation rollout across Atlassian. This massive UI change could make or break our millions of users’ experience,” said one of Perchal’s peers within Atlassian.
“Under Kristin’s steady leadership, the program has been received with appreciation from our customers and has been smooth sailing.”
That’s the kind of impact and leadership that gets you noticed.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Sofia Polak
Akin Agency
Sofia Polak pivoted from government communications to take on PR & media at Akin Agency. Originally joining as a communications consultant, her undeniable talent for PR and media relations shone through and she was quickly promoted to the senior leadership team.
Polak is driven by the role media plays in debates of national importance and advocacy.
For instance, she developed a media-led campaign to launch a ground-breaking virtual work experience program designed to help diverse groups, including women, gain valuable work experience with tech companies, which was a partnership with the TCA and Gen Z technology company Year13.
The three-month campaign engaged federal MPs in marginal electorates with significant tech communities and launched with a press conference hosted by TCA Chair Robyn Denholm, featuring Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth.
She has also been instrumental in managing and growing Akin’s female-led team.
Outside of her role, Polak has hosted and delivered several events to engage women in tech, including a ‘Tech Girls’ series that connects women working across the tech sector.
She also volunteers her time to mentor women at various stages of their careers. Her mission to nurture up-and-coming talent led her to implement the Akin’s graduate program, which has generated four temporary positions at the agency in the last 12 months. Polak also opened an entry-level position for a young woman without any previous experience in tech, whom she now mentors.
One of her peers said “she’s genuinely one of those rare leaders who makes everyone around her better”.
Her strategic and creative media talents have put her at the helm of an evolving narrative around tech in Australia—a narrative that is diverse, inclusive and sustainable.
RECRUITER
Zuli Posada
Atlassian
The tech industry is grappling with a rapid and controversial US-led reevaluation of how it hires staff. Zuli Posada, however, has been a key figure in Atlassian’s inclusive hiring since March 2019.
Hailing from Colombia, Posada has taken active steps to ensure Atlassian’s recruitment of female graduates serves as an exemplar to the industry. She does this through her Unstoppable You program—a series of interactive workshops supported by Atlassian researchers, driven by qualitative data and grounded in coaching psychology.
The program has successfully engaged and supported young women, boosting their confidence and continued involvement in the tech industry. The program has also played a crucial role in increasing the percentage of women at Atlassian from around a quarter to half. The initiative has since been adopted across the Asia-Pacific region.
In 2023, Unstoppable You won the Will Spensley Memorial Award for Innovation, presented by the Australian Association of Graduate Employers—the peak body for organisations that recruit and develop graduates through its Graduate Recruitment Industry Awards.
Attendees at Posada’s Unstoppable You events have hailed it as “enlightening,” “empowering” and “inspirational” as well as a “turning point” in their careers.
But Posada is not satisfied with making Unstoppable You “a cornerstone” of Atlassian’s recruitment policy. She is currently expanding it to other organisations to help improve their intake of talented female graduates. She’s also looking to use Atlassian’s Employee Resource Groups to attract and support more Latin women, like her, to join the industry.
RISING STAR
Sowmiya Selvakumaraswamy
NCS Australia
Sowmiya Selvakumaraswamy is a rising star in emerging technology, pushing the boundaries of AI, VR and ethical innovation while championing diversity, inclusion and accessibility in tech.
As an emerging tech specialist at NCS Australia, she has led the development of cutting-edge AI and AR/VR solutions, including a Metaverse Solution for NTUC, Singapore, which she presented to the nation’s Prime Minister.
Beyond her technical achievements, Selvakumaraswamy is a passionate advocate for women in tech, playing a key role in NCS Australia’s Women’s Circle, where she fosters support networks, mentorship and open dialogue for women navigating male-dominated industries. She co-organises Women Coders events, providing a platform for women to showcase their work, and as a STEM Sisters ambassador, she empowers women of colour to build confidence and succeed in STEM careers.
Selvakumaraswamy is a vocal advocate for neuro-inclusion in the workplace. She mentors through the Neurodiversity Network, helping others harness their cognitive strengths while challenging biases and burnout culture. Her work extends to early education, where she inspired the next generation of STEM leaders through BrainSTEM mentorship for high school girls and Monash University’s Industry Experience Program.
Her future ambitions focus on ethical AI and gender representation in technology. She is raising awareness about AI bias, ensuring chatbots, digital assistants and AI models reflect diverse, non-stereotypical representations of women. With only seven per cent of Australian girls pursuing engineering careers, she is dedicated to changing this trajectory by mentoring young women and advocating for inclusive AI development.
Recognised by NCS’ leaders as a “trailblazer in AR/VR and metaverse technologies”, Selvakumaraswamy is reshaping the future of tech—not just through innovation but by ensuring technology is ethical, diverse and accessible to all.
SALES
Tasneem Ali
Audience360
Audience360’s Tasneem Ali has made a significant contribution to the business in a short space of time.
She serves as the head of sales for Publift Media, the culmination of two adtech businesses collaborating to create a unique audience and contextual placement solution for brands and advertisers
Ali’s role has seen her build the offering from the ground up, working with multiple stakeholders from Product, Adtech, AdOps, Finance and Legal to create and take the product to market.
She has leveraged strong relationships with technical partners, agency clients and brands to drive business growth, navigate complex challenges and create innovative solutions. Within just 12 months, she grew Publift Media’s revenue significantly from zero by smartly identifying opportunities and leveraging strategic tactics across multiple verticals.
Her achievements include the development of a complex indexation of US states and inventory for the US election, which proved to be a unique opportunity, tapping into a new and highly lucrative market. Here she focused on verticals that are traditionally hard to target, such as agriculture and politics, providing sought-after solutions for clients in these industries.
Ali has created innovative curated deals for Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) and direct brands, and designed marketplace inventory packages to provide tailored solutions that make Publift Media’s products easily available for all trading desks to programmatically buy against.
Her commercial achievements are eye-catching. She surpassed expectations in the first year of Audience360 delivereing more than double her target revenue, with overall profitability up nearly two-thirds.
Ali’s approach to solution selling, framing complex technical offerings in terms that are understandable and commercially beneficial to clients, sets her apart as a true leader in her field.
SALES - HIGHLY COMMENDED
Lisa Sos
NCS Australia
Lisa Sos, an account manager at NCS Australia has demonstrated exceptional performance in her role—particularly in driving sales for Google’s Gen AI solutions.
In fact, Sos hasn’t simply smashed her targets, she’s one of the lead performers in the entire company and over the second half of 2024, her sales results were more than double competitive partner organisations’ sales results in total as an individual effort.
But there’s more to Sos’ success than sumptuous saleswomanship. She actively demonstrates how generative AI can actually change clients’ businesses and address their specific challenges, rather than talking about the tech in the vagaries that most of us might be used to.
She’s worked with high-profile clients in the accounting, real estate and pharmaceutical industries, taking the time to understand their operational pain points, demonstrating how Gen AI could help streamline processes, reduce costs and improve efficiencies.
In addition to delivering incredible numbers, Sos is passionate about cultivating a diverse, inclusive and supportive work environment. She believes that diversity drives innovation and creativity and she has made it a priority to support underrepresented groups, particularly women, in the tech industry.
To this end, Sos actively mentors individuals from diverse backgrounds, including interns, ensuring they are included in important conversations and given the opportunity to contribute meaningfully.
She has also worked closely with other women in her team, offering mutual support and helping each other navigate challenges in a male-dominated field.
THE WOMEN LEADING TECH AWARD FOR SOCIETY
Nicole Phillips
Canva
Nicole Phillips took a chance when she transitioned from law to tech four years ago. Her journey was driven by a desire to make justice more accessible—she saw firsthand while volunteering at Youth Law how underfunded legal aid services struggle to meet demand.
The pivot allowed her to combine a passion for advocacy with the transformative power of technology to drive change. Now a product manager at Canva, Phillips leverages tech to unlock opportunities for underserved communities.
For instance, at Weave Youth & Community Services, she led design workshops for the Women’s Group, teaching participants how to design clothing in Canva. The products were donated back to the community, and one participant later used her skills to set up a Canva website for her small art business.
Reconnecting with Youth Law, Phillips worked with the directing solicitor to launch the legal centre’s first major fundraiser, developed a plan for scaling the cyber legal advice service and shaped government funding proposals.
As a mentor in Startmate’s Women’s Fellowship, Phillips has guided three women through structured one-to-one coaching, values workshops and career development programs. A UX designer in government sought greater fulfillment while preparing to start a family. With Phillips’s guidance, she pursued tech-focused leadership opportunities and now leads an AI integration project within her organisation.
Beyond mentorship, Phillips contributed to the broader Startmate community, leading speaker workshops, speed mentoring, and coaching.
One mentee summarised her impact: “Thank you for the coaching, mentorship, and life advice. I was so lucky to land you as a mentor”.
One of Phillips’ peers added that she “leads by example, inspiring colleagues to engage in meaningful causes. Her energy and commitment extend beyond her role, making a lasting impact”.
PEOPLE'S CHOICE
Hayley Monteiro
Omnicom Media Group Australia
Hayley Monteiro romped to victory in the People’s Choice Award and came within a whisker of winning the Product category, too.
It isn’t hard to see why. Monteiro has been within the Omnicom Media Group (OMG) for nearly a decade, rising to her current position as the head of activation across its Foundation, PHD, Hearts & Science and Resolution Digital agencies. She currently leads a team of platform and technical experts specialising in search, social and programmatic channels and was instrumental in creating OMNI Governance, a quality assurance system that means OMG’s digital transactions are error-free, efficient and provide maximum value for clients.
This process has seen improvements across the business, beyond simply reducing wastage. OMG’s teams are more productive and have been freed from the fear of making costly mistakes—instead being able to focus on solving more strategic problems.
“Monteiro has been a leading figurehead within the OMG business for many years, driving change with a focus on the development and mental well-being of new entrants to the industry,” said one of her colleagues.
Another said Monteiro is a “strong advocate” for the well-being and mental health of her team and goes above and beyond to ensure they are supported.
Those are the sort of endorsements that win you the People’s Choice award.
WOMAN OF THE YEAR
Marika Conomos
UpLift AI Group
Generative AI might be the most transformational piece of technology this century. But while many are debating its efficacy and ethics and plugging away to improve the efficiencies of existing technology—a noble endeavour, for sure—Marika Conomos has taken a different tack.
Conomos led the creation and development of UpLift AI’s Astra technology and applied AI to that most intimate of relationships—therapist to patient.
The tool gives therapists the ability to provide 24/7 personalised support. Astra mirrors the tone, therapeutic style and treatment plans of human therapists, offering real-time coping tools, therapeutic interventions and progress tracking.
The tool is constantly being improved for its responsiveness and adaptability using advanced AI agents and machine learning. These refinements ensure patients feel supported between sessions while maintaining continuity with their therapist’s treatment plans. This innovation bridges critical gaps in care, improving patient outcomes and engagement.
There are, of course, time savings and efficiencies to be found. Some therapists on the platform have reported cutting the time they spend on administrative tasks by as much as 40 per cent.
Astra’s blending of 24/7 responses to patients, as well as reducing mundane tasks, means that therapists are less burned out from constant work, giving them more headspace and time to better engage and work with their patients. It’s a truly virtuous circle for everyone involved.
With mental health quickly becoming one of the world’s most pressing challenges, Conomos’ leadership within the space sets her apart from the rest. Rather than being reactionary and pushing back against the technology, she has embraced it with therapists and patients alike reaping the benefits.
That is why Conomos is our Woman of the Year. She has taken an impersonal technology and applied it to the very thing that makes us human—our minds. It thinks, therefore we can be.
We’d also like to say thank you to Yaala Sparkling. Founded by Tara Croker, a proud First Nations Wiradjuri woman, Yaala Sparkling was on-site to showcase free non-alcoholic beverages during the night
