FUTURE IN
MOTION
B&T WOMEN
LEADING TECH
AWARDS 2026
POWERLIST
EDITOR'S
LETTER
In the Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare wrote: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”
Now, we’re not saying the Bard got it wrong, but that the same can be said of power.
None of the women on this list, however, were born into power. None had power thrust upon them. All achieved it and earned it through hard, dogged work often battling not only competitors but entrenched inequality and inequity of opportunity.
This is why our Women Leading Tech Power List is so important. It not only celebrates the women at the apex of the industry but we hope it also serves as a source of inspiration. Many on this list started with an idea, a dream, or spotted the nucleus of a kernel of an opportunity and applied themselves to realising it.
Picking the 20 women you see here is not straightforward. And it is greatly subjective. But we do have criteria that you have to meet to be inducted into the Power List:
- The size and health of the organisation of which the woman is a part of (where applicable),
- The social, cultural, economic and even political importance of the work that they do,
- The arc of their career — which sometimes involves a squiggly line rather than a straight course to the top,
- How each woman uses her power to help inclusivity and equality.
Each of these women meets these criteria in varied ways. Each has their own story to tell.
But all of them share in one thing. They inspire all of us to be better—whether that’s adjusting how we speak, act or think, or figuratively (perhaps even literally) moving a mountain.
Their power might not be felt in tangible, even obviously demonstrable ways. But sometimes the hand of fate, progress and, of course, power, moves in ways that we cannot feel, let alone comprehend.
Tom Fogden
B&T
#20
Marika Conomos
Founder and CEO
Ecko Health
Last year’s Woman of the Year, and also the Developer and Entrepreneur/Founder category winner, Marika Conomos has done it again, cementing herself into Power List glory!
She is the mastermind behind Eck Health formerly known as Uplift AI, an AI-powered operating system for mental health care. At the heart of the world’s first AI co-therapist, is putting power back in therapists’ hands.
By automating time-draining admin like billing and scheduling, Ecko Health removes the friction that pulls focus away from care. For some users, that means cutting manual workload by up to 40 per cent. This is a shift that has returned time, energy and attention to customers allowing them to better support the ones that matter most: their patients.
She was motivated to create the world’s first AI-powered operating system for mental health care following her experience as a psychologist.
And as a twin, she’s experienced what it’s like to have someone who gets you instantly, who catches what you miss, who keeps you sharp when you’re tired. Ecko Health is designed to be that person for psychologists.
Outside of her literally life-saving software, Conomos is a massive advocate for women in tech, actively mentoring future leaders. She does this through sharing her lived experience in the hopes to inspire others.
#19
Dr Anastasia Volkova
Co-founder and CEO
Regrow Ag
The CEO and co-founder of Regrow Ag, Anastasia Volkova has redefined how technology can transform global food systems, by positioning agriculture at the centre of the climate solution.
With a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Sydney, Volkova brings a rare cross-disciplinary lens to one of the world’s most urgent challenges. Drawing on expertise in remote sensing, machine learning and data science, she has built a platform that combines agronomy, soil science and carbon modelling to deliver scalable, verifiable solutions for regenerative agriculture.
Since launching Regrow in 2020, Volkova has rapidly scaled the business into a global leader in Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) and sustainability insights for agricultural supply chains. The company has partnered with brands of the likes of Kellogg’s, Cargill and General Mills, helping them reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build more resilient, transparent sourcing models.
Her leadership has driven both commercial success and global recognition. Regrow was named to the TIME100 Most Influential Companies, highlighting its critical role in enabling a climate-resilient food system capable of feeding a projected global population of 10 billion by 2050.
What distinguishes Volkova is her ability to translate deep technical expertise into real-world impact at scale. Through her software she is enabling farmers, businesses and consumers to actively participate in climate action.
#18
Lyndal Cardy
Senior Vice President
Mastercard Technology
Mastercard’s Lyndal Cardy plays a vital role in operating and safeguarding one of the world’s most critical payments networks.
She has spent more than 24 years at Mastercard and currently holds the role equivalent to regional chief technology officer for Mastercard across Asia-Pacific. During her 24-year tenure she has developed both deep technical expertise and long-term strategic leadership.
Cardy leads the Mastercard Technology organisation responsible for the infrastructure that powers and protects digital payments across the region. Her remit spans everything from evolving the company’s technology stack to strengthening the foundations for emerging systems such as open banking and digital identity.
Beyond her core technology leadership, Cardy is also a key contributor to Mastercard’s Markets and Localisation function, working across its three pillars of customer success, regulatory alignment and technology solutioning. And as a member of the Asia-Pacific leadership team, she helps shape how the global payments giant adapts its technology and services to meet the unique needs of local markets.
Based in Sydney, Cardy is a passionate advocate for diversity in technology. She is an active contributor to Mastercard’s Women’s Leadership Network and the Girls4Tech initiative, which encourages girls to explore careers in STEM.
Combining deep technical leadership with a commitment to building the next generation of talent, Cardy stands out as one of Australia’s most influential women shaping the future of financial technology.
#17
Melinda Petrunoff
Managing Director
Melinda Petrunoff, the managing director of Pinterest across Australia and New Zealand, sits at the intersection of commercial growth, brand partnerships and product experience. She leads the platform’s expansion while ensuring it remains locally relevant for millions of users.
She oversees advertising strategy and revenue growth across the region, while building high-performing teams and deepening relationships with major brands. Under her leadership, Pinterest continues to evolve as both a powerful discovery engine for consumers and a results-driven platform for advertisers.
What sets Petrunoff apart is her ability to balance commercial outcomes with purpose. She is a strong advocate for Pinterest’s mission to help people “create a life they love,” driving initiatives that prioritise positivity, inspiration and a healthier digital environment.
With more than 20 years of experience across leadership, strategy, sales and operations, Petrunoff has helped shape some of the region’s most influential digital businesses. Her career includes senior roles at Meta and Nine (formerly Fairfax), giving her a rare depth of expertise across both global tech and local media landscapes.
Beyond her corporate impact, she has been a dedicated board member of OzHarvest since 2015, reinforcing her commitment to using leadership as a force for broader social good.
#16
Rianne Van Veldhuizen
Vice President and Managing Director
Amazon Web Services
As managing director and vice president of Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Australia and New Zealand, Rianne van Veldhuizen is a driving force behind one of the biggest shifts currently reshaping business: the move from AI curiosity to AI capability.
With more than two decades of experience in technology across Europe and the Asia-pacific region, van Veldhuizen now leads AWS’s regional strategy at a time when demand for cloud infrastructure and generative AI is accelerating rapidly. Over the past year, she has become a prominent voice guiding organisations through what comes next.
A key moment came at the 2025 AWS Summit in Sydney. She outlined how businesses must shift their focus from experimentation to real commercial impact. She continued to share insights from AWS re:Invent on the rise of “agentic AI” positioning Australia and New Zealand to take advantage of the next wave of intelligence systems and automation.
Behind the scenes, van Veldhuizen is a key figure to AWS’s ambitious infrastructure expansion. The company has committed to investing $20 billion into Australian data centers between 2025 and 2029. A move designed to support grooving demand for cloud services and generative AI across the economy.
van Veldhuizen confidently advocated for AI Spring Australia, a national initiative created to AI adoption through enterprise launch programs, skills for training the local workforce and startup accelerators.
The goal is simple: Ensure Australian businesses can keep pace in a rapidly evolving AI economy. And she’s doing exactly that.
#15
Suzie Cardwell
Chief Data, Product and Technology Officer, Enterprise
Nine
In modern media, data isn’t just useful, it’s everything. Few people understand that better than Suzie Cardwell.
Cardwell is the chief data, product and technology officer, enterprise at Nine Entertainment, the largest Australian-owned media company, and has spent more than 25 years turning fragmented technology systems into powerful commercial engines. Her career is defined by one singular simple belief: data can only be valuable when it’s accessible, unified and built to drive decisions.
At Nine, she has led one of the company’s most ambitious transformations, architecting a “single view of the consumer” across Nine’s sprawling media ecosystem. The project unified more than 20 million identities from four separate data lakes and moved Nine onto a multi-cloud infrastructure spanning Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. The result? Data that once sat passively now powering advertising, a digital-first revenue strategy and deeper audience engagement.
In 2025, Cardwell stepped into an expanded leadership role overseeing the technology behind Nine’s commercial, advertising and cloud platforms, which is critical as the company targets that 60 per cent of its revenue will be credited to digital in 2027.
Appointed chair of IAB Australia, Cardwell now plays a significant role in guiding standards for digital innovation, data and advertising across the Australian market.
Simply put: when it comes to the future of Australian media, Suzie Cardwell isn’t just analysing the data, she’s building the infrastructure to power it.
#14
Miranda Ratajski
Chief Information Officer – Group Business Units
Westpac
Few roles in banking garner such scale, or scrutiny, than a chief information officer steering transformation inside one of the country’s largest financial institutions. Miranda Ratajski is doing exactly that at Westpac.
As CIO for group business units, Ratajski oversees the technology strategy supporting HR, finance, risk, operations, property, procurement and customer solutions. Essentially the digital backbone that keeps the organisation running. With more than three decades of experience across government, banking and telecommunications, she has built a reputation for tackling the kind of complex transformations most would choose to avoid.
It’s no wonder Ratajski also took home the Executive Leader trophy at this year’s awards.
Over the past 12 months, that abundance of experience has been crucial. She has been central to a major systems consolidation designed to simplify Westpac’s technology ecosystem. Most notably, modernising how Westpac manages its procurement and transforming highly manual, fragmented processes into a single modern platform. The moves forms a part of a broader push to seamlessly streamline operations, modernise the bank’s existing infrastructure and reduce costs.
It’s a transformation that requires equal parts organisational diplomacy and technical expertise. Ratajski’s remit spans large-scale data environments, complex regulatory requirements and the challenge of aligning multiple business units behind a more agile operations model.
She champions cultural change and inclusive leadership and is recognised globally by Women in Banking and Finance and the Fintech Top 100 as an inclusive leader and woman of undeniable influence.
While customers may never see the technology overhauls behind the scenes, Ratajski is the one making sure it works seamlessly when they do.
#13
Melanie Silva
Vice President and Managing Director
Melanie Silva sits at the center of one of the most influential major tech companies of the 21st century. As managing director and VP of Google ANZ, Silva has overseen its shift from traditional search to AI-driven discovery.
Silva is a longtime tech leader, who joined Google back in 2007 where she has spent close to two decades shaping the company’s regional strategy. She’s held a plethora of senior roles across the APAC region most notably, her stint in Singapore leading Google’s go-to-market strategy and operations team, only returning to Sydney to steer the tech titan through one of its most transformative eras, introducing AI.
That transformation has accelerated significantly over the past 12 months. In 2025, Google began the rollout phase of its generative search experience, introducing ‘AI Mode’ to its Australian users. The new technology shifts searches from a basic list of links to an AI-powered conversation, delivering near-instant summaries and redefining how people receive their information online.
Under Silva’s leadership, Google has also managed to strengthen its partnerships with Australian media organisations, including a collaboration with the Australian Associated Press to incorporate high-quality Australian journalism into its AI systems. The move was
designed to deepen local content ecosystems whilst ensuring evolving technologies were being informed by trusted, credible sources.
Beyond innovation, Silva is a fierce advocate for reconciliation and diversity within the industry, loudly supporting initiatives that champion more accessible pathways into tech.
The future of search is being rewritten and Melanie Silva is the one holding the pen.
#12
Tanya Monro AC
Chief Defence Scientist
Department of Defence
When your day job involves national security, breakthrough science and keeping Australia ahead of the curve, “busy” doesn’t quite cut it. Professor Tanya Monro operates on a different scale entirely.
As chief defence scientist at the Department of Defence, Monro leads the Defence Science and Technology Group while steering innovation, science and technology capability across the entire Defence ecosystem. It’s a role that sits at the intersection of cutting-edge research and real-world application—where big ideas quickly become mission-critical solutions.
A globally recognised physicist, Monro has spent her career pushing the boundaries of photonics—working across sensing, lasers and advanced optical fibres to unlock new capabilities. With more than 500 scientific papers and 20 patents to her name, her impact on the field is both deep and far-reaching, shaping everything from medical technologies to defence systems.
But it’s her ability to scale that expertise across institutions that sets her apart. Under her leadership, Defence has leaned into a “more together” approach—bringing universities, startups and industry partners into closer collaboration to solve complex national challenges faster and smarter. It’s a model that not only accelerates innovation, but strengthens Australia’s sovereign capability.
Her contributions have been recognised at the highest level, including being appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), alongside a string of major scientific and leadership awards.
Beyond the lab and leadership table, Monro has been a consistent force for change in STEM—championing gender equity initiatives and creating clearer pathways for women to enter and re-enter the sector.
From fundamental science to national impact, Monro’s work is helping shape the future of Australian innovation at scale.
#11
Flavia Tata Nardani
Co-founder and CEO
Fleet Space Technologies
Building a startup is one thing, but building a fleet of satellites from Adelaide and plugging Australia into the space economy? Watch out, that’s Flavia Tata Nardini’s territory.
As co-founder and CEO of Fleet Space Technologies, Tata Nardini has taken a big, bold idea and quite literally launched it. What started in South Australia has grown into a team of more than 100, with a global footprint stretching into the US—yet the mission remains distinctly Australian: using space tech to solve real-world problems back on Earth.
Fleet Space’s nanosatellite constellation is a first for Australia, and it’s doing serious heavy lifting. By delivering real-time data connectivity to industries like mining, exploration and defence, Tata Nardini is helping modernise sectors that are critical to the national economy, especially in the remote, hard-to-reach environments where traditional connectivity falls short.
She didn’t arrive quietly, either. With a background at the European Space Agency and hands-on experience in rocket propulsion, Tata Nardini brought deep technical firepower into the startup world—and then built a company that’s pushing Australia further into orbit, both literally and commercially.
Her impact doesn’t stop at Fleet Space. As chair of the Australian Space Agency’s Space Industry Leaders Forum and a board member at Austmine, she’s helping shape how space technology integrates with Australia’s industrial backbone.
All of it adds up to a leader who isn’t just part of Australia’s space story—she’s helping write the next chapter too.
#10
Nora Waugh
CIO Corporate Technology
Commonwealth Bank
There are certain kinds of tech leader who keep the lights on, and there’s Nora Waugh who rewires the entire building while it’s still running.
As CIO of Corporate Technology at Commonwealth Bank, Waugh operates at the sharp end of transformation, where infrastructure, risk and innovation all collide. Her remit spans cloud, core systems and institutional platforms—areas where failure is definitely not an option.
Waugh has built a reputation for delivering exactly that. She’s been instrumental in modernising infrastructure and leading cloud initiatives that don’t just support the bank’s operations, but actively enable them to evolve. In a sector where resilience is critical, her work ensures systems are not only stable, but future-ready.
But it’s not just about the tech stack, it’s about how it’s used. Waugh’s leadership is deeply focused on building customer-centric technology teams, embedding smarter approaches to risk and compliance while driving meaningful digital transformation across the business. It’s a balance that’s notoriously difficult to strike, but one she executes with precision.
Beyond her day job, Waugh is equally committed to shifting the industry itself. She played a key role in launching the bank’s EmpowHer initiative, designed to mentor and elevate emerging female leaders, and is a regular voice across industry forums advocating for greater gender equity in tech.
It’s this combination of large-scale delivery, strategic leadership and genuine commitment to change that sets Waugh apart. In an industry defined by complexity, she’s proving that transformation doesn’t have to come at the expense of stability.
#9
Lily Serna
Principal Data Scientist
Atlassian
There aren’t many people who can make maths feel like prime-time entertainment and mission-critical business strategy at the same time, but Lily Serna makes it look effortless.
As principal data scientist at Atlassian, Serna is shaping the way millions of users experience software, one carefully designed experiment at a time. Her work centres on building mathematical and statistical models that test how even the smallest product tweaks can influence behaviour.
Atlassian’s products are used by teams all over the world, and Serna’s work plays a critical role in ensuring those tools evolve in ways that genuinely improve user experience. By embedding rigorous experimentation into product development, she’s helping drive smarter, faster, and more confident decision-making at scale.
It’s this ability to sit at the intersection of data, product and human behaviour that makes Serna such a standout. While many organisations aspire to be data-led, she’s actively operationalising that ambition—making experimentation a core part of how products are built, tested and refined.
Of course, many Australians will recognise her from Letters and Numbers, where she’s spent years bringing a sense of fun and accessibility to mathematics. That visibility has helped shift perceptions of maths beyond the classroom, inspiring a broader appreciation for numbers and problem-solving.
It’s this rare combination of technical excellence, cultural impact and real-world application that makes Serna not just a leader within Atlassian, but a central figure in many Australians’ lives.
#8
Katrina Troughton
Vice President and Managing Director
Adobe Australia and New Zealand
Katrna Troughton is one of the most important leaders within the sprawling Adobe business and Australia’s tech industry full stop.
At Adobe Summit 2025 in Las Vegas, Troughton was a key voice on artificial intelligence, framing it not as something to fear, but as a technological force democratising marketing creativity at scale.
She has positioned Adobe ANZ at the forefront of that shift. In recent times, the company rolled out agentic AI tools and launched Adobe Firefly.
Her commercial acumen is matched by a deep commitment to people-first leadership. Troughton defines effective leadership as building trust and creating space for people to unlock their full potential, coaching rather than directing, and creating environments where women feel empowered to be creative and take risks.
At Adobe, Troughton supports the development of female leaders through her work with Chief Executive Women, while also serving on the TAFE NSW Advisory Board as a Careers NSW Ambassador.
Troughton is one of the top technology leaders in the region, with more than 30 years of experience across APAC and the US, including leading IBM’s ANZ operation.
Her leadership plays a critical role in helping companies streamline content production, enable on-brand personalisation at scale, and accelerate campaign agility.
An example of Adobe’s success is working alongside Coca-Cola to personalise and optimise campaign activations across more than 200 million consumer profiles.
#7
Memo Hayek
Chief Information Officer
Zip Co
Memo Hayek has built one of the most accomplished tech leadership careers in Australia.
Over three decades, she has shaped large-scale digital and cyber transformations across banking, media and financial services.
Hayek was first inspired to get into tech by her older sister, who studied computer science.
She has held senior technology roles at Nine Entertainment, where she was CITO, and led group cyber transformation and delivery at CommBank. She has held senior roles at NAB, Westpac and Credit Suisse.
Hayek is known for her ability to align technology strategy with commercial outcomes, built a reputation as a transformation specialist and a builder of high-performing engineering teams.
She joined Zip Co eight months ago at a time Aussie buy-now-pay-later fintech company is expanding its operations in the US and rolling out a range of AI-powered capabilities across the platform, such as its Money Coach tool.
Hayek is widely respected for building high-performing, diverse teams and aligning technology strategy with business outcomes. She is a passionate advocate for women in STEM and a strong believer in cultivating inclusive, learning-driven tech cultures.
#6
Sarah Carney
Chief Technology Officer
Microsoft Australia and New Zealand
Few technology leaders have taken as unconventional a path to the top as Microsoft ANZ’s chief technology officer Sarah Carney.
Starting her career in the Australian Army, she worked in London and the Middle East at think tanks and law firms before returning to Australia to Telstra and spending the past decade at Microsoft.
Carney is the company’s go-to for spotting emerging tech trends and helping its largest enterprise and government customers navigate the future.
sShe has also taken a leading role in Microsoft’s responsible AI initiatives and is part of the company’s regional AI product ‘Red Team’, which evaluates the risks and societal implications of emerging technologies.
Carney said that she joined Microsoft because of its philanthropic work with Indigenous communities, and its focus on impacts rather than products.
She is a strong advocate for sponsorship, not just formalised mentoring programs, to promote women’s careers in tech.
Carney sees two key moments where women are lost in tech, during high school when they disengage from STEM education and when workplace structures, particularly around caregiving, fail them.
“We can’t expect to get more women into tech if we’re not addressing why they check out so early,” she recently said.
#5
Abigail Bradshaw
Director-General
Australian Signals Directorate
Abigail Bradshaw is the head of the Australian Government’s efforts to improve cyber security, one of the most critical roles in safeguarding the country’s economic prosperity, safety and digital resilience.
She began her career in the Royal Australian Navy and was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in 2005.
SInce then, Bradshaw has led important national security operations roles where she has led whole of government operations that advance Australia’s national security agenda, including stints at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, most recently as the deputy co-ordinator of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency, before rising to the become director general of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) in late 2024.
She is the first woman to lead the ASD, notably coming from a public service intelligence career path rather than a military background, and has overseen huge lifts in its effectiveness.
Since taking the role, she has warned organisations more than 1,700 times about malicious cyber activity, an 83 per cent increase from the year preceding her leadership.
At a time when cyber warfare and cyber crime have become major national security threats, Bradshaw is one of the most important voices in cyber security, and has championed organisations moving away from password-only logins to multi factor authentication.
She is also a staunch advocate of businesses not paying cyber security ransoms and that they should double down on cyber crime prevention.
#4
Julie Inman Grant
eSafety Commissioner
Few women have had more consequential years in the world than eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, with the experienced technology leader being of the main faces in Australia’s pioneering under-16 social media ban.
Regardless of what you think of the ban, Inman Grant’s work in bringing the global tech platforms to heel—pushing forward in the face of overwhelming lobbying pressure and fierce, often violent online criticism—is truly unmatched. Few people, of whichever gender, have left such an indelible mark on the technology industry and wider world.
But Inman Grant was not finished.
She put Roblox “on notice” over reports of grooming and exploitation. She introduced new online safety codes covering AI chatbots, especially those interacting with kids. Inman Grant is also set to be key in enforcing Australia’s pornography age verification law.
It’s often said that you can tell much about someone from the company you keep. And considering Inman Grant was asked to front lawmakers in the US, some of whom called her a “zealot,” we think that she’s not only keeping the right company but also pissing off the right people.
It can be a scary, dangerous world out there online. But in Australia, Inman Grant is making it safer and better for us all.
#3
Vicki Brady
CEO
Telstra
Vicki Brady has been the CEO of Telstra for nearly four years and under her stewardship, the telco continues to go from strength-to-strength.
Its profits are up. Its market share across key categories has improved. And, most notably, while one of its major rivals has been undergoing a significant transformation and the other, frankly, has undergone one of the most protracted corporate crises in history, she has kept the pedal to the floor to move Telstra further ahead of the pack.
There have been some significant changes to the business, with work on simplifying operations and minimising costs through workforce changes. But at the same time, she’s plotting significant moves that will further improve its world-leading network through multi-billion-dollar capex initiatives, including investment in undersea cables and data infrastructure.
With AI becoming even more important to the world around us, Brady has been clear to position Telstra as being the underlying network powerhouse that facilitates its transformative effects on our society.
When we look back in 10, 15, 20 years time, it will likely be clear that AI has left an indelible mark on our country. And Telstra, through Brady’s leadership, will be the company that made it happen.
#2
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Astronaut and 2026 Australian of the Year
You’re expecting us to say that Katherine Bennell-Pegg is a real high-flyer. But that would undersell her achievements and the emblem she has become for women and girls in technology for the sake of a cheap pun.
Bennell-Pegg hasn’t been to space. And when she does, she won’t be the first Australian to enter orbit either—that would be Dr. Paul Scully-Power. But she will be a symbol to everyone in the country that your dreams can become reality and a lightning rod for equality in technology.
Bennell-Pegg has worked hard to get to this point. She wrote the best undergraduate thesis in the School of Aeronautical, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering. She was decorated for her conduct, leadership and performance when graduating as an officer at the Royal Military College. She spent years working for Airbus as an engineer in Germany. She returned to Australia and became director of space technology at the Australian Space Agency. Then she started training at the European Space Agency’s European Astronaut Centre in Germany. Then she became the first person qualified as an astronaut under the Australian flag. In 2025, she was named Australian of the Year.
“I have always dreamed of being an astronaut. When I was young, it was for the adventure, but after more than a decade working in space it’s now because I know the role it plays in tackling real-world problems and developing new knowledge that can benefit our society, environment, and science,” she said.
Bennell-Pegg is no flash in the pan. She is proof that women in Australia can set out to achieve their dreams. Her power is in the legacy she will leave.
#1
Melanie Perkins
Co-founder and CEO
Canva
You might think you know Melanie Perkins, the co-founder and CEO of Canva. You might know her from the various ‘Rich Lists’ she appears on and the fawning press that she often receives. But there’s far to Perkins than that.
Her work at Canva, its rapid expansion and seismic disruption of the design and tech industries now seems obvious. But it wasn’t always thus. She has proven that a great idea—the democratisation of design and creativity through technology—can and will find a significant market with the right drive and application behind it.
After conquering much of the consumer and SME market, notching more than 200 million users in the process, Canva turned its eyes on the biggest prize: enterprises. It is already picking up steam and has reached a company valuation of more than $65 billion. It is adding strings to its bow, too, acquiring MagicBrief (where our Woman of the Year works) in 2025 to boost its AI marketing function, as well Cavalry to improve its animation abilities and MangoAI to improve its ad performance.
Perkins has also continued her commendable philanthropic activities, with an additional $100 million commitment to cash-transfer charity GiveDirectly. Her leadership style, at a time when going fast and steam rolling all who stand in the way, remains implacably calm and human.
We could all learn from Perkins on both business strategy and leadership. Few women are such lightning rods for well-meaning progress and innovation around the world. And none surpass her in Australia.
