Most Influential Girls in UK Tech 2021: Entrants to the Hall of Reputation

Anne-Marie Imafidon, CEO, Stemettes

Imafidon changed into once originally named one among Computer Weekly’s Rising Stars in 2014, going on to desire the title of Most Influential Lady in UK Tech in 2020.

Imafidon is the CEO of Stemettes, which she based to abet youthful ladies folks to retain in mind careers in science technology, engineering and maths (STEM).  

Originate air of her work with Stemettes, she is a commissioner for the Hamilton Commission, an initiative area up by traipse driver Lewis Hamilton to take care of the shortcoming of shadowy folks each and each in UK motorsport and within the STEM sectors.

Imafidon is also a fellow of the RSA, a council member of Analysis England, a visiting professor at the University of Sunderland, and a Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) digital abilities partnership board member.

Sooner than Stemettes, Imafidon held roles at Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard, Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers. She now hosts a podcast for the Evening Authentic known as Girls Tech Mark, and is a trustee for the Institute for the Future of Work.

Carrie Anne Philbin, director of training, Raspberry PI Basis

But any other alumna of Computer Weekly’s 2016 ladies folks in tech Rising Stars, Philbin has a number of duties all the draw thru the Raspberry Pi Basis, including leading system, persevering with legit construction programmes and finding out sources.

Apart from to her work at Raspberry Pi, she is a fellow of the Python Tool Basis, and her various experiences in board member and chair roles – including her time as a board member for Computing at College and her stint as chair of CAS #embody – bear all been aimed at making computer science more accessible for everybody.

She is also a YouTuber, creator and secondary-stage computing and ICT teacher.

Cindy Rose, president of Western Europe, Microsoft

Rose changed into once lately appointed the president of Western Europe for Microsoft, having served because the CEO of Microsoft UK since 2016, where she changed into once to blame for the agency’s product, carrier and toughen providing across the internet page.

Beforehand, Rose worked in senior roles across the technology and digital sectors at companies a lot like Vodafone, Virgin Media and Disney’s Interactive Media Team.

In early 2019, she changed into once awarded an OBE for products and providers to UK technology, and is for the time being a non-executive director for communications agency WPP.

Elizabeth Denham, data commissioner, Recordsdata Commissioner’s Station of business

In her characteristic as data commissioner, which she has held for five years, Denham leads the place of job facing the Data Protection Act 2018 – the UK’s implementation of the EU’s Total Data Protection Law (GDPR). She announced she could perchance perchance perchance be stepping down from the characteristic in 2021, and is for the time being within the submit till her replace could perchance perchance perchance also be arranged.

Sooner than turning into data commissioner, Denham changed into once the easy assignment and privateness commissioner for British Columbia, Canada, to blame for compliance with public and deepest sector privateness rules and procure entry to to data law.

In 2018, she changed into once awarded a CBE for products and providers to data safety.

Helen Milner, founder and CEO, the Authorized Things Basis

Milner is founder and CEO of now not-for-profit the Authorized Things Basis (beforehand the Tinder Basis), having based the charity in 2011 to support the digitally excluded change into happy the utilization of digital and online technologies.

Most of her work is centered on building tech inclusion for digitally excluded folks. She is the a board member of every and each FutureDotNow and the Minister’s Digital Skills Partnership Board, and is on the Grownup Advisory Team for the UK’s Money and Pension Service (MaPS).

Milner changed into once beforehand a specialist authorities adviser of digital engagement for the Public Accounts Committee, changed into once named the Digital Leader of the twelve months in 2017, and changed into once awarded an OBE in 2015 for products and providers to digital inclusion.

Jo Twist, CEO, UKIE

Twist is CEO of UKIE, the video games industry alternate body that goals to kind the UK the chief in video games and interactive entertainment.

Apart from to being a London Tech Ambassador, Twist is vice-president of video games charity Particular Enact, the minister of studies at organisation Ministry of Experiences (which helps teens connect with writing and storytelling), and is the chair of the video games committee at Bafta.

Twist changed into once beforehand commissioning editor for training at Channel 4, and changed into once multi-platform commissioner of entertainment and Swap for the BBC within the early 2000s.

In 2016, she obtained an OBE for her contribution to the creative industries.

Rebecca George, earlier managing accomplice for authorities and public products and providers, Deloitte

George is for the time being on the scrutinize out for non-executive directorship roles within the deepest and public sector centered around training, local climate alternate or health where she will be able to use her 20 years of tech and public sector journey.

Up till spring 2021, she changed into once the managing accomplice for authorities and public products and providers at Deloitte, leading the agency’s public sector practices across Europe.

Sooner than this characteristic, she changed into once lead public sector accomplice at Deloitte, where she changed into once to blame for projects a lot like serving to the public sector toughen efficiency and procure most realistic likely prepare.

George is a non-executive chair for the DoE’s T-Stage reform programme, and lately stepped down as president of the BCS and as a board member of the City Psychological Successfully being Alliance.

She changed into once awarded an OBE in 2006 for her work on sustainable communities.

Sarah Burnett, founding accomplice and non-executive director, Emergence Partners

Burnett is a founding accomplice and non-executive director at management consultant agency Emergence Partners, where she is head of technology immersion and insights.

Sooner than this, she changed into once an executive vice-president and infamous analyst at Everest Team, where she historical her abilities to manual the community on global carrier offer automation compare and European prepare across its global products and providers compare areas.

Sooner than joining Everest Team, Burnett changed into once vice-president of compare at Nelson Hall, overlaying areas a lot like infrastructure, IT outsourcing, cloud and authorities industry job outsourcing. Till lately, Burnett changed into once chair of BCSWomen, and in 2017 launched the BCSWomen AI Accelerator.

She is a contributing analyst, creator and creator for online ethical tech newsletter Techopian.

Sue Daley, head of cloud, data, analytics and AI, TechUK

Daley leads TechUK’s work on cloud, data, analytics and AI and has been recognised within the UK Mountainous Data 100 as a key influencer in driving ahead the extensive data agenda.

She is co-chair of the National Data Plan Forum, which goals to kind the UK forefront in data, and has acted as a assume for a number of awards such because the the Loebner Prize in AI, UK Tech 50 and the Annual UK Cloud Awards.

Sooner than joining TechUK in January 2015, she changed into once to blame for Symantec’s authorities relations within the UK and Eire.

In 2016, Daley swam the English Channel.

Trudy Norris-Grey, chairperson, Clever

Norris-Grey’s profession has been centered on technology and digital transformation across companies a lot like BT, Solar Microsystems, Oracle and Eastman Kodak, where she held senior executive posts.

She now splits her time across the US and the UK and is chair of Clever (Girls in Science, Engineering and Skills), moreover chair of the UCAS board of trustees.

Till 2019, Norris-Grey changed into once global managing director of local regional authorities, gleaming cities and associated infrastructure for Microsoft in Seattle, US, adopted by a characteristic as deputy CEO of enterprise and global partnerships at AXA.

The existing contributors of the Hall of Reputation are:

Amali de Alwis

Winner of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Lady in UK Tech accolade in 2018, till lately de Alwis changed into once the CEO of the Founders Forum.

Sooner than that, she changed into once the UK managing director of Microsoft for Startups, and changed into once beforehand the CEO of coding coaching programme Code First: Girls, which now not easiest goals to kind greater diversity within the tech sector, however in 2018 changed into once instructing more ladies folks within the UK to code than the UK’s college design.

De Alwis is an advisory board member of YSYS, sits on the board of trustees for the Raspberry Pi Basis, is a board member at Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, and is a member of the range and inclusion board at the Institute of Coding.

She is also an advisory board member at the Founders Academy, and a founding member at Tech Talent Structure.

In 2019, she changed into once awarded an MBE for products and providers to diversity and training within the tech industry.

Chi Onwurah

Onwurah is the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and shadow minister for digital, science and technology.

She has held many authorities roles centered on technology, including shadow minister for custom and the digital economic system, shadow Cabinet Station of business minister leading on cyber security, social entrepreneurship, civil contingency, originate authorities and transparency, and shadow minister for innovation, science and digital infrastructure.

Sooner than her roles in authorities, Onwurah worked in a number of connectivity and telecoms-basically based companies, including Ofcom, Teligent, and Cable & Wi-fi.

Debbie Forster

The 2019 winner of Computer Weekly’s checklist of the Most Influential Girls in UK Tech, Debbie Forster, CEO of authorities-backed initiative Tech Talent Structure (TTC), is a long-standing advocate of diversity and inclusion within the tech sector.

The Tech Talent Structure, which is aimed at “connecting the dots” between diversity and inclusion initiatives within the tech sector to kind greater the assortment of underrepresented groups working in tech, lately known as for a shift in center of attention a long way flung from getting more ladies folks into the field, and in direction of making improvements to diversity within the industry more widely.

Alongside her work at TTC, Forster is also a board trustee for the British Council, a member of the Digital Financial system Council, and director at consultancy Contemporary Assemble.

Starting her profession as an English teacher and then college headteacher, prior to TTC, Forster changed into once co-CEO for pupil-centered initiative Apps for Authorized, moreover heading up training for e-abilities UK. In 2017, Forster obtained an MBE for digital innovation, and changed into once named Clever girl of the twelve months in 2016.

Eileen Burbidge

Frequently appearing on Computer Weekly’s checklist of the Most Influential Girls in UK Tech exact thru the final five years, Eileen Burbidge is a accomplice at London-basically based enterprise capital (VC) agency Ardour Capital, where she offers journey obtained from various tech roles all the draw thru her profession, moreover by serving as a non-executive director for a selection of little and growing companies, a lot like Monzo.

Her profession in technology has spanned 15 years and involves roles at companies a lot like Yahoo!, Skype, PalmSource, Openwave, Solar Microsystems and Apple.

Alongside her characteristic at Ardour Capital, Burbidge is the particular envoy for fintech for HM Treasury, a non-executive director at Dixons Carphone, and changed into once a co-founder/startup angel and adviser for White Undergo Yard.

Till closing twelve months she changed into once the chair of Tech Nation, and changed into once beforehand a member of the high minister’s industry advisory community.

Gillian Arnold

Arnold is managing director of IT recruitment agency Tectre, which is aimed particularly at supporting ladies folks in technology roles.

Beforehand chair of BCSWomen, she is now a non-executive director of the BCS, and has been within the tech sector for more than 30 years.

Arnold has frolicked as chair of the European Girls in IT taskforce aimed at growing most realistic likely practices and Europe-extensive actions to kind greater the assortment of girls folks within the tech industry.

Apart from to having chaired a forum for IT alternate body Intellect (now TechUK), Arnold historical to behave as a board member at Clever, which helps ladies folks in STEM.

Hannah Dee

Dee is an data security and databases lecturer at Aberystwyth University, where she researches computer imaginative and prescient, and is also a founding member of online STEM magazine Scientists Are Folk.

She based the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium in 2008 as a conference for female undergraduates. Now deputy chair of the colloquium, in 2019 Dee helped traipse the first Girls in Tech Cymru summer season conference.

She has won awards in instructing and obtained a Suffrage Science award in 2018.

Dee sits on the committee of BCSWomen, and till 2020 changed into once secretary of BCS Mid-Wales and has had a long profession in science and technology.

Jacqueline De Rojas

The 2015 winner of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Lady UK Tech, De Rojas insists that you just “can bear all of it” – she is now not easiest president of two companies and non-executive director of a number of more, however is also married and has three kids and two dogs.

De Rojas is president of every and each TechUK and Digital Leaders, co-chair of the governance board for the Institute of Coding, and non-executive director of Rightmove, IFS, Costain Team and FDM Team.

She acts as a industry adviser and mentor, is chair of the financial analytics platform Metapraxis, and changed into once awarded a CBE in 2018 for products and providers to international alternate in technology.

Jane Moran

Jane Moran changed into once the first winner of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Lady in UK IT when it changed into once launched in 2012.

On the time, Moran changed into once CIO at Thomson Reuters, where she took section within the Thomson Reuters Girls’s Community, Girls in Skills Global and the National Centre for Girls in Skills.

Now she is the non-executive director of JP Morgan Europe, having stepped down as World CIO of Unilever, a attach she held for nearly seven years.

Moran is also a non-executive director for JP Morgan Securities and changed into once beforehand a non-executive director for Institutional Money Distributors,

She actively participates within the IT neighborhood, and is an advocate for management abilities and guaranteeing more ladies folks retain in mind a technology profession.

In 2014, Moran changed into once positioned first on the annual Computer Weekly UKTech50 checklist, a showcase of the head movers and shakers within the UK IT industry.  

Joanna Shields

The 2013 winner of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Lady in UK Tech, Shields is now CEO of synthetic intelligence company BenevolentAI, which goals to prepare computer systems to alternate how medicine is developed.

She changed into once beforehand parliamentary beneath-secretary of direct at DCMS, and till early 2018 changed into once the UK minister for internet safety and security.

From December 2016, Shields acted because the high minister’s particular representative on internet crime and harms, driving a more international attain to internet safety and security.

Formerly CEO of accelerator programme Tech City, Shields based now not-for-profit WeProtect.org in 2013 to fight online child abuse and exploitation.

Formerly European chief of Facebook, Shields has had a number of roles as an adviser on digital. She believes the UK have to take care of digital transformation well whether it is a long way to live a scoot-setter in digital construction.

Kate Russell

Russell has been writing about technology for the reason that mid-1990s, and is considered as a subject matter professional when it involves the technology sector. Sooner than her profession in TV presenting and journalism, she equipped CD manufacturing to computer game companies.

Russell is a frequent occasions speaker and works with organisations that aim to kind greater the assortment of teens who pursue a characteristic within the tech sector, a lot like TeenTech.

Till lately, she changed into once a presenter on BBC technology programme Click, which she stepped down from to abolish a Twitch channel dedicated to rescued ferrets.

She has published many books, including Working the cloud, Elite: mostly innocuous and A bookkeeper’s manual to practical sorcery.

Kathryn Parsons

Parsons based Decoded in East London in 2011 “with a bank card and a mission to educate code in a day”. The coding college has taught folks in companies worldwide referring to the internal workings of technologies a lot like code, data, synthetic intelligence (AI) and cyber security.

Parsons launched the Decoded Data Academy in 2018 and wants Decoded’s efforts to kind greater digital literacy in companies and authorities, and occupy the details abilities hole.

Till early 2021, she changed into once a non-executive board member for the Department of Commerce, Energy and Industrial Plan, and till 2020 sat on the industry advisory boards for the London mayor and 10 Downing Avenue.

Parsons changed into once awarded an MBE in 2016 for her work in campaigning for code to be launched into the UK’s curriculum.

Maggie Berry

Berry is the director of Heart of the City, which works with little companies to support them procure industry programmes aimed at promoting diversity and supporting local communities, amongst other things.

Sooner than this she changed into once executive director for Europe at WEConnect Global, where she helped the agency to procure its corporate and public sector toughen, and grow its network of more than 1,500 ladies folks-led companies to connect with the corporate offer chain.

Berry beforehand ran online job board for recruitment and networking womenintechnology.co.uk, and is an advocate for diversity within the technology industry. She changed into once awarded an OBE in 2019 for her products and providers to ladies folks in technology and industry. She is also a committee member of the Walsworth Team Centre  and a diversity advisory committee member for Founders4Schools.

Maggie Philbin

The 2016 winner of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Lady in UK Tech, Philbin is founder of TeenTech and has spent more than 30 years reporting on STEM issues for television and radio.

She co-based TeenTech with the aim of serving to teens be inspired by – and gaze a future profession in – technology by solving right-world considerations with technology.

A huge advocate of diversity within the tech sector, Philbin has obtained eight honorary levels and an OBE to recognise her products and providers on this dwelling – despite the indisputable fact that she insists those honours belong to her “unbelievable and dedicated” personnel.

Margaret Ross

Before all the pieces now not off path to vary into a secretary, Margaret Ross, a professor at Southampton Solent University, went on to create levels in arithmetic, which eventually led her to programming and computing.

Though semi-retired, alongside her work at Southampton Solent, Ross is all for the BCS in roles including as a member of council, chair of the Hampshire branch, and vice-chair of quality and e-finding out specialist groups, and is a section of BCSWomen.

In 2009, Ross changed into once awarded an MBE for products and providers to training.

Martha Lane Fox

Co-founder of Lastminute.com, serial entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox continues to promote the explanation for ladies folks and kind within the IT industry.

She also works for digital abilities parity and believes more must be performed to kind obvious the 12 million adults who can now not use the internet can influence even the most usual duties alive to in a digital future.

Lane Fox intends her Doteveryone carrying out – which she launched in the end of her speech at the 2015 Dimbleby Lecture – to behave as a platform to gas the discussion around startups, governments, gender and abilities.

A agency believer that the internet must be historical as an enabler for alternate, Lane Fox has historical her attach as chancellor for the Originate University, a member of the board of advisers for the Executive Digital Service (GDS), and crossbench study about within the House of Lords, to discuss out about the need for diversity and digital enablement.

Lane Fox is now a director at Twitter, having joined the agency’s board in 2016, and changed into once appointed a infamous fellow by the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, alongside Wendy Hall.

Max Benson and Karen Gill

Benson and Gill launched Everywoman in 1999 to behave as an online neighborhood for ladies folks across the UK and present a network, toughen and sources for ladies folks looking to initiate their hold companies.

The network eventually grew to toughen now not easiest female entrepreneurs, however also ladies folks in sectors a lot like retail, traipse, transport and logistics, and insurance coverage and risk.

In 2010, it expanded additional to cater to ladies folks within the technology sector, and Benson and Gill launched the Everywoman in Skills Awards to showcase the field’s characteristic fashions and shine a lightweight on the assorted kinds of roles and careers within the field.

As section of Everywoman, the pair launched the charity Novel Muse, a platform led by ladies to inspire youthful ladies folks into careers they could perchance perchance perchance also now not in every other case bear belief to be by giving them procure entry to to characteristic fashions and data about roles in various sectors.

Benson and Gill had been awarded MBEs in 2009 for products and providers to ladies folks’s enterprise.

Nicola Mendelsohn

Nicola Mendelsohn has been vice-president of Europe, Heart East and Africa operations at Facebook since 2013, where she focuses on boost areas within the internet page.

Apart from to her characteristic at Facebook, Mendelsohn is a chairperson for the Follicular Lymphoma Basis, non-executive director of consumer goods agency Diageo and co-president of charity Norwood.

Beforehand, she acted as industry chair of the Artistic Industries Council and a director of the Girls’s Prize for Fiction.

She has had a long profession in technology, moreover promoting and marketing in roles a lot like executive chairman and accomplice at the Karmarama promoting agency.

In 2015, she changed into once awarded a CBE for products and providers to the creative industry.

Sarah Picket

Picket based global promoting marketplace Unruly, where she changed into once CEO till 2015 when it changed into once bought by Data Corp.

She is the non-executive director of Signal AI, senior self sustaining director of Tech Nation, and is a industry mentor for The Hatchery at University College London.

Picket lately wrote a book, Stepping up: Easy guidelines on how to toddle up your management likely, which she describes as a profession instruction handbook for the millennial technology.

In 2016, she changed into once awarded an OBE for products and providers to technology and innovation. 

Sheila Flavell

A member of the tech sector for 30 years, Sheila Flavell changed into once appointed chief working officer of IT products and providers agency FDM Team in 2008, and is an executive board director of the agency where she spearheads FDM’s World Girls in Tech marketing campaign and FDM’s Getting Reduction to Commerce programme, aimed at providing alternatives for returners to work.

She is deputy president of TechUK, a chairperson for the Institute of Coding Commerce Advisory Board, and is continually known as to uncover authorities committees on various considerations, in particular around the digital abilities hole.

She won Leader of the twelve months at the Everywoman in Skills Awards in 2012, and in 2019 changed into once awarded a CBE for products and providers to gender equality in IT and the employment of graduates and returners.

Sherry Coutu

The 2017 winner of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Lady in UK Tech title, Coutu is a serial entrepreneur, having based or co-based companies a lot like Founders4Schools, Workfinder, the Scaleup Institute and Silicon Valley Involves the UK.

She is aloof alive to with a selection of those companies, is an angel investor, and sits on the boards of a number of companies, charities and universities.

Coutu is an self sustaining non-executive member of Pearson and the London Stock Commerce, and is director of Raspberry Pi Purchasing and selling and trustee of the Raspberry Pi Basis.

In 2013, she changed into once awarded an OBE for products and providers to entrepreneurship.

Stephanie ‘Steve’ Shirley

In 1962, Shirley developed a “instrument dwelling” for female freelance programmers, which eventually employed more than 8,000 folks and cleared the path for versatile working.

When she launched the agency, she began signing her title as “Steve” to beat male preconceptions about ladies folks in industry.

Shirley appears in each and each the Bletchley Park and California computing museums, changed into once the first female president of the BCS, a grasp of the Worshipful Company of Recordsdata Technologists, and co-based the Oxford Cyber internet Institute in 2001.

Sue Shadowy

In 2016, Shadowy launched her book Saving Bletchley Park, which little print her marketing campaign to cease the historical Bletchley Park from falling into disrepair.

In 2015, she changed into once awarded an OBE for her products and providers to technology, and is an outspoken advocate for guaranteeing more ladies folks and women take an passion in technology.

Shadowy for the time being acts because the founder and chief evangelist of the TechMums initiative, which goals to abet more kids into technology by guaranteeing mothers create self perception and abilities within the utilization of IT.

She also acts as a mentor for startups at Google Campus for Mums and an adviser for the UK’s Executive Digital Service (GDS).

Wendy Hall

Hall holds a number of positions at the University of Southampton, including professor of computer science and accomplice vice-president (international engagement), and is an executive director of the college’s Internet Science Institute.

Hall changed into once named a Dame CBE in 2009, and is a fellow of the Royal Society.

She has held a number of infamous positions within the STEM sector, including president of the ACM and senior vice-president of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Apart from to having been a member of the UK Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Skills, Hall changed into once co-chair of the UK authorities’s 2017 AI evaluation, and changed into once lately announced by the authorities because the first abilities champion for AI within the UK.