14 February, 2024

Democracy Manifest! Vote In The Women Leading Tech People’s Choice Award!

It is time to have YOUR say on the Women Leading Tech Awards for 2024 with voting for the People’s Choice Award open now!

The Women Leading Tech People’s Choice Award celebrates the industry’s glue — the people who introduce future colleagues, offer help when needed and are just all round good eggs.

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Last year’s winner, Holly Minucos, then CFO at Orchard, took home the award for her exceptional work retaining staff in her all-female team and championed internal hires within the company — getting two of her team promoted as a result. There is also a range of exceptional women who will be familiar to WLT readers — more on them below!

The first friend of WLT on the list is Nine’s chief product officer, Rebecca Haagsma. She told us last year about her transition from an editorial career to a tech career (she had even been the publisher of WLT sister site B&T many moons ago) and what still needs to change in the industry. She was also crowned B&T‘s Best of the Best Technologist last year.

“If I think about my own personal experience — it’s visibility. You can’t believe it unless you can see it. The abstract is harder to grasp. And secondly, more flexible approaches to work, which is in turn enabled in part by technology,” she explained.

Rebecca Haagsma

“Seeing – and hearing from – more women working in tech has a snowball effect that encourages more participation. I’ve got four daughters who have been through the school system and are now in the workforce, juggling motherhood and work, building careers and studying at uni (none in the STEM space though!) – I’ve seen the promotion of programmes and a focus on this at schools that didn’t exist when I went through school.”

Katrina Troughton is also on the list. As Adobe’s vice president & managing director, she is one of the most powerful people (let alone women) in the tech market. She spoke alongside WLT Woman of the Year Megan Dalla-Camina and Tatia Rashid, our Data Scientist winner from last year at the super-exclusive WLT Alumni Breakfast in August.

She told the crowd how leaders early in her career made her feel empowered and how it has informed her leadership style to this day.

“I was a new graduate who had come into the business and there were older, more experienced men ‘leading’ the discussion, as you can imagine,” she said.

Katrina Troughton, Adobe, speaking on stage

Katrina Troughton (centre)

“The managing director said, ‘Now, this is a roundtable for everyone and, Katrina, I’m going to come back to you in a second because I’d like to hear your opinion.’ At the time, I remember thinking ‘Oh my gosh, that means I have to have an opinion.’

“But it was a really clever way of doing it because I had a few seconds to stop my heart beating out of my chest. But ever since, I’ve been really aware of that.”

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Azadeh Khojandi, engineering manager at The Trade Desk, is also on the list. Khojandi, as she has previously told WLT, has one of the most remarkable stories in the technology industry.

“I grew up in a country where there is systematic discrimination against women, it’s the law, there are salary differences. I then came to a country where you could see the gap is smaller and it’s not systematic, it’s just a matter of bias,” she told WLT.

“In Iran, you don’t have much say. You cannot raise your voice, you cannot speak up. Whenever you get the opportunity, and I’ve been in the situation when I was in the protests [after the 2009 Iranian presidential election] you put your life on the line,” she added.

“There were snipers everywhere from the government and they were shooting people. I have been in those demonstrations because I care about freedom, I care about freedom of speech, I do care about everyone.”

Azadeh Khojandi winning the Tech category award at the B&T Women in Media Awards.

Azadeh Khojandi collecting the Tech category award at the B&T Women in Media Awards.

Her namesake, Azadeh Williams, managing director of AZK Media has also joined the chase for the People’s Choice trophy.

“I remember becoming increasingly anxious about [pitching for business]. Not because of the business. I knew our Agency could win, but knowing the ‘biased feeling,’ I’d be subjected to,” she told B&T.

Azadeh Williams, founder and managing director of AZK Media

Azadeh Williams, founder and managing director, AZK Media

“Knowing the first question the prospect would ask would be something along the lines of ‘where is your name from?’ Knowing that I wouldn’t be subjected to this barrage of irrelevant questioning if I were an Anglo-Celtic white male.”

Irene Kurniawan, senior manager, technical operations at Magnite is another popular name on the list. Having spent more than 10 years at Magnite and serving on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Standards & Guidelines Council, she is one of the most well-known and liked faces in digital advertising.

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