We’ll keep you updated with the latest festival news, speaker announcements and promotions!.
At the event you'll:
Are you ready to change your thinking? Will you disrupt or be disrupted?
An opportunity to meet like-minded women working in technology and share knowledge and experience
A great place to meet like minded women, learn from inspirational speakers and feel part of a supportive community
The online festival was such a blend of insightful and inspiring speakers as well as providing tangible concepts to push my technology projects further.
What a gift to be able to hear amazing stories from all over the world — stories I wouldn't be able to hear if this wasn't held virtually.
Uplifting, inspirational, motivating.
The online festival was such a blend of insightful and inspiring speakers as well as providing tangible concepts to push my technology projects further.
Be Inspired
Our leading speakers have been hand picked for their knowledge, their positive contribution to the tech sector and their passion for advocating for change. Hear from the world’s most successful companies, be inspired, empowered and advance change.
Expand Your Network
Discover connections that can elevate your career. Connect with like-minded professionals and companies across a multitude of networking opportunities. Utilise our hiring hub, virtual meetups, arrange 1-2-1 calls and engage in progressive conversations with some of the greatest minds globally.
Elevate Yourself
New environments demand new skills and have set a mandate for essential learning and development. Find your motivation to learn new skills, invest in your development and discover your true potential.
Unlock Growth
To stay competitive in this accelerated tech sector requires understanding and application of new strategies and practices. Discover tangible insight on how you can transform yourself, your team or organisation to stay ahead of the curve.
Chief International Officer @ Headspace
Susan is a strategic, dynamic, results-driven executive with over 30 years of success in Business and Technology roles. During her 22 year tenure at Johnson & Johnson, she is known for critical thinking, authenticity and agility across the Pharmaceutical, Medical Device, and Consumer sectors, guiding marketing, strategy, innovation and technology. Susan is currently responsible for corporate technology solutions around the world. Prior roles include VP of Sales, Strategy & Commercialization for Health & Wellness, Worldwide VP of Transfusion Medicine, Worldwide VP for the $2.4B JOHNSONS® Baby business and several pharmaceutical marketing roles.
Prior to joining J&J, Susan was Marketing Director at Nabisco Biscuit Company and a Private Banker at Chase Manhattan Bank. Susan holds a B.A. in Economics and German from Duke University and a M.B.A. in Marketing and Finance from the Wharton School. Susan is an “experience chaser” who loves to travel, explore and try new things. She lives in NJ with her daughter and dogs.
As an experienced and skilled marketer, sales, and people leader, Shimona is focused on shaping the future of commerce by overseeing Shopify’s innovative commerce platform that enables high-growth and high-volume brands, like Gymshark, Huel, AllBirds, and Heinz. Before Shopify, Shimona held senior roles at various software, FMCG, and consumer research companies in Canada and Europe.
A Fun Fact: I began my career in marketing, working for a chicken company!
Anita Rao has 15+ years of experience in various Product, Data, Business, Operations, and Technology leadership roles across the Hi-Tech, Financial Services, and Payment Cards industries. She is currently at PayPal where she has led Product and Engineering Teams that delivered data products via platforms. Before that, at eBay Inc. Anita was the Chief Product Owner for Global Platform Services that included 24 SaaS and Big Data Platforms. She was also the Vice President and Head of Global Finance Systems at Visa Inc. Anita has also held senior roles at Garage Technology Ventures, and Oracle. She earned an M.B.A. from Rutgers University and is a Six Sigma Black Belt. From UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, she did the Executive Education Program. She has five patents pending in the Data realm.
Leigh is Chief of Staff for Microsoft’s Worldwide Public Sector (WWPS) organization, supporting public sector clients in their cloud adoption and digital transformation journey.
She joined Microsoft’s Public Sector team from the Microsoft Office of Responsible AI. In this role she drove implementation of responsible AI across the company. This included companywide implementation strategy and planning for engineering and in-country teams and the Worldwide Responsible AI Champs program.
Leigh is a seasoned leader, business strategist and communications expert. She has over 20 years as a change agent, driving adoption of new technologies and launching new products, including a deep focus on technology equity gaps in marginalized communities. She is passionate about innovative digital approaches to technology, that positively benefit people's lives and societal overall.
Bode is the Chief Operating Officer at Flutterwave. She is responsible for managing the operations of the organization including strategy implementation, organizational performance and ensuring the company meets its overall goals and objectives.
Prior to joining Flutterwave, Bode worked as an Associate Director in KPMG Professional service. Her experience covers customer advisory, development of strategy plans and models for financial institutions and organisations as well as proposing various ways to scale, improve efficiency and profits. Bode has over 18 years of experience.
Ciara O’Connell is currently Head of Novartis Global Service Center (NGSC) Dublin and Head NBS CONEXTS Ireland. NGSC Dublin is one of Novartis' five strategic capability centers. NBS CONEXTS is the NBS domain that delivers commercial, medical and legal & compliance advisory services to the Novartis enterprise.
Kate is currently Head of Emerging Areas at NVIDIA where she oversees ecosystem, strategic alliances and developer relations for emerging markets, segments and use cases. She works closely with partners and influencers to create disruptive AI applications with a social impact and aims to build a truly global and inclusive AI community.
Prior to NVIDIA, Kate spent close to a decade at various semiconductor companies holding product, ecosystem and business positions in AI, computer vision, and IoT.
A D&I and mentorship advocate, she often mentor teens on career development and startups on tech & business. She regularly advises international organizations on the power of AI to drive social good, speaking at conferences for WEF, UNECA, UNICEF and Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data.
Kate has won multiple accolades throughout her career, including Business Insider Top 100 Business Transformers 2020 and VentureBeat Women in AI Rising Star 2020.
Fun fact
Kate enjoys learning new languages and currently speaks French, English, Spanish, Sango, Japanese and Korean
Joining Mercedes-Benz Turkey in 2002, Dr. Demet Karaali has held a series of increasingly expanding positions, including Executive Assistant to CEO & President, Head of IT for sales, aftersales and retail and CIO of Mercedes-Benz Cars and Vans Turkey.
Since 2010, Dr. Demet Karaali has been a leader in information technology management with a focus on the digitalization. As CIO of Mercedes-Benz Cars and Vans Turkey, Dr. Karaali manages all IT aspects of sales, aftersales, marketing and retail in MB Cars, Vans Turkey and providing various IT services throughout Istanbul to global Daimler locations. Dr. Karaali provides leadership for the continued development of an innovative, robust, and secure information technology environment throughout the company. Under her leadership, IT in Turkey has consistently earned recognition and awards for achievements.
Dr. Karaali received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Technical University of Istanbul and completed her Phd at the same university in Industrial Engineering. She has completed numerous executive leadership and management training programs during her career.
Heather Miller serves as Chief Transformation Officer at ServiceNow. She has held technology VP/SVP/CIO leadership roles for several Fortune 100 companies including The Coca-Cola Company, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Bank of America and GE.
She a global technology executive, with strong business acumen adept at planning and executing complex, innovative, secure, cloud based digital transformations.
Prior to joining ServiceNow, Heather served as Enterprise VP of Technology Strategy and Portfolio for McKesson. Heather has transformation experience modernizing legacy tech stacks with SaaS and cloud solutions, integrating acquisitions, leading Agile and delivery teams, and supporting infrastructure and operations. She
also led digital transformation strategy, execution and post- breach remediation efforts for the International business at Equifax.
Heather graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and minor in German from North Carolina State University and she holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a certified Black Belt.
Julie Chapman has spent over 22 years in the technology industry, specializing in retail. She joined Entain in 2019 as the Retail IT Delivery Director, accountable for the technology in retail bands, Coral and Ladbrokes, covering more than 2,500 shops. In July 2020, Julie Chapman was promoted to Retail CTO, accountable for all retail technology across Entain and creating the retail technology blueprint that is deployed globally.
Julie brought new ideas to Entain, championing diversity and inclusion in the gaming industry. At Entain, Julie pioneered listening groups across the division to understand the challenges experienced by colleagues and produced a strategy around diversity and inclusion. The core of this strategy is creating a welcoming environment, where colleagues are valued for their skills and a three-pronged approach to elevating women within the department centered around attracting female talent to Entain, supporting female employees, and developing initiatives to retain that talent.
A Fun Fact:
Before Julie started in technology I was a ski instructor and still love skiing
As Chief Information Officer for Clark County, the largest county in the State of Nevada with more than 2.4 million residents, 45 million annual visitors and an $8 billion budget, Nadia spearheads the technology innovation,
strategy and delivers mission-critical services for the organization. She has established Clark County as an
innovation and technology hub for startups and budding businesses and is a key driver in engaging regional
Dr. Jess Evans serves as the Chief Operating & Digital Transformation Officer and Interim Chief Security Officer within the University Technology Office (UTO) at ASU. In her role within UTO Jess aligns with fellow UTO senior executive leadership and executive leadership across ASU to help advance the mission of the university. The ODT portfolio spans across many UTO departments to include all Cloud and Advanced Network Engineering Services (CANES), Strategic Implementation Office (SIO), Experience Center and Learning Space Services (ECLS), IT Service Transformation (IST), Engagement and Consulting Services (ECS), and the Strategic Finance and Business Office (SFBO). Through a transparent and collaborative approach to servant leadership, Jess works with her team to advance the mission of the University. The ODT team provides services that include all network, server, storage, data center, public and private cloud services, identity and access management, enterprise architecture, enterprise systems, project and portfolio management, experience center (help center), desk-side services, customer engagement teams, training and event services, instructional design, classroom support, new construction design, all budget and HR within UTO, and UTO service management systems.
Prior to joining ASU, Jess has a proven track record as a senior information technology executive with strong global and regional experiences within multiple sectors like finance/insurance, consulting, and education/healthcare. A recognized technology executive known for designing and enabling the strategic vision to achieve operational goals, Jess offers a unique blend of executive acumen, global leadership, and technology solution development contributing to a successful record of accomplishment through operational improvements and increased efficiency. Jess is an executive that is passionate about transformational change, agile methods, design implementation and execution. Jess achieves her operational successes with key enablers within technology adoption, design innovation, design modeling and data science experience, which shape and guide the implementation of strategic initiatives. Working in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors, Jess provides a unique lens to innovation and change.
Jess is also a recognized scholar and research fellow that specializes in design thinking, quantitative methods, structural equation modeling, knowledge structures, credible leadership and leadership effectiveness.
Beth leads the Data Science Team at Roku. The team develops automated algorithms that provide business value, particularly in newer areas where there is high uncertainty.
Beth is a seasoned Data Scientist and leader with 20+ years of experience in a variety of big data fields: advertising, speech, music, biology and medical. She has over 30 publications and 11 issued patents.
Fun Fact:
Beth loves being outside and can often be found walking or running in Boston or hiking in New England.
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