Editorial

Celebrating brilliant ‘Women in Digital’

On International Women’s Day we wanted to share again the list of brilliant female leaders that we have featured in our ‘Women in Digital’ series

Posted 8 March 2023 by Matt Stanley


In June 2020, Think Digital Partners launched its interview series focusing on the career journeys of some of the leading women in tech based roles from the public and private sector. Our first ‘Women in Digital’ interview was with Cheryl Stevens, director of shared channel services at DWP Digital, who regularly speaks at our conferences and works with us on digital content.

Julia Glidden

To date we have published 61 of these interviews and are working on more for the coming months. The interviews provide great insight into part of the career journeys, experiences and challenges faced by some great tech leaders. The levels of engagement for this feature have been huge with most interviews being read at least 3,000 times.

Our most read interview was with Julia Glidden the VP for global public sector at Microsoft with over 30,000 people viewing her interview. We recently asked Julia why she felt it was important for her and leaders like her to share their stories. “Despite all the gains female leaders have made in the workplace, for all too familiar reasons, serious challenges and obstacles remain.  ‘Women in Digital’ immediately caught and captured my attention for the simple reason that the chance to hear from colleagues candidly sharing their own stories made me feel  less alone and, more importantly, more determined than ever to help create a better workplace for tomorrow’s generation.”

Below is a list of all the interviews that we have run to date in this series. The job titles and organisations of those featured may no longer be current but were correct at the time of the interview.

Irra Ariella Khi, CEO at Zamna 

Galina Antova, co-founder at Claroty

Rayissa Armata, head of regulatory affairs at IDnow

Andrea Babbs, head of sales for VIPRE Security

Colette Ballou, founder and chairman of tech agency Ballou

Liron Barak, CEO and co-founder of BitDam 

Laura Barrowcliff, head of strategy GBG

Kate Bolseth, CEO at HelpSystems

Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK

Susanne Campbell, client director,central government services at Sopra Steria

Tracy Cunningham, channel manager Scotland at Check Point

Kate Dadlani, head of security advisory services at Logicalis UKI 

Julie Dawson, director of policy and regulatory at Yoti

Nicki Farrell, alliances director, culture/CSR lead at Ascent 

Louella Fernandes, director of Quocirca

Seshika Fernando, VP and head of BFSI at WSO2

Amanda Finch, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec)

Tracey Follows, founder and futurist at Futuremade

Céline Gajnik, global marketing director at ThreatQuotient

Dr Laura Gilbert, chief analyst, director of data science at 10 Downing Street

Julia Glidden, VP worldwide public sector at Microsoft

Alexa Greaves, founder and CEO at AAG IT Services

Jameeka Green Aaron, CISO at Auth0

Franki Hackett, head of audit and ethics at Engine B

Christine Hart, chief delivery officer at Meddbase, 

Cindi Howson, chief data strategy officer at ThoughtSpot

Samantha Humphries, senior security strategist at Exabeam

Sarah Hurrell, managing director of Radical Edge

Gillian Jones, senior business development manager at Condatis

Nadia Kadhim, CEO and co-founder at Naq Cyber

Helen Kelisky, UKI MD at Google Cloud

Seema Khinda Johnson, co-founder and COO at Nuggets

Rhiannon Lawson, head of standards at the Centre for Digital Public Services, Wales

Erika Lewis, director, cyber security and digital identity at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Yuelin Li, VP strategy at Onfido

Eve Maler, CTO at ForgeRock

Sharon Mandell, SVP and CIO at Juniper Networks

Rosalie Marshall, Strategy Lead, Home Office Digital Data and Technology (DDAT) 

Emma Maslen, VP and general manager for EMEA at Ping Identity

Roisin McCarthy, founder, Women in Data

Cathryn Miller, head of public sector UK at Rubrik

Hayley Mooney, UK MD at Crayon

Gemma Moore, co-founder of Cyberis

Margaret Moore, director citizen & devolved government services, Sopra Steria

Susan Morrow, head of R&D at Avoco Secure

Niamh Muldoon, senior director of trust and security at OneLogin

Olivia Neal, director of Microsoft’s Public Sector Center of Expertise

Amy Newton, co-founder of the Manchester Tech Festival

Julie Pierce, director of openness, data and digital at the Food Standards Agency

Melissa Puls, CMO at Ivanti

Christa Quarles, CEO of Alludo

Hannah Rutter, deputy director for digital identity and secure connected places at DCMS

Cheryl Stevens, MBE, director for shared channels experience at the DWP Digital Group

Mariane ter Veen, director, lead data sharing and public services at Innopay

Sharon Trachtman, chief operations officer at Radware

Lisa Ventura, founder of Cyber Security Unity

Helen Wall, Head of National Transformation, International & Research Group, Government Digital Service

Anna Webb, head of security operations at Kocho

Nicky Whiting, director of consultancy at Defense.com

Pauline Yau, public sector director at HPE

Elisabetta Zaccaria, founder of Secure Chorus

New Women in Digital interviews will be published throughout 2023 and beyond.