Azuraye Williams | Transform Trust
I am a focused and driven assistant headteacher with a passion for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.
I am values-driven and always aim to have high standards whilst also amplifying those around me. My main aim is to support others and to help everyone in education to feel seen, represented and to gain a true sense of belonging within their education setting. Within my role, I lead multiple teams, provide support, share my knowledge and provide guidance to my fellow colleagues.
I am also the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging lead for my Multi Academy Trust of 19 schools. Within this role, I provide CPD for leadership teams, teachers and non-teaching staff members. I guide schools through the review of their equality objectives and provide coaching opportunities. I have also presented at educational conferences for ECTs and trainee teachers.
I value my high expectations and communication skills to lead teams across my trust to progress within their DEI journey. I aim to build professional relationships with everyone in school to ensure I gain the trust and respect from everyone I work with. As a result, I am able to guide, empower and support others around me.
I am also an ECT mentor within my school. I work closely with our ECTs to create strategic vision plans to aid their own development path. I believe in a collaborative approach to allow each teacher to reach their full potential and to develop into a responsive and reflective practitioner.
Sonal Dhulashia | Mazars
Sonal is responsible for setting and operationalising the UK’s ID&W strategy at Mazars in the UK.
Prior to joining Mazars Sonal worked in various HR roles with major retailers including Argos and Sainsbury, as well as for Nabarro now CMS, an international law firm. Sonal has the ability to utilise commercial HR experience to drive workplace culture change. Sonal has a Law degree and is a fully qualified member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Cheyenne Clark | Zone
Cheyenne graduated from sixth form college in 2019 with A levels in ICT, German and English Literature and Language.
She joined Zone’s first apprenticeship scheme at the end of 2019 after switching over from her part-time job, which included interior designing with 3D technology as well as selling products to customers.
As one of three apprentices - and the first female apprentice - at Zone, Cheyenne spent 18 months completing multiple projects to go towards her apprenticeship portfolio, including a Content Editor Toggle with JavaScript, React, HTML and CSS and a CRUD application using C#, MySQL and GitHub GraphQL API. Cheyenne completed two exams and was awarded certificates in BCS Level 4 Diploma in Software Development Methodologies and HTML5 Application Development Fundamentals. Alongside this, Cheyenne took responsibility for client work with Genomics England and BMW. She now has a level 4 Software Developer qualification.
For Genomics England, Cheyenne worked in an agile method to build a new system for the NHS to find and order genetic tests for patients. Currently, Cheyenne takes leadership of building and maintaining emails that are sent out by the 150+ BMW and MINI retailers in the UK. She also builds digital display banners for BMW and MINI, that are seen by millions of people on websites including Gumtree and The Daily Mail, and Rolls Royce that are shared in the UK and across the globe.
Cheyenne has used her own experiences and knowledge to help others entering the industry: sharing her story with new Zone apprentices, being a first-time interviewer for four candidates of the next apprenticeship programme and recently being invited back to her college to deliver a talk at their Digital Futures Conference Event.
She has written several blog posts for Medium and LinkedIn on her experiences at Zone. Cheyenne volunteered to organise, plan and present a live-streamed YouTube talk as part of the Code First Girls MOOC series on behalf of Zone and taught over 300 women to code for free. Cheyenne was also involved in a roundtable discussion for Zone’s Women in Digital network discussing her experience with mentoring and providing valuable advice. The event has been promoted on Zone’s marketing channels with over 28,000 subscriptions. Cheyenne has been an active advocate for Google’s I Am Remarkable initiative within the company to empower her colleagues.
Sarah Slack | Homes England
After a brief spell working in retail when I left school at 16 I have always worked in the public sector and my desire to provide better public services that meet the needs of users and offer real value for money has kept me here for nearly 30 years.
I love learning and over the years I have always been the first to volunteer for new opportunities or to increase my skillset and that is how i came to move into the Digital sector back in 2012. This move saw me not only get closer to users but also start to progress my career as a leader. Sometimes i would find myself as the only woman in the room and this has ignited my passion for ensuring we have diverse and inclusive teams and ensuring I use my position to provide woman a platform to amplify their voices.
Georgia Mantzana | London Borough of Havering
When I came across human-centred design, back in my days working in product marketing, I thought I had discovered the best thing, and that was when I had 'my eureka moment'.
'This stuff is amazing!' 'It's all about people!' And it was. And it still is. And I never looked back. It became a way of life.
From product marketing manager leading organisations to establish brand equity and building, managing and implementing growth plans across FMCG, business intelligence, startup and education management sectors, to a User Experience (UX) Designer, I found my passion in human-centred design and technology. I am currently a Senior User Experience (UX) Designer, Consultant working for a leading local authority in the Transformation and Digital Portfolio team focusing on human-centred service design tying together human, digital, and physical interactions to create a truly differentiated experience for the public good. I am passionate about using systems and service design practices to unpack complex social problems and develop shared inclusive and sustainable solutions.
Originally from a small provincial town in Greece, my sisters and I were the first in our family to attend university; that resulted from our mother's determination and belief in our abilities to achieve our goals and create a better future. A strong leader figure, independent and influential woman, she became my role model and inspired me to strive for success in every aspect of life after losing my father at a very young age. Naturally, being someone with great ambition and big dreams, I was curious to explore the world, learn about other cultures and speak different languages. I had the opportunity to work and study across Greece, UK, Singapore and Switzerland and travelled to over 30 countries.
I earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of West Attica, Athens, Greece and a Master of Science degree from Aberystwyth University, UK. Also, I have completed specialised courses in Strategic Marketing at the National University of Singapore and a UX Design Immersive programme at the General Assembly in London.
I am a speaker at industry events, a mentor at WomenTech Network, ADPList and Women in Tech Global Movement, and a volunteer at Action for Children and Make A Wish. Through my story and experiences, I aim to empower women in design and technology regardless of their background. I believe in the humanisation of technology through design to generate security, naturalness, and transparency in people's lives and making a global impact.
Adetola Shasanya | PepsiCo
I’m a growth marketing strategist with functional expertise in eCommerce and performance marketing in tech.
I currently lead the eCommerce Performance marketing function in PepsiCo UK for the B2B business. Prior to this I led the Amazon growth strategy for PepsiCo and before that led marketing for the direct to consumer business.
Prior to joining PepsiCo, I worked at Amazon leading growth strategy for a machine learning led fashion shopping product – The first of its kind. I grew Fashion Fix in the UK and expanded its launch to Germany. Whilst at Amazon I also launched Amazon’s own clothing brand in 5 countries in the UK.
Before transitioning to working in tech, I began my career in Financial Services with a brief stint leading digital marketing at a London based start up.
Karamjot Jaswal | IBM
After achieving a First-Class Honours in Information Technology Management for Business at university, I joined IBM’s Consulting Graduate Programme in 2019, where I have grown my consulting skills as well as immerse myself in key IBM technologies such as Curam Social Programme Management and IBM Maximo which I can apply to client projects that I am a part of!
I rose to the challenge of upskilling myself in these applications and consequently have become a subject matter expert.
Outside of client work, I am a Strong Diversity & Inclusion Advocate and strive for an inclusive environment within IBM UK and my current project, analysing the diverse breakdown of the account to create new initiatives in order to grow the team and increase the skill set and creativity of the account with a wider range of backgrounds and views following my role within IBM UK's Diversity and Inclusion group, Emb(race) where I led the Talent Attract Workstream which contains over 700 members, including initiatives to attract a more diverse pipeline of talent to IBM such as recruiting and supplying IBM Mentors of diverse backgrounds to the award winning P-Tech Programme which helps students from low socio-economic backgrounds with extra-curricular subjects and learning about career paths.
Externally, I am passionate about raising awareness around mental health. After my personal trauma at the end of my university degree, I created a social media platform on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/transforming_trauma)to support those who have also experienced trauma and anxiety! It’s following has grown immensely, gaining over 1,400 followers and the attention from a Hollywood actor as well as helping a lot of people and breaking the stigma around mental health! Through my efforts and impact around mental health, I was awarded the ‘Wellbeing Award’ from IBM’s Graduate Programme.
Olive Enokido-Lineham | Sky News
Olive Enokido-Lineham is a 23-year-old online news reporter at Sky News.
After working at the channel in TV for nine months she moved to the website where she writes a combination of news stories from around the world. During her time in TV, she was responsible for the on-air text on the Sky News channel and it's breaking news Twitter account which has just under 5 million followers.
Having graduated from university in 2020 during the pandemic, Olive has worked as freelance, in radio and online. Her stories often focus on social affairs.
As a young journalist, she also mentors university students interested in journalism in her free time and hopes to help improve access and diversity in the industry.
Julie Jones | Sopro
My name is Julie Alves Jones, I have both British and Brazilian nationalities, and I am passionate about learning, growing and helping others grow.
In 2009 I studied in the Littlehampton Academy School, and back in Brazil a few years later I got into the Federal University of Pernambuco, the best University in the State of Pernambuco, in which I graduated in the 4 years long course of Advertisement. I also graduated in Marketing in a private university, with a partial scholarship due to my grades, as well as having studied design for a year.
I have a post graduation in strategic management for businesses, and I am currently doing my second post graduation in coaching and people management.
I started my first business still during university, in which I managed advertisement campaigns for small companies in Brazil, with the ambition to help the local economy and drive growth in the local market. I also worked for two of the biggest companies in the state, Odebrecht and Fiepe, where I organised events and created online and offline marketing strategies.
In Brazil, I also volunteered for a charity that helped local children - creating marketing strategies to drive donations.
I moved to the UK in 2019, and started working for Sopro - a company with a truly inspiring culture that helps businesses generate revenue. As a Team Leader at Sopro, I love being able to help teams and push for innovation.
Apart from Marketing and Client Services, my passions include photography, webdesign and literature. I love learning and I believe that everything that was created can be learnt. There are no limits when we combine effort and motivation to achieve our goals.
Maeva Vinet | Santander
I’m a Senior Innovation Consultant at Santander Technology, and I have spent a career pushing for more female representation in leadership positions in the tech space.
I grew up living in a bubble where women ruled the world! I lived in an all-female household with my mum and sister, and I went to an all-girl secondary school. I performed around Europe with the school choir, raised thousands for charity, started a nail art business as part of Young Enterprise and went on to be elected as Head Girl. I loved it and I thrived! At university I really struggled. I began to experience the unique challenges that females face in the professional arena. It was from that point onwards that a fire was lit inside me to promote more inclusive environments for females to thrive.
I began my career in HR, where I spent a year as an intern leading the talent programme at HSBC in Chile. During my time at HSBC Chile, I made good friends with a colleague, Manuel Fernandez, who led the IT department. From that moment on, I felt a pull toward the financial technology space, and I wanted to be a part of it.
After earning my degree in International Business from Warwick Business School, I joined Santander Technology in 2016 in the Payments department as an IT Business Analyst, where I was coached and sponsored by a fantastic female leader, Liz Barnes. Since then, I have gained experience in many functional areas within the bank, and I have driven the development of several projects ranging from defining the functional architecture of mobile app features to project managing the development of an asset management tool. During my career, I was also honoured to be placed on secondment with Pay.UK, the UK’s retail payment authority, for a pioneering payments initiative in collaboration with other CMA-9 banks. This was a career highlight for me and boosted my exposure within the industry.
Following on from a successful run as a Business Analyst, in 2017 I decided to qualify as a Scrum Master. In my 4 years as a Scrum Master I have successfully formed, led, and coached software developments teams to deliver better products through improved customer feedback mechanisms and reduced the time to market by encouraging small incremental releases.
Today, I am proud to work in Santander’s Innovation function on one of the banks top priority digital transformation projects where I report directly to senior leadership.