Caryn Tan | Accenture
Caryn is a key leader in Accenture's Responsible AI practice, a revolutionary practice creating practical applications of AI that incorporate mitigating ethical and social concerns of this technology.
She works with Accenture’s major regions to build capabilities to responsibly handle AI deployments, and trains leaders globally through intensive two-day workshops. She established and maintains a vibrant global community who are enthusiastically advancing the work.
She is also an active and enthusiastic member of the Serpentine swimming club where she swims in 3 degree waters during winter as part of her meditation practice. She is a trained 200 hour yoga teacher and is currently on a year-long nonviolent communication course based on Marshall Rosenberg’s book on integrating consciousness, language and communication.
Rahma Javed | Deliveroo
Rahma leads the Restaurants group at Deliveroo, a European tech unicorn.
Originally from Canada, Rahma is a computer engineering graduate from the University of Toronto who has worked in startups as well as tech giants including Microsoft, IBM, and Blackberry across locations including Toronto, Seattle, and Silicon Valley. She moved to London two years ago after securing the Tier 1 UK Top Talent visa.
Rahma’s team currently focuses on building technology to help Deliveroo become the preferred partner for its restaurants and driving growth and profitability for them. Her previous focus was building products in the financial advisory space at Wealthfront such as the 529 College Savings Plan as well as the Portfolio Line of Credit. Rahma has diverse and global experience across America, Canada, and UK in building and managing teams.
Championing Diversity and Education
Championing diversity in the workplace and encouraging women into STEM careers is a clear passion for Rahma. She takes an active role to speak at schools and conferences along with mentoring young talent from underprivileged backgrounds. Her most significant career accomplishment was leading a college savings product that allows individuals to invest and secure their child’s college education.
Tech Advisor
Rahma is an active member of the tech communities across the world as she advises various companies on using technology to advance their mission. She sits on the board of Charity Right UK whose aim is to provide regular meals to school children from underprivileged households to allow them to focus on education. Additionally, Rahma sits on the board of FactMata whose aim is to eliminate biased, hateful and misleading content on the internet and Mammalo whose aim is to provide affordable services delivered to your door.
First Generation Immigrant
Rahma’s passion for promoting diversity, gender balance, and empowering young minds with education stems from being a first-generation immigrant herself whose parents moved from Pakistan to Canada in hopes of a better future. She has faced issues in the workplace and the larger society that stems from a lack of diversity and empathy. She wants to be the role model for others that she never had and use her position to promote a more inclusive world.
Anastasiya Kizima | Barclays
Originally from Ukraine, Anastasiya immigrated to New York with her family and started her full time career at 17 when she began working in FX trading operations of Merrill Lynch in New York while also attending full-time University to earn her bachelors degree in Finance.
Upon graduation, she out a Business Development and strategy role within a travel startup in Italy, which brought her to over 15 countries in Europe through this work. After some time with the startup, she deiced to return to New York in order to have a bigger impact and develop her skills further. Anastasiya then joined Moody’s Corporation and worked on developing and delivering new company-wide systems. She acted as the key liaison between the technology and business area teams. At the same time, she devoted a great deal of her time to volunteering with the World Trade Center rebuilding efforts and several non-profit organizations aimed at development of inner city youth, which she considers instrumental in city’s development.
In 2016 Anastasiya was accepted to University of Oxford and moved to UK to pursue her MBA degree, focusing on Strategy and Entrepreneurship. Upon graduation she joined Barclays, where she has been promoted into her current role as Vice President in Innovation. In this role, Anastasiya works closely with entrepreneurs, technology teams and senior leadership within the bank. She is responsible for the Barclays UK portfolio of innovative projects and works closely with business to understand specific needs and problems to define, project manage and execute various proof of concepts and pilot project to deliver strategic solutions into the bank.
Anastasiya and her team establish a vital bridge that enables rapid change and idea generation as well as a valuable connection into the external world of financial technology. Additionally, Anastasiya also volunteers within sustainability initiatives, programs supporting girls in STEM and is on a core team that is creating an impact investment fund in her spare time.
Heather Delaney | Gallium Ventures
Unlike others within the industry, my career has not taken the traditional path. I was born in Silicon Valley, where technology was everywhere, and fell into the PR and marketing industry.
I soon discovered I thoroughly enjoyed building and fixing, which meant helping companies outside of the PR and instead helping with product development, packaging design, full company and product strategy, exits, and funding. The PR and marketing could only be done when the story is good and the product is great. Hence me coming in earlier.
I have worked with some of the worlds largest brands building award winning products and campaigns down to startups I built from the ground up and guided their teams to success.
Nerissa Arviana Prawiro | Goldman Sachs
Nerissa is a User Experience (UX) designer, passionate about pushing boundaries to create innovative solutions to societal problems.
Originally from Indonesia, Nerissa grew up surrounded by the cultural heritage of arts and handicrafts where tradition and innovations are merged seamlessly, often resulting in ingenious solutions to everyday problems. Inspired by how locals in lesser developed areas create with very limited resources to produce sustainable solutions that are honest to their functions and bare necessity, she has developed a deep-rooted passion in product design, and specifically design and tech for social good.
Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Nerissa explored her interest in tech for good through projects at university, ranging from designing a wearable tech device that reduces tremors in patients with Parkinson’s disease, to developing a smart renal diet kit that helps chronic kidney disease sufferers adhere to their prescribed micro/macro nutrients intake. It was through her internship and industrial placement in Mattel and F.A Porsche where she learnt about the fine art of designing for the consumer market, mass manufacturing of commercial designs and the key to successful designs: placing users first.
At Goldman Sachs, Nerissa works as an internal UX design consultant, focused on designing user-centred, transformative solutions to solve complex enterprise problems, and improving the workflow and interactions of data-rich applications for different business areas of the firm. Having trained as an industrial designer, and through her previous design experience, she approaches UX problems as if they are engineering puzzles, tackling them through an iterative process of user-centred research and development. Whether it is designing digital products that help with efficiency gains and ultimately an increase in ROI, or designing tangible products for social good, design thinking has been key to how Nerissa create solutions.
Nikita Dattani | Bloomberg
During the final year of my Mathematics BSc, I was torn between further study and taking steps towards a starting a sound career path.
After much deliberation, I concluded that a worthy compromise would be to pursue further study in a subject matter which would allow me to develop applicable and transferrable skills beneficial in the workplace, leading me to take on the challenge of a Masters in Banking & Finance.
After achieving a high 2:1 BSc (Hons) and Distinction (Hons), respectively in both courses, I started my career at EY in 2011. I joined the Audit and Assurance graduate training programme specialising in Telecoms, Media and Technology. It was here that I came to the realisation that pursuing a career in finance and technology was more suited to me, resulting in my application to Bloomberg.
At Bloomberg, I started in the Analytics department in January 2013. I very quickly qualified as a Fixed Income specialist and took a role as an Account Manager within our Core Sales department covering Fixed Income agency brokers. Here I brought efficiencies to these firm’s workflows on a desktop and enterprise level, allowing them to trade and analyse the markets with increased productivity. As I developed a deeper understanding of my client’s businesses and the challenges they faced, I became a trusted figure with whom they would liaise in order to ensure they could develop and adapt to the ever-changing market and regulatory environment. During 2017, I worked tirelessly with my clients to ensure they could meet the rigorous demands of MiFID II. As a firm, Bloomberg was able to provide technological and regulatory solutions allowing firms to continue trading within the new regulatory framework due to take effect on 3rd Jan 2018. I was able to form partnerships with many of my clients through specialist meetings, roundtables, technical stack analysis and proposals leading to a very successful year all round.
Last year, I was promoted to Relationship Manager covering a wider range of clients across asset classes. I am an advocate for our Fixed Income Trade Order Management system and a mentor to a number of junior Account Managers working with me. During my time at Bloomberg, I have gained a great deal of knowledge both technically and in terms of soft skills leaving me in good stead for future leadership roles. I have enjoyed developing junior individuals working with me, sharing my own experiences to better their own career development and provide successes within their roles. In the near future, I hope to continue my professional development through taking on larger scale projects, keeping up to date with market changes and driving change within our business. I would also like to continue to give back to the Company by continuing to develop juniors around me and also by making more of an impact on a community wide basis for women and ethic minorities.
Aisha Lewis | Nationwide Building Society
My name is Aisha, don’t worry if you can’t pronounce it – it’s all love. What a pleasure to be nominated and share my story with you.
I am an innovative transformer with experience of solving complex issues and constantly challenging the status quo. My award winning delivery across a variety of portfolios include; culture transformation, branch & IT transformation, 3rd party management, digital and regulatory change. My role as Senior Programme Manager is currently focussed on delivering Nationwide Building Societies largest, most successful and sustainable culture and behaviour change across the organisation. I am so passionate about this programme as it truly drives innovation, inclusivity, mentorship, continuous improvement, tackles diversity challenges and requires leadership to show humility. My success is powered by the hardworking, dedicated and fun team that I lead.
Family is everything for me. My mum, dad, brother, my partner and IZZY <3;my French bulldog. We are a close family and spend a lot of time together – we get on well and love to adventure. My success to date, wouldn’t have been possible without their support, understanding and cheerleading. We have been through a lot, what family hasn’t, but I am so proud and inspired by my mother who has beat and continues to beat cancer for c.6 years now!
I am ‘homegrown’ as I never went to uni. I have taught myself a lot; always asking question – seeking to understand more, reading/researching, additional courses etc. but most impactful are those that have shaped and supported me and thus I am grateful for all the people that have contributed to my success and led me to be worthy of this nomination. Their mentorship, guidance, advice, fun, challenge, opportunities etc has been priceless! To name a few; Alison Grewal, Jon Roberts, Andrew Neil, Jess Blundy, Jules Collins, Lesley Kragt, Faye Whitmarsh, Sechaba Ntsiu, Vikki Williams, Jeanette Hibbs, Andrea Hunt + many more.
I am passionate about giving back and sharing knowledge so I mentor a number of people internally and externally to the organisation, I am part of organisations that look to share knowledge and connect people for the greater good; Women Ahead, Black Young professional and you will often find me participating in a number of charity events to raise awareness and funds to great causes; McMillian, Brighter Futures and shelter! It doesn’t stop there, as I look to build a not for profit business to help guide our next generation in their career.
Gabi Burnside | Ulster Bank
Gabi started her diverse career working for three years in policy tech start-up Ineqe.
With her background in economics and corporate governance she then moved to the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce. Gabi’s role in the Chamber involved managing seven programmes to help support SMEs and large businesses to trade internationally.
Working with over 1200 companies across Northern Ireland allowed Gabi to build a robust network of contacts. Since early 2018, Gabi joined the Ulster Bank Entrepreneur team as Acceleration Manager. Since then Gabi has coached over 150 startups and established businesses, who’ve raised nearly £5m in investment and funding and turning over £6.5m in that time.
Natalie Ojevah | Barclays
I came from a very adverse upbringing.
I attended a school called Blackheath Bluecoats School, in south east London, the former school of Stephen Lawerence which at the time was heavily involved in gang violence and has since closed down.
Previous to this, I had being made her mum's primary carer at the age of 12 who had battled with mental health, I was not a stranger to working hard and dealing with high pressured situations.
Unfortunately, my family under went a bereavement of their youngest son, my little brother Christopher, who was aged 5 (10 years my junior) had passed away from meningitis and it completely turned my life upside down, all whist I was in the middle of my first set of GCSE'S and in turn achieved 5 A-C's.
However, I did struggle in 6th form; I lost my drive and without a support system at school, I was conscious that It may have to possibly re-sit my first year of sixth form again. Then, I had the opportunity to apply to become Barclays first 2000 apprentices in the bank in 2012.
I've excelled since starting my career with Barclays at 17; I'd passed my foundation apprenticeship within 12 months and then progressed onto the degree based apprenticeship with Anglia Ruskin - the first Barclays apprentice to do so. In the 7 years at Barclays, I've worked in 7 different roles throughout the bank and I'm now at an Assistant Vice President position as an LawTech Ecosystem Manager by the age of 25.
As a graduate foundation and higher apprentice with a passion for supporting the BAME community through outreach work, I'd joined the Barclays Black Professional Leadership team in 2020 and I'm also leading the BAME activity for Barclays Ventures.
Since starting my career at Barclays, I've obtained and developed a wide range of skills:
- Public speaking
- Organising events
- Interpersonal skills
- Leading high performing teams
- Conducting and delivering training courses
- Regional business planning
- Business development
- Relationship management
- Ecosystem management
- Developing community projects
I was a winner of the internally Platinum award for Retail Banking in 2016 (Top 10% of colleague performance) at Barclays for my continued work and support for the apprentices within the South East London community, alongside this I also won the Best Higher Apprentice for London in the National Apprenticeship Awards 2016. As of the beginning of April 2017, I'd completed my degree-based Apprenticeship with Barclays and had secured a permanent role as a Small Business Manager (Small business under 400k t/o) in Kent.
In February 2018, I won the Platinum award again for Business Banking 2017, (2nd year awarded) at Barclays. In March 2018, I achieved an internal promotion to become a Business Relationship Manager where I managed and supported the growth of a portfolio of Business clients who t/o 400k to 1.5mil in Croydon.
I've since moved departments and received another promotion as an Assistant Vice President in Barclays Ventures Eagle Labs in June 2019. I'm now a LawTech Ecosystem Manager, where I support entrepreneurs who have developed platforms to disrupt the legal industry through access to content, partners, events and the wider Ecosystem.
I'm also leading the BAME community of young people, entrepreneurs and colleagues in Barclays Ventures, to create a more diverse and inclusive culture for all.
Camilla Allnatt | MUFG
I graduated from Loughborough University with a Bachelor of Science in Computing and Management in 2009.
My first banking role was at UniCredit Bank AG where I spent eighteen months working in Human Resources. In 2012 I joined MUFG and spent three years working in the Operations Division as part of the Business Management team and then joined a global training programme based in New York in 2015. This overseas experience inspired me to join the Global Subsidiary Banking Team in 2016, which is part of the Corporate Banking Division for EMEA. My primary responsibility is to be the key network contact for European multinational clients to sell MUFG’s global products in over 50 countries. I am keen to continue expanding our global business and am committed to providing useful and innovative solutions for my clients, contributing to MUFG's goal 'to be a truly global bank'.
In addition to my core role, I am also co-chair of the Balance gender equality network at MUFG. I advocate the importance of having a balanced workplace, allowing for wider viewpoints and taking different ideas and perspectives into account. I strongly believe that inclusion and diversity is one of the most important cultural factors of a successful organisation which translates into creating richer solutions for our clients and stakeholders, maximizing efficiency, innovation and creativity.
I am also passionate about social mobility and subsequently have a role at MUFG as a liaison for a student mentoring programme organised through our charity partner The Big Alliance ‘www.thebigalliance.org.uk’. In 2016 I won the ELBA Award for Outstanding Contributions to Mentoring. I am also a CSR champion and member of the Sports and Social committee, having organised a number of successful events.
Finally, I represented MUFG at the One Young World Conference in Ottawa in 2016, which is a global forum for young leaders and am an ambassador: https://www.oneyoungworld.com/