Desy Kristianti | Deloitte
Desy Kristianti is an Analyst in Technology Consulting at Deloitte. Having worked there for 1.5 years, her work thus far has been technically focused in areas such as DevOps, Enterprise Integrations and Web Development. She has delivered multiple digital transformation programmes for private sector clients, implementing technical solutions and utilising new technologies.
Previously, Desy interned at a startup as a front-end developer, owning 1 of the 3 key offerings of the web app. She also assisted the Founder in brainstorming, refining and prioritising requirements, designing the solution while applying Gamification concepts. Her love for programming as well as designing a product led her to her career in tech consulting.
Moreover, Desy believes in making an impact in the community and inspiring others. She is a City Leader at Women Who Code Belfast, and a Co-Founder and VP Events at Women of Indonesia (WIN) Career Network. Gender diversity is her passion and she enjoys organising various events from coding tutorials to talks and panel discussions.
Seren Davies | Elsevier
Seren is a Software Engineer who is passionate about making the web accessible to people with all sorts of abilities, as a Dyslexic herself she understands how frustrating it can be to use.
She recently graduated with a BSc in Software Engineering from Oxford Brookes and is a member of the team working on Elsevier’s ecommerce site.
At the age of 20, Seren gave her first conference talk. ‘Death to Icon Fonts’ explored the problems that a popular web development technique caused for people who have dyslexia and led to several large internet sites changing their approach to a more dyslexic friendly one. She has since given other talks highlighting techniques websites use that are unfriendly to people with accessibility needs and offering advice on how to improve them.
Seren has written for a few projects such as an article on icon fonts for Net Magazine and automated accessibility testing for 24 Ways.
Xiao-Si Selina Wang | BT
Selina is a promising technologist and research scientist with a track record of delivering innovative technologies and research findings with high impacts and addressing real world problems. She is very self-motivated and thrives when facing challenges.
Before joining BT, Selina worked for 10 years as a Data Scientist & Mathematician in world-top academic research institutions including University of Oxford and LSHTM on national and global scale projects, as well as in the software development industry. She has a list of high-impact scientific publications in population health with more than 1400 citations worldwide and she has a winning machine learning model in one of ITU’s standardisation competitions, outperforming several global tech companies and resulting in a patent filed in both US and Europe.
After joining BT’s cyber security research practice in December 2016, she quickly discovered and established new research directions in tackling malware epidemics. She now leads the Malware Analytics & Propagation Research within BT’s Research & Innovation Headquarter and is gradually establishing herself as the thought leader in this area internally and externally. She has established several projects including applying AI & machine learning technologies and transferring population health knowledge to prevent malware attacks.
Within only a year at BT, Selina has discovered new and in-depth malware threat knowledge and subsequently proposed transformation solutions or guidance to improve BT’s anti-malware operation, for which she received BT R&I’s End of Year Recognition. She also proves to be a great inventor. It only took her five months from identifying a malware research theme to submitting her first malware invention to the patent attorney. Currently she has three patents being filed and more inventions in the pipeline. Last but not least, she works with large organisations from different EU countries on a European Commission funded project on cyber information sharing and she leads the engagement of BT business lines on that project.
Selina has a Bachelor’s degree in Automation and Control Engineering, and MSc and PhD in applied mathematics and statistics.
Abigail Carpenter | CAA
I have always had a passion for sports: I rowed and played football at school and for Oxford University, and I was brought up in a football supporting family, which is where my love of sport came from.
I became interested in sports law as a career when I started reading about super-injunctions. I realised at that point that the worlds of sports and law are intertwined at many levels and I could forge a career in two areas I was interested in. I successfully applied for work experience at a media law firm that did some sports work and then joined top sports law firm Harbottle & Lewis to train as a lawyer.
Shortly after qualification, in the summer of 2015 I joined the multi-award-winning BT media legal team, at an exciting time just before BT began broadcasting the UEFA Champions League and had the EE acquisition on the horizon. I spent two and half years as a Commercial Lawyer working in a small team which managed all the legal aspects of BT Sport, reporting directly to the Head of Legal.
Towards the end of my time at BT I became aware of CAA’s increasing presence in the European sports market, as their relationships with Formula 1, Manchester City and sports stars like Dele Alli gained increasing publicity.
I joined CAA in January 2018, as the sole sports lawyer in London, supporting the London and Munich offices, across areas including sponsorship and consulting. I report to the Global Head of Legal for CAA Sports, in New York.
I was recently honoured to be named a Sport Industry NextGen Leader for 2018.
Alongside my career I have coached rowing at a school in London and I volunteer on my university college’s boat club committee, supporting with sponsorship and purchasing of equipment to ensure future generations can have access to the sport without worrying about the cost. I am also very active in fundraising for Diabetes UK and run half marathons and marathons to fundraise in memory of my father, who passed away from diabetes nine years ago.
Stacey Copeland | Boxer
I have represented England in two sports, football and boxing. As a youngster I loved both sports but boxing was banned for females back then so I never had the chance to compete, and so I went into football. After a successful football career where I played for England, played in an FA cup final, and played abroad in America and Sweden, I decided to finally pursue my dreams in boxing (it was by then legal for women.) As an amateur boxer I won a European silver medal, multi nations gold, and three national titles. I have now turned pro and I am Manchester’s only female professional boxer and one of only 16 in the UK with a 4-0 undefeated record.
Misba Khan | Women's Euro Arabian North Pole Expedition
My finance post in the hospital has enabled me to priorities & manage tasks, of which i have taken in my personal life too.
I am first and foremost a mum of two I have always encouraged my children to outdoors, this gave me great satisfaction, I slowly started transferring the skills from what my children were learning in outdoors to myself.
I am a keen walker which has given me skills in confidence and I starting pushing myself both physically and mentally, Manchester has great access to the Lake district and the Peak district. I am part of The women euro arabian northpole expedition
The team involves 12 women from across Europe and the Arabian Peninsula; and I have the honour of representing our country. The team members are not elite athletes but ordinary women, - representing a diverse variety of occupations and backgrounds from journalist, scientist outdoor professionals, teachers, businesswomen and mothers - selection from over 1000 applicants.
The core purpose of the expedition is to foster greater dialogue and understanding between women from the Western and Arabian cultures, in addition, the expedition will work to inspire women to reach beyond the expectations, To demonstrate the potential of greater intercultural understanding and to raise awareness of women in the North Pole who will find exceptional courage and teamwork to overcome the extreme conditions.
Nazia Khatun | Fitness Reborn UK
After graduating in Sociology at Goldsmiths University, Nazia decided to be an amateur boxer. She won two bronze medals in tournaments.
During her boxing career, she encountered and overcame many negative attitudes as boxing is not a feminine thing to do. She constantly uses her experiences to inspire and motivate women from all backgrounds.
Nazia uses her Sociology background to understand human behavioural patterns and creates dynamic and effective, value- based body transformation programmes to suit individual needs.
She has varied clients from all backgrounds who bear testimony to her multi faceted skills. Nazia works with individuals, community organisations and the corporate sector.
Nazia's mission is to change one body at a time and get her clients to fall in love with their bodies regardless of shape and size. Her results are always outstanding,allowing her clients to open up a whole new world mentally and physically. Clients get to feel REBORN again with a new found confidence and self esteem.
Ice Maidens | British Army
Major Nics Wetherill
Nics is a General Practitioner trainee, based in Portsmouth. She earned an Army Medical Cadetship while studying at University of Southampton Medical School, and it was here she first thought of taking an all-female team across Antarctica.
After commissioning from Sandhurst in December 2012 she was posted to Germany where she swapped her alpine racing background for Nordic skiing, and ended up captaining the Army Medical Services Ladies’ Biathlon team. Meeting Nat Taylor along the way, she realised this was the partner she had been waiting for to fulfil the Antarctic dream and encourage girls to take up adventurous training.
Nics is particularly focused on promoting the benefits of physical activity and encouraging girls and women of all ages to stretch themselves both physically and mentally.
Major Nat Taylor
Nat is a Regimental Medical Officer and General Practitioner at 1 RIFLES, based in Wales. After commissioning from Sandhurst in 2010 Nat has served in Germany, Afghanistan and the UK. Passionate about teaching she is also a Battlefield Advanced Life Support Instructor.
Nat trained to become a cross-country ski instructor while studying medicine and has been fortunate to captain the Army Medical Services Ladies’ biathlon and Nordic ski team.
Outside of work Natalie competed at the Adventure Racing World Championships with Team Endurancelife and won the 6633 Arctic Ultra Marathon in 2015. In her other role as Vice President of Girlguiding Breconshire, she is passionate about encouraging young women to exceed their potential.
Major Sandy Hennis
Sandy is a Reservist officer with 37 Signal Regiment based in Redditch, and works in an employer support role. She started her Army career as a radio technician and reached the rank of Corporal before attending Sandhurst and commissioning back into the Royal Signals. After completing tours of Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan she left the Regular Army to join the Reserves in 2014.
Sandy splits her time between leading overseas expeditions, outdoor instruction and team building/leadership development. She has participated in military and civilian expeditions, climbing and mountaineering in the UK, Spain, the Alps, Nepal, USA, Norway and Peru.
She enjoys anything which takes her outdoors and can’t turn down a challenge, which has led to many adventures from traversing the Cuillin Ridge to completing the Devizes to Westminster kayak marathon, and more recently competing in the Original Mountain Marathon (OMM). Sandy can usually be found living out of her camper van, wandering in the hills with her dog Bracken or riding the local mountain bike trails.
Captain Zanna Baker
Zanna is a Cultural Specialist at the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU). Prior to commissioning from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst into the Royal Artillery, she was a jack-of-all-trades, dabbling in art and geography, then specialising in music and languages.
Not liking to sit still for long, she has travelled extensively, including longer periods spent in Nepal and the Middle East. Her life goal of walking to the South Pole was inspired at the age of 18 by a two month mountaineering and scientific expedition to South Georgia. Not only did this develop a dream of hers, she realised the extent of her love for the outdoors in spite of the austere environment, which ultimately led to her joining the military.
Lieutenant Jenni Stephenson
Jenni is a Battery Operations Officer at 32nd Regiment, Royal Artillery based in Larkhill, Salisbury. She graduated from Durham University with a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Philosophy and an MA in English Literary Studies. She went on to work as a Literacy Coordinator at Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, before joining the Army.
Jenni commissioned from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in April 2015, and in August 2016 completed her first IRONMAN with fellow Ice Maiden Nics Wetherill. In her downtime Jenni loves reading and spends many weekends in Henley on Thames, training and competing for Upper Thames Rowing Club. She captained the 32nd Regiment Nordic Ski Team in winter 2016/17.
Sophie Montagne
LSgt Sophie Montagne is a section commander in the Honourable Artillery Company Army Reserves Regiment at the weekends, and during the week works in marketing in Central London.
Sophie learned to ski with the Army’s Officer Training Corps at university and has been obsessed with it ever since. She is an Army ski instructor and has raced for her regiment, breaking the national speed limit when she hit 73mph in the downhill. Sophie has a degree in Spanish and lived in Spain and Mexico before heading to London and starting her career as a journalist.
A move into marketing in 2011 coincided with her joining the Honourable Artillery Company in search of a physical challenge that would offset the desk job. She loves anything to do with the mountains and is a keen trail runner, completing the Jura Fell Race and running 60km in 24hrs in the Thunder Run 2016.
Georgia Shiels | Georgia Shiels Racing
Racing driving isn’t just about winning trophies. I show young girls that they can compete on a level playing field with men… and win.
Anoushe Husain | Department of Education
Anoushé is a champion for all those experiencing barriers and self-limiting beliefs.
Born missing her right arm below the elbow, living with multiple health conditions, a cancer survivor, a Muslim and coming from an ethnic minority, Anoushé has never let what society or culture thinks she should do limit her or dictate the direction of her life. She is constantly breaking the mould and challenging not only her own beliefs about her own potential but also that of society and her own culture.
She has become a role model to anyone facing a self-limiting belief or barrier and is sharing her journey to help others unlock their potential. Anoushé candidly talks about her life, how she has remained resilient in the face of huge obstacles and talks about issues that we as a society do not talk about enough. In particular, Anoushé highlights the plight of those stigmatised by society in order to change the misconceptions around these groups. She is heavily driven by teaching others learn to shed their self-limiting beliefs and help empower them to reach their potential.
A civil servant by day, Anoushé is a paraclimber in the UK and an ambassador for both Ehlers-Danlos Support UK and Limbpower, the leading charity for amputees and those with limb difference. She also supports the Grit&Rock Foundation which aims to help teenage girls aged 13 to 15 from deprived, inner city backgrounds develop greater grit, determination and self-confidence.
Anoushé is the 2017 Asian Women of Achievement Award winner for Sport and the 2017 recipient of the Helen Rollason Award for Inspiration at The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards.