Born and raised in Ithaca, Greece, Katerina’s childhood dream was to discover the palace of Odysseus. In her teens, she realised where her true passion lay and set off to pursue her personal Odyssey in technology. She studied Computer Engineering & Informatics at the University of Patras, graduating as the top student; then moved to London to do an MSc in Management at Cass Business School to engage more with her entrepreneurial side.
Katerina joined Bloomberg in 2010 as a software developer to put in practice her skills and further develop and challenge herself. She worked for six years on developing a high-capacity trading platform focusing on improving its performance. To quench her thirst for learning, Katerina joined the News Search Team to work on the News Alerting backend. This processes around 10 million search queries a day and is based on the open-source project, Apache Solr.
As a passionate advocate of Diversity and Inclusion, Katerina has been leading Bloomberg’s Women in Tech Community (BWIT) in London since 2013. This initiative promotes female talent in technology, inspiring the younger generation to pursue a career in technology. Public speaking was her kryptonite, but Katerina was determined to overcome this, believing it is imperative for achieving her goal of making people excited about technology and championing Diversity and Inclusion. She grabs every opportunity to engage with a larger audience, from participating to panel discussions to delivering workshops and keynotes. One of her key priorities is supporting female tech speakers and providing them with a platform to grow and increase their visibility. That was the birth of BWIT Tech Talk Series, successfully running for a 3rd year this year.