Sheridan Ash, founder and co-CEO of Tech She Can, has become the 13th individual to be named Computer Weekly’s Most Influential female in UK Tech.
Launched in 2012, the Computer Weekly list of the 50 Most Influential Women in UK Tech started as a list of 25, expanding to 50 in 2015, and now seeing hundreds of nominations each year.
The list was originally created to showcase the amazing women in the technology industry, shining a light on the sector’s function models who may inspire the next generation of women in tech.
As well as the 2024 longlist of more than 700 nominated women, and our list of Rising Stars, there are besides new entrants to our Hall of Fame, launched to admit those who have made a life contribution to the UK’s technology sector.
This year’s winner, Sheridan Ash, launched Tech She Can to teach girls and young women about technology careers and subjects to inspire them to choose this way in the future.
Until 2023, Ash led technology innovation at PwC UK, and is presently co-CEO and founder of the charity Tech She Can. She was a board associate of the Institute of Coding for 4 years and, in 2020, received an MBE for services to young girls and women through technology.
Tech She Can is an award-winning charity with more than 240 associate organisations, which together work with industry, government and schools to improve the ratio of women in technology roles. It provides initiatives and pathways into tech careers across all the different stages of girls’ and women’s lives.
At PwC, Ash led change in the technology workforce, pioneering initiatives that saw the percent of women in tech more than double to scope 32%.
Timperley is simply a freelance consultant and co-founder of Tech North Advocates, a private sector-led collection of tech experts who champion the technology sector in the north of England.
In 2021, she co-founded advisory firm Growth strategy Innovation, which helps to grow startup and scaleup organisations. She is now innovation manager for Oxford Innovation, which helps organisations make ecosystems for entrepreneurs and innovators, in turn boosting local areas.
Timperley was named a Computer Weekly Women in Tech Rising Star in 2017 when, until 2021, she was a board associate of FutureEverything. She previously co-founded Enterprise Lab.
Turner founded Angel Academe, a pro-women and pro-diversity angel investment group focused on technology, and is presently CEO of the group.
Until 2023, Turner was besides an advisory board associate of tech recruiter Spinks, and in 2007 co-founded consultancy Turner Hopkins, which helps businesses make digital strategies.
Previously, Turner was an external board associate and chair of the investment committee for venture capital fund the Low Carbon Innovation Fund and a board associate of the UK Business Angels Association, the trade association for early-stage investment.
Hunter founded Coding Black Females in 2017 to aid black female software developers meet each another and network. Alongside her work at Coding Black Females, huntsman is simply a software developer.
She is an advisory board manufacture typical in the University of Essex Online’s computing department, method manager at SAM Software Solutions, and method manager at full-stack and front-end training organisation Black CodHer Bootcamp.
Previously, huntsman was lead software engineer at Made Tech, and held roles specified as elder software developer, lead Java developer, app developer and method consultant at various firms. She was named a Computer Weekly Women in UK Tech Rising Star in 2020.
Before her time as an MP, Niblett had a long career in technology, having roles specified as manufacture sales leader at DXC Technology and head of alliances, channel and ecosystem in EMEA at 1E.
Now, alongside her function as an MP, she’s founder of the Labour: Women in Tech group, which campaigns to scope equal sex opportunities in the technology industry. She’s besides the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on FinTech and the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum (PICTFOR), as well as the chair for the Interparliamentary Forum on Emerging Technologies and a associate of the Women and Equalities choice Committee.
An entrepreneur and co-founder, Brailsford joined Code First Girls as CEO in 2019, where she works to encourage more women into the tech sector by providing software improvement skills and education.
Prior to her work at Code First Girls, she co-founded and was CEO of performance management firm Frisbee, which was part of venture capital fund Founders Factory. Until summertime 2024, she was was a board associate for the Institute of Coding, where she focused specifically on diversity and inclusion. She is besides a self-employed commercial and strategy consultant.
As part of her function as partner and head of digital for Europe at Oliver Wyman, O’Neill leads digital transformation and fresh proposition launches at companies all over the world.
Alongside this, she is besides a strategical partner at FutureDotNow, a board trustee for Girlguiding and peculiar advisor to the founder at The Youth Group.
Sillem worked for the Royal Academy of Engineering for 12 years before being appointed its CEO in 2018. erstwhile roles at the academy include deputy CEO and manager of strategy, manager of programmes and fellowship, and head of global activities.
As well as her work for the academy, Sillem is simply a trustee of EngineeringUK and the Foundation for discipline and Technology, and CEO of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
Lakhani founded Century Tech as a teaching and learning platform focused on subjects specified as artificial intelligence (AI), cognitive neuroscience, large data analytics and blockchain, where she is besides CEO.
A frequent public speaker, she has previously been a associate of the UK’s AI Council, a board associate for the Foundation for Education Development, a board associate for Unboxed 2022, and a non-executive manager for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and athletics (DCMS).
She is simply a digital patron for Cottesmore School, and has appeared on the BBC’s AI Decoded news segment. She was awarded an OBE in 2014.
Mary McKenna is simply a immense supporter of entrepreneurship and startups, holding respective roles as an advisor and investor. Her social enterprise, AwakenHub, where she is co-founder, is focused on building a community of female founders in Ireland.
As well as being an expert advisor for the European Commission, she is an entrepreneurship expert with the Entrepreneurship Centre at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, and a trustee for CAST, among many another board memberships and non-executive directorships.
Thorne is co-CEO of Tech She Can, a charity aimed at expanding the number of women in the technology sector, as well as a venture partner at Deep discipline Ventures and a diversity and inclusion advisory board associate for the Institute of Coding.
She has a background in the education sector, previously holding roles as manager of innovation strategy for the University of Surrey and executive officer to the vice-president (innovation) at Imperial College London.
Williams is CEO of inclusion run FutureDotNow, which aims to guarantee people are not left behind by the increasing skills gap caused by digital adoption. She is simply a associate of the UK government’s Digital Skills Council, and chair of the Good Things Foundation.
Prior to her current work, Williams spent more than 20 years at BT in a number of different roles, including programme manager for sustainable business, manager of tech literacy and education programmes, and manager of digital society. Until 2024, she was a associate of the board of trustees for Transport for London.
With a background in law surrounding telecoms, the net and media, Wright now uses her expertise as manager of not-for-profit The Institute of AI, as well as partner at Harbottle & Lewis, heading up the tech, data and digital group.
She has worked in the tech sector for over 20 years. Her squad at Harbottle & Lewis is comprised of 66% female and 66% cultural number members.
During 2023, she worked with the OECD, WEF and the ITU to build a reputation in relation to the regulation of AI. She is besides working with the Ditchley Foundation, considering whether the collaborative approach in relation to telecoms can work for AI regulation.
In her 30 years at KPMG, Mehta has had many responsibilities, including building the firm’s focus on trade and investment, and helping scaleup clients to access financial support.
She is now chair of the organisation, and in 2022 was awarded an MBE for services to UK trade and investment and supporting female entrepreneurs.
An expert in diversity, inclusion and community building, Farooq co-founded Muslamic Makers in 2016 as a networking group for Muslims in tech, plan and development.
As well as a freelance diversity and inclusion consultant, Farooq is simply a scout for Ada Ventures with peculiar interest in edtech, healthtech and fintech, and until March 2024 was a community manager for large Society Capital.
She has an extended background in digital and AI in both the private and public sectors.
Taylor co-founded TechReturners, where she is presently CEO, to give skilled individuals who have had a career break the chance to connect with firms and aid them back into mid-level to senior-level tech roles.
She is besides co-founder of The assurance Community, which aims to supply resources, training information and events to give people more career confidence. Taylor is co-founder of community WIT North and co-founder of ReframeWIT.
She late founded community platform Voices in Tech to aid connect speakers with event opportunities.
Dawes has headed up Ofcom since 2020 following her erstwhile function as permanent secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as well as many another roles across the civilian Service.
She has previously been a trustee at Patchwork Foundation, which aims to encourage under-represented young people to participate in democracy, and a non-executive manager of consumer group Which?.
Award-winning entrepreneur Avril Chester is presently the CTO of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, her most fresh in a series of roles heading up technology in organisations. In 2018, she founded technology charity platform Cancer Central to aid support people with cancer.
Martin has a past of working as a test consultant at firms specified as Barclays, Sony, the UK Home Office, Shazam and Sky, and is presently a startup advisor and founder of her own coaching and consultancy firm.
Prior to this, she was head of quality at Adarga and is presently chair for the BCS peculiar Interest Group in Software Testing, and until January 2023 was the vice-chair of the BCS LGBTQIA+ tech specialist group.
Amanda Brock’s function at OpenUK sees her leading the sustainable and ethical improvement of open technologies in the UK, including technology specified as open origin software, hardware and data.
She besides sits on the boards of both the Cabinet Office Open Standards Board and US cyber safety firm Mimoto, is an advisory board associate of respective firms, as well as acting as a justice for the CIO 100 Awards.
Moore has been at Apps for Good since 2019, originally as manager of education, products and events, then as chief operating officer (COO), before becoming CEO in 2021.
Her career background has been heavy weighted towards education, having been global education programme coordinator for London 2012, and volunteering as politician at the Harris Academy Ockendon and Sixth Form.
Tanaka is presently part of the programme squad for All4Health&Care, a community launched during the pandemic to connect digital healthcare providers with the public sector. She is besides the head of the CMO Office for NHS Black Country ICB, and is on the community support committee for BCS.
Previously, she has been a fellow, independent audit for AI systems for ForHumanity, and BCS Women membership secretary.
Calista has a past in both technology and the public sector.
Alongside her function at Labour Digital, she is head of policy and public affairs at UK scaleup Vorboss, and she co-founded network Women in Tech Policy.
She volunteers as an advisor for digital citizenship charity Glitch, and is simply a policy board associate for OpenUK.
With experience in cloud at companies specified as Salesforce and IBM, Kelisky started her function at Google in 2022 well-equipped with the skills needed to run its cloud division.
Alongside this, Kelisky is on the board of directors for Calnex Solutions, and is simply a associate of the board of directors for the Women in Telecoms and Technology networking group.
Lila Ibrahim became Google DeepMind’s first COO in 2018, looking after teams in disciplines specified as engineering, virtual environments, programme management and operations.
Prior to this role, she was COO of online skills platform Coursera, and has besides acted at general manager for emerging markets platforms in China at Intel.
Philpot has a background in both sales, and learning and development, which she uses in her function as the vice-president of global sales enablement at Getty Images. She has held various roles both in and outside of sales at many notable firms, specified as Shell, Mars and GSK.
As well as being a board associate for the TLA Black Women in Tech group, she is simply a associate and talker for the Sales Enablement Directive.
Hodson has an extended background in the technology sector, and has had roles specified as managing consultant at EY and general manager at Siemens Business Services liable for public sector, healthcare, financial services and manufacturing.
More recently, she was vice-president for global sales, marketing and operations – field transformation at Microsoft, before becoming chief executive of IBM in UK and Ireland at the beginning of 2023.
She’s besides a board associate and deputy president of TechUK, and holds respective non-executive directorships.
As managing manager of Jomas Associates (Engineering & Environmental), Savage specialises in geotechnical and environmental engineering.
She is besides passionate about topics specified as women in engineering and social mobility, and is on the UK government’s SME Business Council.
With a long past of CEO positions, Kirkby has experience in moving companies with a background in telecoms, and in February this year took over as CEO of BT Group. Her past CEO roles have included TDC group, Tele2 and Telia, and she is besides a non-executive manager of Brookfield asset management.
Barclay has been with Microsoft for more than 10 years, holding respective roles including manager of SMB, general manager of tiny and mid-market solutions and partners, COO, and CEO in the UK.
In November 2024, she became president of enterprise and manufacture for Microsoft in the UK. She is chair of the industrial strategy advisory council for the Department for Business and Trade, volunteers as a board associate for the British Heart Foundation and, until recently, was a non-executive manager at CBI.
Oniwinde Agoro founded BYP Network in 2016 to aid black professionals network and have easier access to jobs, after a journey abroad confirmed the challenges young black people face in getting jobs both in and outside the UK.
Until 2024, she was board trustee for volunteer organisation Getting On Board, and has received respective awards and accolades, including Forbes 30 Under 30 and Financial Times Top 100 BAME Leaders in Technology.
Wallace heads up diversity and inclusion, partnerships and people change at Sky, and 1 of her focuses in this function is designing and delivering the people strategy for technology within the firm.
Outside of this, Wallace was a associate of the advisory board for late disbanded Tech Talent Charter, and volunteers as a cub and scout assistant.
Scullion is simply a serial founder, having founded dressCode, a not-for-profit that encourages young women in Scotland to consider a career in computer science, and co-founded the Ada Scotland Festival, which aims to usage collaboration to close the sex gap in computer discipline education in Scotland.
These endeavours stem from her being a computer discipline teacher passionate about encouraging more children to take the subject. Alongside this work, she is simply a volunteer for the Scottish Tech Army, a not-for-profit aimed at utilizing tech for good.
Earlier this year, Tulip took on the function of chief growth officer at software engineering consultancy Conquer Technology. In 2018, she co-founded community-led initiative Women In Leeds Digital, which encourages and helps number groups to consider a career in technology.
Tulip is besides chair of the regional productivity forum in Yorkshire, Humberside and the North East for the Productivity Institute, ambassador for Leeds as a digital city at Leeds City Council, and managing manager at &Then Consulting.
Moore co-founded data analytics and AI firm Panintelligence in 2010 with the aim of helping firms decently organise their data to more easy adopt AI. She became CEO in 2018.
Alongside this, Moore besides founded low-code tech community No Code laboratory and sex equality community thin In Leeds. As well as a position as chair for Lifted Ventures, Moore is an Ada Angel for inclusive venture firm Ada Ventures.
As global manager of identity at Sky, Moore is liable for leading the firm’s identity management projects. Prior to this, she held respective roles as a task manager, and was previously the head of infotainment group technology for Vodafone.
As well as being a associate of the board for Tech Talent Charter, she is the co-founder of female tech leaders community Lift as we Climb.
Maria Axente is the head of AI public policy and ethics at PwC in the UK, where she combines her skills in analytics and ethical AI policy improvement to guarantee AI is developed with humans in mind.
Previously, she was the artificial intelligence and AI-for-good lead at the firm, liable for advising clients on liable usage of AI, and ensuring ethical improvement of PwC AI operations, products and services.
She’s a vice-chair for the data, analytics and AI leadership committee at TechUK, and in the past she has been an advisory board associate for the APPG for AI, and advisor for the PHI for Augmented Intelligence.
As CEO of Nash Squared, White heads up the global firm which provides IT recruitment, technology solutions and leadership services out of 36 offices across the world.
White has a long background in the tech sector, having previously held roles as CIO and manager of IT, as well as completing a degree in computer science.
Bentinck was named a Computer Weekly Rising Star in 2014, and has co-founded respective organisations, including Entrepreneur First, a firm that supports European technology startups, and not-for-profit coding training programme Code First Girls.
She is on the Computer discipline Department Industrial Liaison Board for Imperial College London, is simply a board trustee for Generation and is the author of startup business book How to be a founder.
Hirt joined Innovate Finance in 2015 as the manufacture body’s head of community, before yet becoming its CEO six years later. She now heads up the organisation, aiming to drive innovation and transformation in the fintech sector to make it more inclusive.
She has worked around the planet in a variety of roles, including acting head of corporate relations for Chatham home in the UK, head of membership for the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce in fresh York, and head fresh hire trainer for an English language training programme in Japan.
Davis is the co-founder of diversity career platform Diversifying, and founder and CEO of recruitment organisation BAME Recruitment and Consulting.
She is chair of the board of directors for Pop Up Projects and a board trustee for charity Over the Wall, both aimed at changing young people’s lives for the better.
Davis has previously held roles in talent acquisition in the STEM sector, at telecoms firm BT, and as part of a short-term task at an aerospace, aviation, F1 and motorsport organisation.
The first female to head up GCHQ, Keast-Butler moved into the manager function last year after serving as deputy manager general of MI5. With a long career in safety and defence, her erstwhile roles have included overseeing the upkeep of functions that support MI5’s operational activities and the launch of the UK’s National Cyber safety Programme.
As well as her work as elder EUC engineer, infrastructure and cloud engineering at the London Stock Exchange Group, Opong is simply a freelancer and STEM advisor and a board trustee for The Blair task Foundation.
Until recently, she was part of the City of London corp volunteer advisory group for equality, diversity and inclusion, and was previously an advisory board associate for Neurodiversity in Business, and a mentor at the TechUp mentor programme for Durham University.
Opong was a contributor for Voices in the shadows, the book of black female function models created by the 2022 Computer Weekly Most Influential female in UK Tech, Flavilla Fongang.
Munby has a long past of working in government, and became permanent secretary leading the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology in February 2023.
She has besides been partner, leader of strategy and corporate finance practice in UK and Ireland at McKinsey & Company, where she led the firm’s work on productivity across the UK economy.
Crosswell is managing manager of consulting firm Exadin, as well as chair for the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology. She holds respective another non-executive directorships in firms specified as Freemarket and the Centre for Policy Studies. In 2021, she received an OBE for services to the financial services sector.
Graham has been the CEO of not-for-profit the ScaleUp Institute since 2015, and has an OBE for services to UK business and economy.
As well as being a visiting prof. of entrepreneurship at Strathclyde University, Graham holds various non-executive and advisory roles.
As CEO of Salesforce in the UK and Ireland, Bahrololoumi is liable for the workforce in these regions across all industries and functions, and is peculiarly focused on ensuring its customers are ready for digital transformation.
She sits on respective boards, including for Seeing Is Believing Coventry Place, Movement to Work and Cancer investigation UK Corporate Partnerships, and is an independent non-executive manager on the TSB board.
In 2023, she was awarded a CBE for services to the information technology sector.
Naming the technology sector her “familiar territory”, Gardner has an extended background in the technology sector, having held roles specified as first line support at Fujitsu, elder supply chain admin at Technicolor and task manager at the BBC as a associate of the BBC’s plan and Technology Business Management Unit HQ Team.
Now, she’s a business operations analyst as part of the technology arm of News UK, and is simply a board trustee of food and hygiene bank Necessities UK.
Cardell has been at the Competition and Markets Authority since 2013, first as general counsel, then as interim CEO, and now as CEO.
Prior to her time at the Competition and Markets Authority, she was a legal partner for the markets division of energy markets authority Ofgem, and in her early career spent 11 years at law firm Slaughter and May, working her way from trainee solicitor to partner.
Sinel founded Teens in AI and Acorn Aspirations to aid young people who want to solve real-world problems utilizing technology specified as AI, virtual, augmented and mixed reality.
She has won awards for her work, including CogX 2017 Award in utilizing AI for Social Good Projects, and is presently an education taskforce committee associate for the All Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence, and a business mentor at Microsoft for Startups.
Before working on Acorn Associates and Teens in AI, Sinel was a consultant for respective firms, including the British Council, NGOs, Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Ethiopian Cultural Heritage Project.
