
The Women in Digital National Awards is back for 2026!
The Women in Digital Awards were founded in 2018 based on the idea ‘you can’t be what you can’t see.’ The awards are a celebration of incredible women within the digital industries and the organisations that support them. We believe that unless we have more visible role models in digital and technology we won’t change the status quo. By shining a light on industry leaders, we shine a light on the career pathways and possibilities that digital and technology provides to women.
Featured Judges
Professor Bronwyn Fox AO
Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Enterprise)
UNSW
Cathie Reid AM
Co-Founder
Epic Pharmacy, Icon Group, Arc31
Izzy Whitelock
CEO
AIIA
Kate Pounder
Board Member
Tech Policy Design Institute
Kylie Walker AM
CEO
Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering
Melanie Silva
Managing Director and VP
Google Aus & NZ
Niki Strachan
Strategy and Prioritisation
Digital Transformation Agency
Sam Fariborz
CISO
David Jones
Sarah Carney
CTO
Microsoft
Simone Clark
CEO
UN Women Australia
Women in Digital National Award Categories
Please note that these categories are subject to change each year.
AI Leader of the Year
This award recognises AI leaders within scaling, large organisations and enterprises who have driven the development and adoption of AI products or initiatives at scale, delivering meaningful and measurable impact.
Allyship in Action (Manbassador)
This award celebrates an impact-driven individual who actively champions gender equity by using their influence to support, advocate for, and elevate others, thus demonstrating true Allyship in Action within the digital industry.
Business Support Excellence
This award recognises an individual or team delivering excellence in business support functions that enable and accelerate digital outcomes. Whether through operations, finance, legal, people and culture, project management, or any other enabling function, this award celebrates those who work behind the scenes to make great digital work possible.
Champion of Change
This award celebrates an impact-oriented individual who is driving meaningful change within the digital industry, whether through innovation, leadership, advocacy, or transforming the way organisations use technology.
Cloud & Infrastructure Excellence
This award recognises an individual or team delivering excellence in cloud and infrastructure engineering that underpins and accelerates digital outcomes. Whether through cloud architecture, DevOps, platform engineering, site reliability, security, or network infrastructure, this award celebrates those who build and maintain the foundations that make great digital products and services possible.
Cybersecurity Leader of the Year
This award recognises the importance of cybersecurity and governance to keep us safe online by celebrating a dedicated and innovative cybersecurity professional. This is an individual contributor category recognising Australia’s best female cybersecurity leaders driving innovation, strengthening resiliency, and influencing industry change.
Data Leader of the Year
This award recognises a distinctive business leader who has built a revolutionary data-centric program while guiding the project (and associated teams) to outstanding achievement through vision, inspiration, creativity, and commitment.
Digital Experience Excellence
This award recognises an individual or team delivering excellence in digital experience - spanning user experience, customer experience, service design, and the end-to-end journeys that connect people with products, services, and organisations.
Digital Transformation Leader of the Year
This award recognises a distinctive business leader driving the transformation of an organisation through digital technology. For this category, we are looking for exceptional change, project and stakeholder management from the Digital Transformation Leader.
Employer of the Year
This award recognises a distinctive business leader driving the transformation of an organisation through digital technology. For this category, we are looking for exceptional change, project and stakeholder management from the Digital Transformation Leader.
Executive Leader of the Year
Awarded to Australia’s most outstanding executive leader in the digital sector, this category recognises the importance of leadership in driving digital transformation in Australia and across an organisation and industry.
Global Impact Excellence
This award celebrates the organisations and teams driving Australia's influence on the global digital stage, from scale-ups expanding into new markets to teams within larger organisations leading cross-border initiatives.
Growth Leader of the Year
This award combines what was previously recognised as Digital Marketer of the Year with broader growth disciplines including sales leadership and growth strategy, reflecting the increasingly interconnected nature of these functions in modern organisations. Whether your work is rooted in data-driven marketing, brand building, revenue growth, or customer lifecycle strategy, this award celebrates those who drive meaningful and measurable growth outcomes through digital.
Indigenous Leader of the Year
This award acknowledges First Nations voices are imperative in helping to build the technology we all use every day, but they are also uniquely placed to use technology to solve problems that are specific to their community including preserving language and culture for future generations.
IT Excellence
This award recognises an individual or team delivering excellence across the breadth of information technology — from infrastructure and systems administration, to IT service delivery, security, support, and the operational backbone that keeps organisations running and evolving.
Product Excellence
This award celebrates the best of Australia's talent in Product Excellence. From Product Analysts, to Product Owners and Product Managers and Product Leaders - this individual or team is delivering exceptional commercial results through product strategy, leadership, stakeholder management and more.
Public Sector Excellence
This award recognises excellence in digital transformation by an individual or team, and the critical importance of effective digital capabilities within our public sector and government organisations. This award recognises the year's most successful transformation of a government organisation or its service delivery through digital technology.
Rising Star of the Year
Recognising Australia's Rising Star in digital and technology. This award recognises an ambitious innovator who has demonstrated an outstanding level of initiative and leadership as a digital specialist early in their career.
Software Engineering Excellence
This award recognises an individual or team who has shown industry leadership in building and developing software. Achievements in software development completed in the Australian market during the 25/26 Financial Year will be assessed for this award.
Technical Leader of the Year
This award champions someone that leads the successful delivery of high-performing technology applications (or projects) and as a result, enhances commercial outcomes for an organisation.
Can't find the right category for you?
Send us a suggestion! We're always looking at new categories to champion more people and organisations in our community. Put your suggestion here and we may just include it in next year’s awards program!
Key Dates
Supporting Judges
Adair Robins
Head of Diversity & Transformation
Tech Council of Australia
Alice Tang
Co-CEO
Amplify AI Group
Amanda Larsen
Director, Change Delivery
QTC
Amanda Pitcher
Capability Lead - Strategy & Design, and Software Engineering
Versent
Angela Baro
General Manager - Testing
Auto & General
Anna Morgan
Lead Experience Designer
Jude Digital
Annabel Zhou
Co-founder, Software Engineer
Toastie & Google
Anne-Louise Brown
Head of Policy, Strategy and Insights
Akin Agency
Ariella Heffernan-Marks
CEO and Founder
Ovum
Ashleigh Nelson
Industry Development Program Coordinator
NAIC
Athena Thompson
Director of Marketing & Strategic Partnerships
Insight
Brianna Marlow
Head of Alliances
Sekuro
Brittany Shipton
Senior Manager, APJ Revenue Marketing
KnowBe4
Brooke Powell
Account Executive
Salesforce
Carrie Mott
Managing Director
Flywheel Marketing
Cassandra Ashworth
Head of AI sales
Hcltech
Celeste Lowe
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
The Lottery Corporation
Courtney Crethar
Head of People and Culture
Subco
Daniel Evans
Chief Information Officer
Rio Tinto
Deb Manning
Marketing Director
Sophos
Deepak Singh
Founder + Chief Culture Officer
Mission and Rhythm
Donna Benjamin
Managing Director
Peak Coaching and Advisory Group
Dunja Lewis
Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer
AIUC Global
Eva Knutsson
Senior Director, Marketing Operations
Megaport
Hayley Saddington
Founder/CEO
Peak Medical
Inano Knowles
Founder and President
QUT The Emerging Coders Hub
Jessica Davies
Head of Analytics & Insights
Defence Bank
Jessica King
National Manager - Workforce Solutions
Integral
Jing Shen
Assistant Director | Digital Service Designer
Australian Government - IP Australia
Kathryn Collier
Head of AI & Machine Learning Engineering
Mantel Group
Katie Velissariou-Abel
Director
Queensland Government
Katrina Edgar
Service Delivery Lead
Cisco
Kim McDonnell
Co Founder & CEO
Saveful Worldwide
Kristina Bennett
Head of Strategy and Business Performance
Westpac Group
Kristina Craig
Head of Technology Strategy
The Lottery Corporation
Linda Chrysoglou
Senior Global Talent Partner
Cisco
Louise Mercer
Chief Operating Officer
Honey Insurance
Mani Sahihi
CEO
Foxo Technology
Michelle Erdosi
Product and Operations Director
RFI Global
Mikaela Jade
Indigital
CEO and Founder
Mike Morgan
Vice President & Managing Director
Insight
Naina D'Souza
Head of Digital
MUFG Pension & Market Services
Natalie Kradolfer
Co-Founder & Managing Director
Amplify Music Education
Natalie Miller
General Manager - Group Marketing
ReadyTech
Nisha Amanulla
Engineering Manager
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Patricia Droguett
Founder
Software at Scale
Rebecca Manly
Personalisation Senior Product Lead
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Rucha Sawant
Managing Director
Avanade Australia
Sam Fariborz
CISO
David Jones
Sammi Ghafari
Solutions Engineering Manager
HealthShare NSW
Sanja Marais
CTSO
Aspen Medical
Shaikha Desiderio
Digital Advisory Lead
Veris
Shanique Busby
General Manager, AI Product
Lendi Group
Sian Howatson
Head of Customer Insights & Automation
Swyftx
Simon Dubois
Partner and KPMG ASPAC & Australia Sector Lead - Tech & Media
KPMG
Tania Hyde
Senior Product Manager
Greencross Pet Wellness Company
Tarra van Amerongen
VP of Product and Design
Thoughtworks
Vida Asrina
Head of Design
Zurich
Yas Grigaliunas
Chief Experience Officer
VideoPro
Join us at the National Gala
The awards gala is where the community comes together – providing a great opportunity to network with industry leaders.
We’ll be bringing back our signature awards gala experience in 2026. With a black-tie dress code, this is your chance to frock up and get fancy with some incredible industry leaders and colleagues as we champion some of the best in the business.
Date: 6th November 2026
Time: 5:30pm – 11:00pm (AEST)
Location: Brisbane
Our Award Partners
Interested in partnering with Women in Digital? Contact us via email to discuss partnership opportunities.
Champion Partners
Category Partners
