Our Judges

Meet this year’s panel of expert judges.

Roopesh Panchasra

Global Head of Executive Talent | Uber

Roopesh is a 20+ year veteran of the Talent Acquisition industry, who currently leads the Global Executive Talent Acquisition teams for all Uber businesses worldwide. Roopesh has worked with incredible leaders who have pushed and challenged him over his career working for amazing brands such as SAP, Workday, Expedia, and VMware. A magnified lens on inclusivity, fun, and data-driven strategies have been the common thread across all the impressive accomplishments that Roopesh has achieved throughout his career.

Tia Dubuisson

President & Co-Founder | Belle Fleur Technologies

Tia co-founded Belle Fleur Technologies to drive cloud adoption and help companies build and maintain modern infrastructures. She specializes in customer success with over 10 years of experience managing teams, and leading customer centric projects using Agile methodologies. She is passionate about transforming data into business insights and working to automate manual tasks to empower employees to drive business rather than spreadsheets. 
Tia has a unique approach to project planning and management has been shown to ignite and motivate others. She leads by example, daring everyone to run their company operations smarter by making continuous improvements, to become better leaders, to become proficient at smart innovation. 
Tia enjoys spending time with her husband and 2 daughters, roller skating, traveling, and when possible having quiet time at the spa. Tia is also committed to sponsoring and participating in volunteer activities, especially those that equip the next generation to use advances in technology.

Michel Mayor

EMEA Salesforce Service Line Leader – SVP | Merkle

In his role as EMEA SVP Salesforce Service Line at Merkle, Michel leads one of the largest Salesforce practices inEurope, helping brands leverage the power of the Salesforce technology. In this role, Michel takes great pride engaging with Salesforce’s talents and celebrating “Merkle’s Mahalo” of 1,300+ skilled professionals globally. He believes that the ecosystem’s future success is conditioned by the collective capacity to identify the next generation of talent, and very much look forward to being part of the Digital Revolution Jury to celebrate the excellence of the nominated individuals and companies.
 
With 15 years’ Salesforce experience, spanning across all Salesforce Clouds, Michel previously led a Global CRM programme for a Fortune 50 business and advised some of the most inspiring global B2C brands.

Rowena Case

Channel Marketing Manager | Nutanix

Rowena’s professional career spans 20 years in channel leadership roles at companies such as Barracuda Networks, Symantec, and start-ups including Contrast Security and Vipre. In her current role, she focuses on enabling the Nutanix Channel Partner Ecosystem by actively contributing to the development, growth, and sales of Nutanix innovative solutions. She’s also received a number of recognitions including CRN Women of the Channel, and has produced award-winning marketing campaigns.

Ben McCarthy

Founder | SalesforceBen.com

Ben McCarthy is the founder of SalesforceBen.com, the largest Salesforce news site in the world. He has 10 years of experience in the Salesforce ecosystem working across end-users, ISVs, and System Integrators.

Wendy O'Keeffe

EVP and Managing Director | NEXTGEN

Wendy O’Keeffe is a veteran of the distribution scene, having spent the last 30 years working in multiple geographies across the APAC region. Wendy originally started with Ingram Micro precursor Tech Pacific, then spent 15 years with Westcon Group before joining Tech Data and most recently NEXTGEN GROUP, where she works to establish the business in the Asia markets. Wendy has deep experience in the technology sector, having spent many years operating in multiple countries and having led the establishment of new IT distribution businesses in nine countries between 2011 and 2016. 

Aaron Rees

Founder & Managing Director | Rebura

Aaron is a cloud innovator with vast experience in driving cloud adoption and improvements across a range of companies from global corporates to start-ups.

As the founder of Rebura, one of the UK’s fastest-growing AWS Advanced Consulting Partners and AWS Rising Star Partner of the Year 2020, Aaron has a proven track record of designing, implementing, and managing pioneering solutions in the cloud computing environment.

Jeanne Cuff

Associate Director | ISG-One

An IT support consultant and leader, Jeanne has over 20 years of senior leadership and consulting roles in operations, human resources, network, and SaaS, working to build and implement best-of-class support services on and offshore.
 
Jeanne is passionate about increasing the number of women in IT through her volunteer work with the Chicago chapter of Chicktech.org. In an effort to offset the effects of the global pandemic, Jeanne is starting up a non-profit, TechEquityforAll.org, to provide technology and programs to underserved organizations and individuals. 

Vladimer Botsvadze

Speaker, Influencer, Marketing Thought Leader

Vladimer is a globally renowned, multi-award-winning digital marketing and social media influencer, thought leader, Fortune 500 consultant, keynote speaker, and startup advisor. Ranked as the No. 1 Global Marketing Thought Leader by Thinkers360, he has won more than 200 global awards. His work focuses on the intersection of storytelling, practicality, consumer behavior, and social media marketing. Vladimer is widely recognized for his visionary leadership and trailblazing innovation, which he applies in empowering brands to scale, expand, accelerate their growth, and drive change to their advantage.

Ben Gott

Practice Lead, Marketing Solutions EMEA, SVP | Merkle

Ben leads Merkle’s data and marketing technology division across EMEA. He leads a team that is responsible for the implementation, integration and management of clients’ data and technology, ensuring that they are getting the most out of their investments. His team specialise in strategic consultancy, CRM, technical consulting, analytics, and real-time decision management solutions. Ben is a keen supporter of the efforts of Merkle’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee, with particular involvement in promoting the Gender and Ethnicity pillars.

Nabila Salem

President | Revolent

As President of Revolent, Nabila is responsible for leading on the creation of talent.

With 15 years of leadership experience in professional services, tech recruitment, and marketing based in the UK and USA, Nabila previously worked at FDM Group and IBM.

Nabila plays an active role in encouraging, supporting, and promoting diversity in the workplace and was recognized in Management Today’s 35 Women Under 35 List 2019.

Richard Jones-Penny

AVP & Salesforce Lead UKI | Cognizant

Richard has spent over 25 years’ operating in the business applications space. His career has seen him hold various leadership positions at Microsoft, Salesforce and IBM. At Cognizant, Richard leads their Salesforce practice growth across the UK and Ireland. With an extensive network across the Salesforce eco-system, Richard is passionate about helping companies drive their own growth by getting closer to their customers and employees. 

Zoë Morris

President | Frank Recruitment Group

As President of niche tech recruitment firm Frank Recruitment Group, Zoë oversees business and sales operations, employee training, and hiring initiatives.

She has played a vital role in building the company into the global, award-winning that it is today–under Zoë’s leadership, Frank Recruitment Group has consistently achieved substantial year-on-year growth.

Before joining the business as Chief Operations Officer in 2016, Zoë spent 18 years at Hays plc, where she rose to the position of Director at their flagship office in London.

Magdalena Czubaszek

Senior Manager | Accenture

Magdalena has over 20 years of professional experience in Consulting and IT industry. She specializes in the Digital Transformation in Marketing, Sales and Service. Her key professional focus is on CRM, marketing and sales automation projects using the Salesforce and Microsoft platforms to achieve expected business results.

In previous years, Magda was very active in supporting women’s career development as a volunteer Board Member and Mentoring Program Coordinator for PWN (Professional Woman Network). 

Gemma Blezard

CEO | The Architech Club

Gemma Blezard is a powerhouse; mother, cancer survivor, Salesforce MVP, Founder of Ladies Be Architechs and CEO of The Architech Club. Driven by sheer determination and a lightening mind she is the Architect of Architects.

Gemma founded Ladies Be Architects CIC as a way to help people who may otherwise find career paths into Salesforce roles intimidating, impenetrable or just plain confusing. Having shared her skills with the likes of Capgemini, Bluewolf and KPMG, Gemma has turned tech entrepreneur by founding an international consultancy unlike any other found in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Working across industries, The Architech Club attracts clients from financial services, media and not-for-profit sectors in particular, growing a reputation for sharp minds, transparent communication and successful outcomes.

Sarah Liu

Founder & Managing Director | The Dream Collective

Sarah Liu, Founder and Managing Director of The Dream Collective, is an international thought leader, speaker, trainer and facilitator on next-generation leadership, diversity and inclusion and the future of work.

Having represented Australia in the G20 YEA since 2017, Sarah also served as an APAC advisor to the Japanese Prime Minister’s Cabinet and sits on the judging panel for Forbes Awards. Sarah is invited to train leaders around the world across private and public sectors on leadership transformation and is an appointed regional partner for Google, lead trainer for National Women in Construction, Engineering, Media and Technology across AUNZ. She is also a member of the UTS Industry Advisory Board.

Whilst she manages a diverse portfolio of career and businesses, there is only one common thread across them all and that is to see more women in leadership and to transform the way we work.

Mark Hill

CIO | Tenth Revolution Group

A Tech Leaders Awards’ CIO of the Year nominee, Mark has over 25 years’ IT experience. Mark has led the business through countless digital transformations and strategic business change initiatives across the organization. He also takes a leading role in developing the firm’s Strategic Alliance strategies. Before joining Tenth Revolution Group, Mark specialized in delivering complex mission-critical technology across both Capital Market and broader Financial Services sectors.

Simon Maskrey

Senior Global Trailhead Partner Manager | Salesforce

As Global Partner Manager for Trailhead, Salesforce’s training and certification organisation, Simon is responsible for Trailhead Academy Authorised Training Provider program. Simon has 30 years multi-national experience within the IT training industry, in a number of cross functional leadership positions for organisations such as Sun Microsystems, Oracle and Avid Technologies.

Anna Assassa

CEO | Tiskki 

Venturing into the world of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software development and implementation at the age of 23, Anna has always found enjoyment in getting hands-on and tackling tech sector challenges. Always eager to learn, she fast developed her knowledge. This led to Anna stepping into roles at several multinational companies before building her first tech company from the ground up at the age of just 26 and later founding Microsoft Gold Partner and cloud solutions provider Tisski in 2011.

Anna is passionate about technology and fostering a positive working environment in equal measures and loves seeing how technology can improve people’s lives and organisational performance. 

Stuart Mills

 VP of Trailhead and Ecosystems | Salesforce

Stuart is VP of Trailhead and Ecosystems at Salesforce, working to build a movement for workforce development that puts diversity and equity at its heart.

He loves solving the most complex of problems and building the greatest of teams. Imagine… if we could activate the potential of everyone.

Stuart holds a MA in Aeronautical Engineering from Cambridge University and an MBA from London Business School.

Fareeha Usman

Founder | Being Woman

Fareeha is an ONS Census Purple Plaque holder, multi-award winner, philanthropist and an Entrepreneur for Good. A global voice of authority on gender equality, diversity, and inclusion, she is the Founder of Being Woman Charity and the mind behind the food sharing app Share Karo, launched to provide an integrated system to distribute food and essentials for the people in need.

Winner of We are the City Rising star, Dynamites Rising Star, Great British Entrepreneur for Good and a Highly Commended Charity Leader of the year 2020, she also sits on Board for YMCA Northumberland and Health Watch Northumberland.

Fareeha is also the founder of Being Woman, a much-needed organization amplifying the voices of underrepresented communities, and aimed to create a sustainable response to current challenges by building resilience in our communities.

Phani Burra

Director, Cloud Transformation | Albertsons Companies

Phani brings 21+ years of direct, deep hands-on experience with expertise in the Strategy, Planning, Integration, Implementation, DevSecOps, and Operations of large business transformation programs. He’s held various senior leadership positions and has successfully managed portfolios with budgetary responsibility over $100M+.
 
As a transformational and product design leader, Phani leverages the power of data and analytics to build value, drive growth, streamline costs, and help achieve organizational strategic objectives.
 
A graduate of the Authentic Leader Development Program at Harvard Business School, he also holds a Masters in Computer Science from Gannon University.

Tara Ridley

VP Alliances & Channels | Salesforce Australia & New Zealand

Tara is responsible for the overall strategic direction and leadership of the Salesforce Australia and New Zealand Channels and Alliances team. She leads a dedicated team whom manage relationships, align to industry and customer segments and drive the Salesforce strategy, growth and customer success initiatives with partners. Partners include Global and Regional System Integrators, ISV’s and Technology Alliance partners.

She has a twenty-five year plus track record in the IT and Communications industry in the UK and Australia. Joining the Salesforce A/NZ leadership team in May 2020, Tara has cultivated her extensive sales and management experience through a number of leadership roles. Prior to joining Salesforce, Tara was at Cisco for 13 years where her most recent role was leading the Partner Organisation across Australia & NZ for 3 years. Prior to Cisco Tara was at Macquarie Telecom and Hewlett-Packard in the United Kingdom in a variety of sales and leadership roles.

Tara is a Graduate of Australian Institute of Company Directors, holds a BA (Hons) Marketing & Business and Post Graduate DipM in Marketing from the University of Huddersfield in the United Kingdom. 
 
Tara has a keen focus on partners, customers, leadership and people and is passionate about skills, giving back to the community and driving change in all areas of diversity.

Tara has a seven year old son Samuel which keeps her extremely busy and is looking forward to travelling with him again. 

Chris Howell

EMEA Public Cloud Alliance Manager  | Fortinet 
With over 15 years of experience in channel and industry transformation across areas such as vendor alliances, modern workspace, security and infrastructure, and having spent time at the likes of Sophos, Microsoft and Barracuda Networks, Chris is a leading public cloud security evangelist. 
 
Outside of the office, Chris is a parent of two, a big football fan, and a youth coach at Caversham AFC.

Alex Franklin

Modern Workplace Practice Lead | Intelogy

Alex specialises in Modern Workplace solutions and has held a passion for technological change for more than 20 years. He began his career with Lotus Notes in the 90s before moving to SharePoint in 2007 and then to the full Microsoft 365 stack. Alex works with clients globally across many industries to identify business pain points, realise opportunities and bring about successful and lasting change that benefits everyone involved. 
 
With a passion for positive change, and making people’s lives easier and happier, Alex loves his job and enjoys celebrating the success of others who do too!

Petra Jenner

General Manager, Senior Vice President | Salesforce Switzerland & Eastern Europe

Petra joined salesforce in 2016. In her current role as GM, Senior Vice President she is responsible for our businesses in Eastern Europe and is the Country Leader for Switzerland.

Before that Petra had different roles within salesforce Europe such as EMEA Emerging Markets & Israel. She did lead the Commercial Business Unit in EMEA and in her early days at Salesforce she built the European Innovation and Transformation Services business.

Petra is a business and technology executive with a +20-year record of excellence with international experience with a strong focus on sales and marketing, digital transformation and multi-channel management.

Prior to joining Salesforce, Petra was 7 years General Manager at Microsoft in Switzerland and in Austria. Petra is a confident strategist with substantial Go To Market experience, who has launched successful digital products and services across Europe.

Petra is passionate about developing businesses, innovation, new work models and talent development.

Petra holds a Masters in Business and IT, studied International management at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Petra is married, loves traveling around the globe, cycling and yoga.

Thomas Winter

Partner Organization Lead & Member of the Executive Board | Microsoft Switzerland

Since January 2019, Thomas has been responsible for the partner and ISV alliance division, as well as the graduate and apprentice program at Microsoft Switzerland. As head of the partner organization, his top goal is to work with Microsoft partners to create and implement cloud-based solutions which accelerate digital transformations of joint customers. On his podcast The Digitizer, Thomas interviews Microsoft Partners about the joint customer value proposition.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Thomas was at Cisco, where he has held various roles in sales, marketing, IT, operations, and business development since 2000. Most recently, he worked as Chief Digital Officer for the global partner organization. Prior to that, he held IT management positions at Telekurs (now SIX Group).

Thomas  holds a Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Computer Science from the HSR in Rapperswil and an MBA from the University of St. Gallen and University of Toronto.

In his spare time, he enjoys the outdoors with his family and working with a number of early-stage startups.

Alice Smith

Head of Marketing | Gearset 

An experienced leader with a background in customer marketing, content creation, advocacy and ABM, Alice has partnered with marketing and sales teams to drive and improve marketing success for over a decade. Alice is now applying her domain expertise to Gearset, heading up the marketing team to grow awareness of Gearset as the leading Salesforce DevOps solution.

Pam Brown

Manager, Certifications Product Management | AWS

Pam Brown is a product leader with experience leading innovation in the technology, education, and financial services sectors. She currently leads Product Management for AWS Certifications, where she focuses on finding opportunities to evaluate and showcase talent in the growing cloud job market.

Prior to AWS, she was Director of Product Management at an educational assessment company, where she drove revenue growth through a digital transformation of its test prep product portfolio.

She started her career in international development and learned about innovation first-hand while living in rural India and working at a microfinance bank for women.

Maxine Nwaneri

Founder & CEO | The Future is Greater

Maxine is the Founder and CEO of The Future is Greater, a professional services firm that helps companies retain, develop, and advance top diverse talent to drive business results.

Her company has helped clients on five continents achieve extraordinary results through executive coaching, consulting, workshops and other solutions based on proprietary processes developed from over two decades of dedication to radical development and transformation.

Yasmeen Majid

Director, Global Business Change, Cloud Enterprise Solutions, Atos

Yasmeen is a business technologist, passionate about holistic business transformation that addresses the combination of people, process and technology. 

She specializes in collaborating with tech and tech-driven organizations in designing and delivering the improvements and innovation required to support growth, and maintain relevance in an ever-evolving world. Based in the UK, Yasmeen has led significant global transformations in several countries (e.g. Canada, US, France, UK), and industries, including pharma, public health, telecoms/technology and financial services.
 
Having both delivered and consumed professional and technical services, she is sensitive to the priorities of both sides of the client relationship and its importance in delivering successful engagements.
 
In March 2021, Yasmeen joined Atos as Director, Global Business Change for Atos’ Cloud Enterprise Solutions Practice; incrementally she is developing a growing portfolio of NED roles.  

Yasmeen holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science from McMaster University, Canada, and an MBA from EDHEC-Theseus, France.

Leisa Docherty

Chief People Officer | Causeway Technology Solutions

Leisa has a wealth of experience working with tech companies in C-Suite HR roles spanning 25 years. Her experience working in tech ranges from large FTSE-listed businesses to SMEs and PE-backed companies.
 
Leisa has a broad range of experience working across the people spectrum and particularly enjoys HR strategy, people engagement and organizational and cultural change. She’s is passionate about tech and in particular about developing talent and creating a more diverse tech workforce. 

Joanne Webb

Managing Director | Recharge Consulting Ltd
Founder | The Girls Club

Joanne has over 25 years of experience with some of the most recognized and respected organizations across the globe including Microsoft, Universal Pictures and Disney to name a few. She started her career in the telco and tech sectors, but quickly moved into entertainment and then retail and leisure.  An inspirational leader, her latest role at Merlin Entertainment’s saw her drive the global marketing, e-commerce and digital businesses to deliver annual revenues topping £600m.

More recently she has moved into the world of management consulting, setting up her own company, Recharge Consulting. Her passion is working closely with business leaders to get to the route of a problem fast. She creates and delivers solutions that bring the team on the journey and not only fixes the problem, but builds foundations upon which to grow and set them up for further success.

Never one to sit still, she set up a women’s networking group, The Girls Club, during the pandemic and now has over 700 directors and c-suite women engaged and contributing to a vibrant, friendly and straight-talking group that meets regularly to laugh, learn and is partial to a cheeky glass of wine. 

Casey Clayton

Sr. Program Manager, Consumption and Partner Programs | Planet Technologies

Casey is a Sr. Program Manager for Planet Technologies, an industry-leading Microsoft consulting firm. At Planet, Casey is responsible for discovering, developing and implementing Microsoft partner programs. He also owns their Microsoft FastTrack Ready Partner program and Planet’s YouAlreadyOwnIt cloud advisory service.  
 
Casey draws on his experience in business development, customer and partner success management to build programs that enrich customer technology experiences and maximize the services they already own.

Debbie Peaford

Programme Director | DXC for British Aerospace

Debbie is a seasoned senior leader with over 25 years of experience spanning multiple market sectors, including banking, insurance, legal, publishing, media, advertising, energy and Government defence.

As a leader, she is experienced in service strategy, design and delivery. She is a six sigma, change management specialist, developing and leading cross-functional teams ranging up to 1,500 people.

Equpiped with extensive governance and risk management experience, Debbie is also a keen advocate for diversity and inclusion, having been involved in several major projects over the years achieving significant successes. One of her recent projects saw her found the HeforShe Campaign for the East Sussex Fire Service.

Debbie has a passion for service delivery and is customer-focussed, boasting extensive client relationship experience. 

Paul Nicholls

Head of Schools, Colleges & EdTechs UK | AWS

Paul is Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Head of Schools, Colleges and EdTechs in the UK.
 
He leads the UK team helping customers leverage the AWS cloud to deliver innovation at scale across the education sector.
 
Prior to joining AWS, Paul worked for BT in varying senior roles across education, finance and retail
 

Deirdre Roche

Head of Business Management | Ergo

Deirdre is an accomplished IT professional with over 20 years’ experience. As Head of Business Management and part of the senior leadership team at Ergo, she plays a pivotal role in successfully running and managing a complex business.
 
In a career that progressed from technical and practice lead roles to her current position, she developed financial and commercial acumen as well as a strong focus on client needs and using technology to solve business problems.
 
A people-oriented leader, she is passionate about customer experience and the role data plays in helping organisations make more informed decisions.

Rajesh Ahuja

Global Head of Talent Acquisition | Infosys

Rajesh is the Global Talent head of Talent Acquisition at Infosys. He is an experienced leader in various facets of Human Resources Management, covering Business Partnering, Talent Acquisition, Compensation Management, Org Development, Communications, etc.

He has a rich cultural experience working and living in India, UK and South East Asia. Rajesh has constantly enhanced the value of HR function for the business leaders by creating solutions and being innovative in his approach.

He is a well-respected people manager with experience of managing large cross-cultural teams across various geographies. 

Amanda Sleight

TBC | AWS

Alice Smith

Head of Marketing | Gearset 

An experienced leader with a background in customer marketing, content creation, advocacy and ABM, Alice has partnered with marketing and sales teams to drive and improve marketing success for over a decade. Alice is now applying her domain expertise to Gearset, heading up the marketing team to grow awareness of Gearset as the leading Salesforce DevOps solution.

Pam Brown

Manager, Certifications Product Management | AWS

Pam Brown is a product leader with experience leading innovation in the technology, education, and financial services sectors. She currently leads Product Management for AWS Certifications, where she focuses on finding opportunities to evaluate and showcase talent in the growing cloud job market.

Prior to AWS, she was Director of Product Management at an educational assessment company, where she drove revenue growth through a digital transformation of its test prep product portfolio.

She started her career in international development and learned about innovation first-hand while living in rural India and working at a microfinance bank for women.

Joanne Web

General Manager, Senior Vice President | Salesforce Switzerland & Eastern Europe

Petra joined salesforce in 2016. In her current role as GM, Senior Vice President she is responsible for our businesses in Eastern Europe and is the Country Leader for Switzerland.

Before that Petra had different roles within salesforce Europe such as EMEA Emerging Markets & Israel. She did lead the Commercial Business Unit in EMEA and in her early days at Salesforce she built the European Innovation and Transformation Services business.

Petra is a business and technology executive with a +20-year record of excellence with international experience with a strong focus on sales and marketing, digital transformation and multi-channel management.

Prior to joining Salesforce, Petra was 7 years General Manager at Microsoft in Switzerland and in Austria. Petra is a confident strategist with substantial Go To Market experience, who has launched successful digital products and services across Europe.

Petra is passionate about developing businesses, innovation, new work models and talent development.

Petra holds a Masters in Business and IT, studied International management at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Petra is married, loves traveling around the globe, cycling and yoga.

Moderator: Kashif Naqshbandi

Chief Marketing Officer | Tenth Revolution Group

Kashif is Chief Marketing Officer at Tenth Revolution Group, and has over two decades of recruitment experience. Kashif cut his teeth in marketing after launching his own start-up during the dot com boom. Here, he learned all the tricks of the trade through a combination of practical experience and taking calculated risks. Kashif, who is a graduate of Imperial College London, joined Tenth Revolution Group in 2012 and has since taken the lead on product brand marketing strategies. His work on market focus and identifying fresh, feasible opportunities for expansion has been crucial to the company’s ongoing international success.