The Most Inspiring Women in Cyber Awards were announced at a ceremony at the BT Tower in London on February 27. The event was organised by Eskenzi PR, sponsored by BT, ThinkCyber and Plexal, with the IT Security Guru, Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) UK & Ireland Affiliate, and Assured Intelligence. Due to the international nature of the awards, the event was also live streamed.
Full list of winners:
Top 20
Rosie Anderson, Head of Strategic Solutions at Th4ts3cur1ty Company
Blessing Usoro, Information Security Manager at Cyber for School Girls
Lauren Zink, Manager of Culture, Awareness and Training at Indeed
Jennifer Fernick, Senior Staff Security Engineer and Encryption Lead at Google
Jan Carroll, Managing Director at Fortify Institute
Zinet Kemal, Cloud Security Engineer at BestBuy
Melissa Chambers, CEO of Sitehop
Lisa Ventura MBE, Founder of Cyber Security Unity Limited
Samantha Humphries, Senior Director of International Marketing and Strategy at Exabeam
Zoe Mackenzie, Information Security Manager at TSG and Volunteer President at WiCyS UK&I Affiliate
Chelsea Jarvie, CISO and Director of Neon Circle
Stephanie Luangraj, CEO and Founder of WomenWhoSecure
Nikki Webb, Global Channel Manager at Custodian360
Lianne Potter, Head of SecOps at Asda
Hazel McPherson, CISO of ALD Automotive and Director of 4FOX Security
Rebecca Taylor, Threat Intelligence Knowledge Manager at Secureworks
Illyana Mullins, Founder of WiTCH (Women in Tech and Cyber Hub)
Chiedza Kambasha, Senior Partner and Lead Crisis Consultant at AKG Global
Dr Andrea Cullen, CEO and Co-Founder of CAPSLOCK
Dr Iretioluwa Akerele, Co-Founder of CyBlack
Marketeer of the year
Laura Reilly, Head of Digital Marketing at LT Harper
Ones to watch
Ellie Calver, Cybersecurity Apprentice at BT
Valeen Oseh-Ovarah, Founder and CEO of TisOva
Jasmine Eskenzi, Founder and CEO of The Zensory
Nicole Borbely, BISO Senior Associate at PwC
Jenny McCullagh, Graduate Cybersecurity Engineer at Leonardo/Director and Co-founder of CyberWomen Groups CIC.
Yvonne Eskenzi, Director and co-founder of Eskenzi PR & Marketing, said: “It was such an honour to be in the company of so many incredible women at this year’s Most Inspiring Women in Cyber Awards at the BT Tower. I am continually blown away by the achievements of women in this industry and our ability to come together as a community to celebrate and empower one another time and time again. Every woman nominated was exceptional and every winner thoroughly deserving. Congratulations all!”
Judges had to whittle down over 100 entries to 20. The judges were:
Eleanor Dallaway, Co-Founder of Assured Intelligence;
Yvonne Eskenzi, Co-Founder of Eskenzi PR;
Lorna Armitage, COO and Co-Founder of CAPSLOCK;
Aurorah Cheney and Kate Wendelboe, Security Strategy & Growth Directors at BT;
Jenny Radcliffe, Author and ‘People Hacker’;
Stephanie Itimi, Founder and CEO of Seidea;
Lucy Finlay, Client Delivery Director at ThinkCyber; and
Diane Gilbert, Innovation Ecosystem Lead at Plexal.
