My agenda is to see Australia have access to a more balanced and diverse workforce to ensure we have an IT industry in the future.
I am a passionate advocate of equal opportunity having grown up in South Africa at a time when minority groups were privileged and an overwhelming proportion of the general population was discriminated against.  I qualified as an Accountant and moved into Finance and then Project Management roles when I came to Australia. I worked in both the Public and Private Sector in Canberra and moved to Recruitment following an extensive project engagement with Defence.

After 3 years in the US, I returned to Australia and was CEO for an IT Managed Services provider in Canberra before moving to Melbourne. As Victorian General Manager of GMT People I continued with my passion – matching people and IT requirements, and nurturing candidates’ career growth.

I took on the CEO role at GMT in 2012 after and then purchased the business outright in November 2012.  I have over 20 years in Recruitment with IT recruitment being my passion. I have a particular interest in Diversity generally given the largely untapped opportunity it presents to industry and individuals.

I joined Vic ICT for Women as I felt passionate about the opportunity to remedy the issue of Gender Diversity in IT and particularly given I was experiencing the lack of females remaining in the Industry here in Victoria.

Editor’s Note: In June 2013, Chris was honoured as ICT Woman of the Year at the iAwards recognition event.

Irene has over 17 years in IT roles with experience in Cloud, IT Management, Program Management (Network, Assurance, Activation and Product), Stakeholder Management, Project Delivery and Governance, Financial Management and Risk & Security Management

As a Board Member of Vic ICT for Women, Irene has lead various programs and projects including Go Girl, Go for IT, Importance of Women in IT and Stakeholder Management while working closely with government, ACS and other groups in support of attraction, retention and progression of women in ICT.

Kaye is the Chief Operations Officer for the Royal Commission into Family Violence.  She has over 20 years’ experience in the public and private sectors including food, manufacturing, equipment and logistics for both listed and non-listed enterprises. Her robust financial background has provided a sound basis for the continued delivery of creative and innovative solutions that meet the strategic needs of the organisations for which she has worked.

Fi is a Board Member and Secretary for the Victorian ICT for Women network and Director of the Go Girl Go for IT program.  She is a keen cook and has a wicked sense of humour!

Fi is a business strategist and service oriented transformational Executive with extensive experience within professional services and healthcare and was also selected as the 2014 iAwards National and Victorian ICT Woman of the Year.

As General Manager of William Buck Victoria, Fi is focused on delivering high quality and personalised services, whilst also supporting its strong people and community values.

Fi is passionate about women and diversity with the workforce and particularly the IT industry. She started her career in critical care nursing and has progressed through studies and opportunities into the technology industry. After advancing IT leadership roles in healthcare, Fi was appointed as the first Australian CIO for a large professional services firm and subsequently the first female IT APAC regional coordinator and representative on the international IT Advisory committee for the international firm.

Fi is also a keen writer, with articles being regularly published and a white paper focusing on change management associated with mergers and acquisitions. To support Fi’s skills she has qualifications which include an MBA, GradDip Health Admin, Grad Dip Critical Care Nursing, Network A+, ITIL & Prince2.

I am a working mum running two businesses that reflect my career to date and my interests. Having spent 20+ years in retail and Telco, honing my skills in marketing, I now run a company called Own Brand that works with individuals and small to medium companies looking to build marketing strategies and brands either as a company or for themselves. My approach is a coaching one, building confidence and understanding as we go.

My second business is co-owned and focuses on helping coach mums back into the workplace. At coaching4mums we use seminars, workshops and 1:1 coaching to support mums post baby in the process of returning to the workplace.

I am originally from the UK and have been in Australia for 5 years. My experiences operating at senior management level within large retailers and Telco (T_Mobile now Everything Everywhere) has led me to understand the challenges that face women in the workplace across the board and specifically the vital role they can and should play within the workplace.

I see myself as a passionate advocate of gender diversity and equal opportunity for women in the Information Communication and Technology (ICT) industry. I have a strong background in project/program and portfolio management with ability to deliver in multi-vendor and multi-stakeholder complex environments. I also see myself as a change leader who can engage staff across all levels to deliver the required organisational outcome.
I have thirteen years of experience in the ICT industry and a Board of Director at Project Management Institute (PMI) Melbourne Chapter since July 2011. I have delivered projects within Banking, Higher Education and Government sectors.
My interests – being one of only three female students who did engineering, I am determined to change the lack of gender diversity in technology sector.

I have been busy driving initiatives to improve gender diversity, equality and career opportunities for women in ICT since 2001. My earliest venture was training robotics programming to high school students and now I am chairing Graduate ICT Girls event since 2013. I am also involved in philanthropic projects overseas supporting education for kids from disadvantaged background in India.

I am a Technology Consultant with experience working in the US, China and Australia.  I have been with KPMG for over 10 years and work with Banking clients to assist them in improved performance and risk management through the use of technology.

As a Board Member of Vic ICT for Women my primary focus is on driving the What’s Hot in IT program to provide networking and learning opportunities to women working in ICT.

I have spent a number of years working internationally in various global sales and marketing leadership roles. Through this experience I built up the knowledge required to lead teams in sales, channels and alliances, corporate marketing, product marketing and management and field marketing for a number of high-technology companies.

I have led organizations through rapid growth and industry slowdowns and successfully hired, trained and motivated highly qualified, skills diverse sales and marketing teams in major worldwide markets. From this hands-on leadership I gained a proven track record for conceptualizing strategy and garnering organization buy-in and building success.

My local market knowledge has been built up through many years spent working and living in US, Asia Pacific and EMEA.  I am now taking all this experience and passing it on for the benefit of Australian tech businesses and start-ups in the form of venture capital investment through rampersand and advisory services through Little Fish to BIG Fish.

My interest is to get more women into tech and help create a new generation of successful entrepreneurs.

Belinda has over 30 years of experience in ICT, working in Communications and Change Management, Project Management, Resource Management and numerous technical roles.

As a Board Member, Belinda is responsible for coordination and promotion of the ‘Importance of Women in IT’ monthly breakfast speaker program.  She strives to

• encourage more young women to enter ICT industries and change the image
• promote confidence, share lessons learned and develop an awareness about opportunities for promotion and growth to women who are already working in ICT.

Ayten is General Manager of Information Digital and Technology Portfolio Delivery Services at Australia Post.

As a Board Member of Vic ICT for Women, Ayten has taken responsibility for Governance including the development of a new Constitution and review of current processes and practices.

I started my IT career on a Technical Helpdesk for NAB and shortly thereafter moved to ANZ where I have held Information Security and Technology Risk Management roles for the last 7+ years. I completed an Undergraduate in Pure Mathematics and a Masters In Information Security & Assurance and take an active interest in the field of Cyber Security.
I have been in a leadership role for more than 3 years and am passionate about mentoring people (I mentor many people through work, RMIT and now the VIC ICT Mentoring Program), supporting them to navigate through their careers and be the best they can be. I am also currently running the ANZ Women In Information Security Group and am part of the broader ANZ Women in Technology Working Group as I believe gender diversity is a very important issue and one that I see value in championing.

Since joining IDP Education as Project Services Manager in January 2014, I have been leading large global business transformation projects leveraging a unique mix of IT and HR expertise.

Prior to joining IDP, I held the role of Strategic Workforce Capability Lead for Telstra’s IT Dept for three years. Programs included diversity, recruitment, leadership development, organization restructures and training.

I am passionate about the future of work, and helping Australian companies build and retain a high performing technical workforce. Over the past 5 years I have received a number of awards for leadership and innovation in the IT workforce space and I am keen to continue developing programs that have impact and relevance.

In October 2014, working with ACS and Vic ICT for Women, I lead the design and delivery of a unique diversity initiative called Leadership Hacks, to spark cross industry collaboration and innovation in corporate gender diversity programs. This event was attended by senior leaders from all major corporations, institutions and their suppliers. The feedback was excellent and the social media attention strong after trending on Twitter during the event.

I’ve worked in the IT industry for 13 years as a technical consultant and trainer. I currently work as a manager for Computer Power Institute.
I enjoy working in education as it allows me to share my knowledge and skills with others who are willing to learn and seek employment in the industry, its challenging, rewarding and vibrant. My commitment to the attraction of women in IT is a primary focus at Computer Power Institute.

As a management consultant with Deloitte for thirteen years, I have worked with clients delivering major technology projects across various industries. Working with senior executives, steering committees and boards to achieve the right outcomes.

Over my career I have transitioned from the accounting area to deliver major IT implementations, bridging the gap between IT and the business.

I would like to contribute to developing and promoting IT as a career for women and view the Victorian Women in ICT as an opportunity to achieve this objective.

Mahtab is a computing expert with over 10 years of experience in the IT industry as a software engineer, solutions architect, researcher, and project manager both in Australia and overseas.

She is currently working at the IBM Research lab in Australia, managing projects in the area of scalable cloud solutions for healthcare systems, combining her technical, research, and management skills to deliver world wide solutions.

More specifically here interests are cloud computing, IOT solutions in healthcare domain, and cloud security. Mahtab is involved with a number of organizations supporting females in computer science and IT and is passionate about encouraging more females into this field.

I am an ex-neuroscience researcher turned IT Project Manager at the University of Melbourne Infrastructure Services – Research Platforms team.

Most of my experience in project management have been around business process re-engineering for infrastructure projects.  I have helped deliver projects building new capabilities to researchers via high performance computing, cloud computing and data storage facilities. These projects were infrastructure projects with major business process impacts; in many cases new processes and procedures were created and had to integrate with existing University systems.

I studied and am very interested in biomedical research and how IT can increase and facilitate research output. Due to my studies, and current roles  I am a huge believer and supporter for ways to improve gender equality and diversity in STEM.

As an Associate Board Member I am currently assigned to

• the Go Girl Focus Group as the Communications sub-committee lead
• the Whats Hot in IT program.

Sumona is a Business Development Executive at IBM GBS, representing a wide range of application technology solutions working cross sector and cross industry. Sumona has 20 years of sales and management experience in the IT industry covering a wide array of roles, primarily based in Melbourne, Australia. Her past roles have ranged from developing new business and signings in white space, selling to base accounts, pre-sales and solutioning, managing large project delivery teams both onshore and offshore and working in the client space in retail, public and education sectors. Most recent experience has been in the complex deal shaping and outsourcing environments. Her core competencies also include client relationship management, strong presentation skills including an ability to present to both technical and business stakeholders.

Sumona is  passionate about issues with women in the technology field and has been engaged in numerous volunteering activities such as Go Girl Go for IT as well as mentoring with organisations such as the The Smith Family, Fit for Work etc. As a Board Member, Sumona will take ownership of the What’s Hot in IT program and manage the delivery of two events in 2016.

Rebecca is the Executive Director of icourts – a law firm specializing in managing and presenting digital evidence and working within the public and private sectors solving complex electronic discovery and information management issues.  Rebecca has extensive experience and expertise in the setup and management of Royal Commissions, Commissions of Inquiry and the largest litigation matters heard using technology across Australia.  Rebecca has been actively involved with Vic ICT for Women over a number of years and in July 2015 she was appointed as Ambassador for our Mentoring Program.

Liz Doherty is a Creative Director and Strategist who applies her passion for data and new technology in marketing and advertising for a wide range of clients.  She has a deep and rounded understanding of digital, interactive, SEO & SEM, mobile and new technology as well as social media.

In 2015 Liz applied her talents in presenting #BOLDMoves to drive change in gender diversity across our industry.