The award winners, all great role models for women looking to break into the male dominated world of technology, demonstrated the broad and diverse range of opportunities the IT sector offers, and whose achievements will encourage and inspire more women and girls to pursue a career in this exciting, dynamic profession.
Wendy Tan-White, Founder and CMO of Moonfruit, from London is the winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year category, sponsored by BP.
In 1999, Wendy founded Moonfruit, a DIY website builder which has served over 3.2million small businesses to date. After suffering a tumultuous set-back during the dotcom crash, and surviving despite cutting staff back from 60 to two, Wendy took time off to have a family and rejoined the company in 2008 once it had become part of the Gandi Group. Turnover has since doubled from $1.9 million to $3.9 million through Wendy’s new vision and growth strategy.
Tan White’s entrepreneurial spirit has also seen her join a team that set up the ground breaking peer to peer lending website zopa.com whilst also sitting on the investment panel of Mobius Lifescience Fund. The panel were wowed that her vision and growth strategy increased turnover two fold from $1.9 million to $3.9 million and raised over $2 million for international growth at the end of last year.
An entrepreneur through and through, Tan-White was also on the team that launched zopa.com, a peer to peer lending website and is a mentor on the Astia Women’s entrepreneur programme.
Maxine Benson, MBE, Co-founder and Director of everywoman said; “The number and calibre of nominations was exceptionally high, so congratulations to all of our Award winners. Technology is a great profession and the IT industry is a sector where women can enjoy incredibly exciting, fulfilling, rewarding careers. Our winners are all phenomenal role models whose success we applaud and whose passion, commitment and drive we celebrate.”
The two runners up were:
Juliet Tzabar, Managing Director, Plug-in Media, said: “I was thrilled to be selected by Every Woman / WIT as a finalist in the entrepreneur category. It seems amazing to me to receive recognition for a job I love doing in a sector that didn’t exist when I was growing up.”
“Technology provides a hugely dynamic environment in which to work and whilst many people might dismiss it as dull – is is anything but! With the convergence of media and technology the opportunities in this field increase every day and it pays to be ahead of the game.”
“At Plug-in Media we have a lot of fun coming up with creative technology solutions to delivering interactive entertainment for kids – it’s an incredibly exciting environment in which to work and I hope the projects that we do inspire more women to follow careers in the casual gaming sector.”
Alicia Navarro Co-founder & CEO of Skimlinks “Getting more girls into technology, let alone technology entrepreneurship, is about there being enough examples of success that inspire young girls to seek a career in technology. Being recognized as a technology entrepreneur hopefully will highlight that its a fabulous direction to take a career, full of travel, innovation, and diverse opportunities. Girls can do it if they want to, we just have to encourage them to want it.”
Following the lunchtime ceremony, the CWT everywoman in Technology winners, accompanied by Award sponsors and leading industry figures attended The Celebration of Women in IT reception held at Associated Newspapers Ltd in London, hosted by HRH, The Princess Royal, Patron of WISE (Women into Science Engineering and Construction).
Picture: Wendy Tan-White (left) Juliet Tzar (left) Alicia Navarro (centre)