Channel Asia Women ICT Awards winners 2023
Channel Asia is proud to announce the winners of the Women in ICT Awards (WIICTA) in 2023, honouring female excellence within the technology channel following an industry-defining celebration in Singapore.
Played out in front of more than 160 attendees at the St Regis in Singapore, the entire ASEAN ecosystem came together under the Channel Asia roof to set a new industry benchmark for female achievement and accomplishment.
In total, 107 finalists were honoured from a pool of over 150 nominations, spanning partner, start-up, vendor and distributor businesses.
Following an intensive judging process -- selected by an executive panel of more than 46 industry judges -- 16 winners were selected across eight categories, in addition to three highly commended acknowledgements.
The collective aim of WIICTA is to ensure as many outstanding women are endorsed through this unique awards program as possible, aligned to the collective goal of providing a platform upon aspiring female talent can shine across Southeast Asia.
In 2023, WIICTA honoured the channel across eight categories, spanning Innovation, Technical, Entrepreneur, Graduate, Rising Star, Shining Star, Achievement and D&I Champion (Company and Individual) awards.
All career stages were in the spotlight from graduate-level entrants to well-established CEOs, in addition to inspiring entrepreneurs, creative thinkers and technical experts, as well as talent rising through the ranks and consistent high-performing individuals. This was also supported by both individual and company champions of D&I initiatives.
Collectively, WIICTA housed the largest celebration of female excellence within the technology channel across Southeast Asia with female leaders represented in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines.
Channel Asia congratulates all winners, highly commended and finalists and thanks all organisations and individuals for supporting this initiative.
INNOVATION
This award recognises a creative-thinking candidate who is a standout in bringing innovation to life through a big picture and out-of-the-box approach to business. This individual is unrivalled at converting embryonic ideas into viable working solutions through a unique thought process designed to continually push the envelope.
- Valerie Yong Jia Yu - AsiaPac Technology (Singapore)
- Deborah Wong - Cisco (Singapore)
- Regita Permana Putri - Cisco (Indonesia)
- Lishan Kooh - Databricks (Singapore)
- Pen Bumanglag - Exclusive Networks (Philippines)
- Elsie Chen - HPE (Taiwan)
- Joanne Ong - NetApp (Singapore)
- Eunice Ng - New Relic (Singapore)
- Benedikta Satya - Searce (Indonesia)
- Gregana Pozgay - Sourced Group (Singapore)
- Jade Koh - Trellix (Singapore)
Winner: Joanne Ong – NetApp
Joanne wins this award for her role in localising and differentiating NetApp’s regional channel strategy. She believes that building a strong, highly capable, and energised partner ecosystem can better enable partners to drive digital and cloud transformation and capture market share.
TECHNICAL
This award recognises excellence in the form of technical and engineering expertise, honouring deep domain knowledge in relation to technology products, solutions and services. This candidate has provided business value through specialised skills and competence, spanning technical, pre-sales and support roles.
Technical – Regional:
- Shah Priyanka Hermant - Avanade Asia (Singapore)
- Jeanne Choo - Databricks (Singapore)
- Ratih Sudirham - Okta (Singapore)
- Tetiana Kodliuk - Proofpoint (SIngapore)
- Abhinaya Murugesan - Rackspace (Singapore)
- Wang Ziting - Sourced Group (Singapore)
Winner: Shah Priyanka Hemant - Avanade Asia
Priyanka wins this award for leading Avanade’s AI and IoT strategy and business consulting in Southeast Asia. She also spearheads the Industry X program for Digital Twin solutions for the region and is an AI for Sustainability champion for ASEAN. As a mentor and trainer, she joined forces with the Code Without Barriers program where she sets up and judges hackathons, mentors women participants. Through this program, she has helped certify 75-80 women across ASEAN countries for Microsoft AI-900 and AI-102 exams.
Technical – National:
- Lotis Pascual Gonzales - Cisco (Philippines)
- Preeyanuch Adirek - Cisco Systems (Thailand)
- Ee Laine Koh - Commvault (Malaysia)
- Van Hiep - Rackspace (Vietnam)
- Erika Kartika Putri - R17 Group (Indonesia)
Winner: Ee Laine Koh – Commvault
Ee Laine wins this award for her more than 20 years of experience in technical consultancy and intelligent data management and services. She has worked closely with multiple customer teams throughout her career, and is actively involved in cloud and containers projects.
In 2022, Ee Laine ran over 40 customer workshops and partner trainings on cloud and SaaS data protection, as well as ransomware protection across Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Her focus remains in helping customers transit and benefit from the latest digital innovations.
ENTREPRENEUR
This award recognises an enterprising candidate with a risk-taking mentality, honouring excellence in launching new ventures, products or services. This individual has a proven background in building innovation from the ground up, evident through converting market-leading ideas into viable business offerings.
- Mharicar Castillo-Reyes - Asticom (Philippines)
- Winnie Heng - Cisco (Singapore)
- Camy Ooi- Cloud Software Group (Singapore)
- Nadia Alatas - Cybertrend Intrabuana (Indonesia)
- Joey Lim - Exclusive Networks (Singapore)
- Shirley Lim Xue Li - Possbly (Singapore)
- Jennifer Cheng - Proofpoint (Singapore)
- Lilian Lam - Salesforce (Singapore)
- Michelle Pearce - World Wide Technology (Singapore)
Winner: Nadia Alatas - Cybertrend Intrabuana (Indonesia)
Nadia wins this award for extensive knowledge and experience gained from 27 years of dedicated work in the ICT industry. She established Cybertrend Intrabuana, a company engaged in data analytics and artificial intelligence in 2011, with the vision to enable global transformation leveraging intelligent people and technology.
During the pandemic, Nadia was involved in numerous business activities and faced the challenge of implementing new strategies for the company’s resilience and growth. She transformed the company from having an aggressive approach to a more efficient one by pivoting from a service-based model to a consultancy-based one, and began selling proprietary products.
GRADUATE
This award recognises a standout graduate candidate who has leveraged apprenticeship programs to start a career within the ICT industry. Open to all roles and responsibilities, this individual has made an immediate and positive impact on the business through providing a fresh perspective and high levels of professionalism. This award is open to candidates involved in a graduate program between 2020-2023.
- Ellie Soh - AsiaPac Technology (Singapore)
- Christine Seah - HPE (Singapore)
- Kung Li Qi - HP (Singapore)
- Azhanra Jacky - R17 Group (Indonesia)
- Nancy Cai - Telstra (Singapore)
Winner: Ellie Soh - AsiaPac Technology (Singapore)
Ellie wins this award for her remarkable sales results and professional customer engagements while working closely with the various cross-functional teams across AsiaPac in pre-sales, engineering, technical servicing, warehouse and logistics. She was offered the position of Sales Business Development Executive for six months under AsiaPac’s Working Internship Graduate Programme which allowed her to discover her strengths and take on challenges that prepared her well for her career.
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