Channel Asia Women in ICT Awards 2022: and the winners are...

More than 250 attendees came together under the Channel Asia roof to set a new industry benchmark for female excellence in ASEAN #WIICTA

Channel Asia is proud to announce the winners of the Women in ICT Awards (WIICTA) in 2022, honouring female excellence within the technology channel following an industry-defining celebration in Singapore.

Played out in front of more than 250 attendees at Shangri-La Singapore -- the largest in-person audience for the market’s leading gender diversity and inclusion (D&I) awards program -- the entire ASEAN ecosystem came together under the Channel Asia roof to set a new industry benchmark for female achievement and accomplishment.

In total, 136 finalists (124 individuals and 12 companies) were honoured from a pool of over 200 nominations, spanning partner, start-up, vendor and distributor businesses.

Following an intensive judging process -- selected by an executive panel of more than 50 industry judges -- 21 winners were selected across eight categories, in addition to 10 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.

“To all our finalists, highly commended and winners, congratulations from Channel Asia,” said Cherry Yumul, Vice President of Channel at Foundry. “This is an inspiring example of the deep levels of emerging and established female talent in ASEAN."

In 2022, 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.

This was supported by an executive panel discussion which outlined what excellence looks like through the eyes of inspiring business leaders across Southeast Asia, showcasing high-performing individuals pursuing innovation and growth in equal measure.

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.

Partner:

  • Huiying Chng - AsiaPac Technology (Singapore)
  • Kristine Mariano - DXC Technology (Philippines)
  • Mui Cheng Tan - Fujitsu (Singapore)
  • Teh Su-Ann - GrowthOps (Malaysia)
  • Nawiya Innoom - NTT Data Business Solutions (Thailand)
  • Ichita Puspa - R17 Group (Indonesia)
  • Jerri-anne Yap - Sourced Group (Singapore)

Highly Commended: Kristine Mariano - DXC Technology (Philippines)

Winner: Mui Cheng Tan - Fujitsu (Singapore)

Mui Cheng wins this award for transforming Fujitsu cloud offerings into a multi-cloud platform capable of housing new technologies to boost customer efficiency levels across Asia. In a project spanning more than 12 months, Mui Cheng and her team created a roadmap designed to leverage bleeding-edge solutions with the support of multiple technology vendors, underpinned by a commitment to enhance customer cloud migration projects.

Vendor / Distributor:

  • Kirsten Gilbertson - Amazon Web Services (Singapore)
  • Carrera Chang - Cisco (Singapore)
  • Angela Arlina - Cisco (Indonesia)
  • Yeo Lee Lee - ExtraHop Networks (Singapore)
  • Doreen Goh - Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Singapore)
  • Jess How - HP (Malaysia)
  • Genevieve Goh - New Relic (Singapore)
  • Fayanne Foo - VMware (Singapore)
  • Joyslyn Chan - Westcon-Comstor (Singapore)

Highly Commended: Genevieve Goh - New Relic (Singapore)

Winner: Kirsten Gilbertson - Amazon Web Services (Singapore)

Kirsten wins this award as a highly innovative team builder who continually delivers outstanding results through unique ideas, fresh thinking and market-first initiatives. One such example is the creation of the ASEAN Digital Customers and Service Expansion team to help drive AWS infrastructure and services launches, making cloud more accessible to AWS partners and customers across the region.

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.

Partner:

  • Cut Aufa Tafjyra - Digital Prima Sejahtera (Indonesia)
  • Winnie Pang - GrowthOps (Malaysia)
  • Anisa Nevi Saerina - NTT Data Business Solutions (Indonesia)
  • Nisha Sullia - Rackspace (Singapore)

Winner: Nisha Sullia - Rackspace (Singapore)

Nisha wins this award in recognition of demonstrating outstanding technical expertise across data, advanced analytics and machine learning projects in Asia. In working with a large pharmaceutical company, Nisha helped the business transition data from legacy SAP systems to an enhanced cloud platform, underpinned by improved data flow and architecture capabilities.

Vendor / Distributor:

  • Damselle Navarro - Amazon Web Services (Philippines)
  • Preeyanuch Adirek - Cisco (Thailand)
  • Ee Laine Koh - Commvault (Malaysia)
  • Rebeker Choi - Google Cloud (Singapore)
  • Yvonne Yeo - IBM (Singapore)
  • Tidaporn Santimanawong - Oracle (Singapore)
  • Maria Christina Tech - Rhipe (Philippines)
  • Sarada Karri - Salesforce (Singapore)
  • Fiona Wei - VMware (Singapore)
  • YunQi Fan - Zscaler (Singapore)

Winner: Sarada Karri - Salesforce (Singapore)

Sarada wins this award in recognition of “going the extra mile” to meet customer objectives through a commitment to technical excellence and deep solution expertise. In leading technical solution teams at Oracle, Workday and now Salesforce, Sarada has a strong background in enterprise applications and continues to help organisations transform operations, processes and systems across ASEAN.

Read more on the next page...

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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.

  • Deborah Wong - Cisco (Singapore)
  • Mariana Miloski - GrowthOps (Singapore)
  • Nisha Devina Roy Joshi - GrowthOps (Malaysia)
  • E-Vonne Loh - HP (Singapore)
  • Siew Kheng Chew - Pro-Datech Systems (Singapore)
  • Abbie Yap - Rhipe (Malaysia)
  • Chloe Tan - Salesforce (Singapore)
  • Dwen Hwee - Tata Consultancy Services (Singapore)
  • Lily Chia - Zscaler (Singapore)

Winner: Abbie Yap - Rhipe (Malaysia)

Abbie wins this award in recognition of her “instrumental” work building out the Zoom channel across Southeast Asia at Rhipe, reaching six-figure revenue growth within six months of launching. Through strategy and determination, Abbie also recruited more than 150 value-added resellers and approximately 75 sub-agents, becoming a “hero program” approach for countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong and South Korea.

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 2019-2022.

Partner:

  • Samantha Yap - AsiaPac Technology (Singapore)
  • Sun Rose Remigio - DXC Technology (Philippines)
  • Hanifah Zahro - NTT Data Business Solutions (Indonesia)
  • Dinda Maulani Putri - R17 Group (Indonesia)
  • Sneha Shrikumar - Telstra (Singapore)

Winner: Samantha Yap - AsiaPac Technology (Singapore)

Samantha wins this award as a standout graduate from the AsiaPac Working Internship Programme, making a positive impact to the business by overachieving her sales target while helping customers navigate the challenges of COVID-19. One notable achievement included helping drive a nationwide project in which 1000 units of rental laptops were urgently supplied within 24 hours to support the set-up of Contact Tracing Centres across Singapore, working overnight to ensure both deployment and functionality.

Vendor / Distributor:

  • Christine Seah - Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Singapore)
  • Tang Xiaoyue - Huawei (Singapore)
  • Ng Ying Ting - GIC (formerly of Amazon Web Services) (Singapore)
  • Xin Ni Sum - Ingram Micro (Singapore)
  • Xu Ying - Microsoft (Singapore)
  • Regina Lim - Salesforce (Singapore)
  • Judy Chai - VMware (Singapore)

Highly Commended: Xu Ying - Microsoft (Singapore)

Winner: Ng Ying Ting - GIC (formerly of Amazon Web Services) (Singapore)

Ying Ting wins this award for developing a Security Baseline initiative at Amazon Web Services to help customers improve security posture through a series of interactive workshops, supported by an accompanying marketing campaign. Achieving Solutions Architect Associate certification to support the roll-out, Ying Ting’s work has been replicated by the global AWS team and used by thousands of customers across the world.

RISING STAR

This award recognises a standout candidate rising through the ranks within the ICT industry, acknowledging significant advancement during the early stages of her technology career. This individual is growing in stature and importance through demonstrating outstanding business acumen, deep market expertise and high levels of professional integrity. This award is open to candidates with 10 years or less experience within the ICT industry.

Partner:

  • Anjali Menon - AsiaPac Technology (Singapore)
  • Kathleen de Cruz - GrowthOps (Malaysia)
  • Sarah Brazano Hakim - Digital Prima Sejahtera (Digiprimatera) (Indonesia)
  • Agatha Armadhea Vashti - NTT Data Business Solutions (Indonesia)
  • Yolanda Sari - Rizki Tujuhbelas Kelola (R17) (Indonesia)
  • Ziting Wang - Sourced Group (Singapore)

Highly Commended: Kathleen de Cruz - GrowthOps (Malaysia)

Winner: Anjali Menon - AsiaPac Technology (Singapore)

Anjali wins this award in recognition of making an immediate and long-lasting impact at AsiaPac Technology, starting with an “instrumental” role in supporting key digital transformation projects for Integrated Health Information Systems (IHIS), AIA, NTUC Income and M1. This was followed by a role expansion to cover pre-sales and implementation for AIOps, increasing responsibility to manage a team of 10 across Singapore, Malaysia and India through a commitment to continuous up-skilling and customer success.

Vendor:

  • Annie An Dongmei - Amazon Web Services (Singapore)
  • Stevie Walsh - Cloudera (Singapore)
  • Suzanne Ngiow - Commvault (Malaysia)
  • Alicia Chua - ESET (Singapore)
  • Premanjali Gupta - Here Technologies (Singapore)
  • Anubha Chamadia - Salesforce (Singapore)
  • Shirley Zhang - Veeam Software (Singapore)

Winner: Stevie Walsh - Cloudera (Singapore)

Stevie wins this award in recognition of a flourishing career and contribution to market success at Cloudera, Rackspace Technology, Dimension Data and BMC Software across Singapore and Asia Pacific. Since joining Cloudera, Stevie’s leadership has grown the public cloud business by 800 per cent year-on-year, while expanding the cloud cross-functional team from four people to 23.

SHINING STAR

This award recognises an established candidate with a strong record of achievement, acknowledging excellence in spearheading company initiatives and driving strategic change. This individual is a consistent high performer who regularly achieves standout business results and continues to assume increased levels of seniority within the organisation. This award is open to candidates with between 11-20 years’ experience within the ICT industry.

Singapore:

  • Winnie Heng - Cisco
  • Toh Wei Wei - Dell Technologies
  • Ericia Phong - Microsoft
  • Yenny Wong - New Relic
  • Stephanie Goveas - Salesforce
  • Grace Yeow - Telstra
  • Kate Liew - Vonage

Highly Commended: Ericia Phong - Microsoft

Winner: Grace Yeow - Telstra

Grace wins this award as an active contributor to Telstra’s growth in South Asia, notably co-leading the bid to secure a US$17 million contract with a market-leading food, agriculture and nutrition company. The customer specifically referenced Grace for her ability to understand the complexity of the request, before patiently breaking down the problem and engaging other key stakeholders to help overcome pain points and drive ongoing success.

Malaysia:

  • Alicia Joseph - Commvault
  • Katherine Beh - Dell Technologies
  • Hong Mee Mee - HP
  • Millie Yong - Microsoft
  • Vivian Tan - Rhipe
  • Ellis Yap - Tata Consultancy Services

Winner: Hong Mee Mee - HP

Mee Mee wins this award in recognition for achieving exceptional sales results, delivering year-on-year business growth and pioneering partner market expansion through HP Amplify in Malaysia. In demonstrating exceptional leadership, Mee Mee helped traditional channel partners embrace online strategies during the height of COVID-19 to drive 300 per cent e-commerce growth, in addition to pioneering a new Online-to-Offline pipeline which allows customers to place orders digitally and pick up devices in store.

Indonesia:

  • Nia Irawati - Cisco
  • Shanti Octavia - Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • Linna Adrianeu - NTT Data Business Solutions
  • Yulian Andriati - R17 Group
  • Benedikta Satya - Searce

Highly Commended: Benedikta Satya - Searce

Winner: Nia Irawati - Cisco

Nia wins this award in recognition of demonstrating a strong growth mindset in the Indonesian market, going above and beyond to achieve channel partner goals while displaying strong levels of empathy and humility in the process. Nia helped broaden Cisco’s channel reach by capturing new small and mid-size market segments, guiding partners on the benefits of enhanced marketing strategies to help the ecosystem acquire 20 new customers and generate leads in excess of $1 million.

Thailand:

  • Uraipan Wongsuwat - Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • Jutharat Jirasathienporn - NTT Data Business Solutions

Winner: Uraipan Wongsuwat - Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Uraipan wins this award in recognition of a career of over-achievement and market growth in Thailand, shaped by a commitment to creating strong team working cultures and inclusive practices. As country leader of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Uraipan is helping Thai customers and partners embrace as-a-service at speed and scale, developing new skills to enhance annual run-rate revenue for the business.

Philippines:

  • Gretchen Perez - DXC Technology
  • Carla Juan - Rhipe
  • Lorna Catherine Avancena - VMware
  • Fara Garzon - Westcon-Comstor

Highly Commended: Lorna Catherine Avancena - VMware

Winner: Fara Garzon - Westcon-Comstor

Fara wins this award in recognition of her instrumental role in driving strategic change within Westcon-Comstor across the Philippines. As a trusted manager within the business, Fara was integral in the launch and management of a new program to recapture expired renewals across the region, resulting in 30 per cent of additional revenue and 35 per cent in additional vendor rebates, with 4000+ quotes created quarterly and released to the market 90 days in advance.

ACHIEVEMENT

This award recognises a standout candidate who has delivered an unrivalled contribution to the ICT industry, evident through outstanding professional and personal achievements. This individual has earned a reputation as an esteemed thought leader following a distinguished career as both a business leader and role model for aspiring executives. This award is open to candidates with 21 years or more experience within the ICT industry.

Partner:

  • Lee Ying Ng - Fujitsu (Singapore)
  • Tay Siow Yen - NCS (Singapore)
  • Gloria Chan - NTT Data Business Solutions (Malaysia)
  • Latika Minocha - Salesforce (Singapore)
  • Mimi Giraud  - Sourced Group (Singapore)
  • Eileen Tan - Stone Forest IT (Singapore)

Highly Commended: Mimi Giraud  - Sourced Group (Singapore)

Winner: Tay Siow Yen - NCS (Singapore)

Siow Yen wins this award in recognition of more than 30 years of service to NCS, making sizeable business contributions in a variety of roles since joining the business in 1990. Notably, Siow Yen led one of the most iconic deals for NCS by spearheading Singapore’s next-generation electronic road pricing (ERP) project, labelled as a first-of-its-kind system to be implemented in an urban environment.

Vendor (National):

  • Maria Eva Kalaw - Cisco (Philippines)
  • Attitaya 'Kate' Surapunthu - Cisco (Thailand)
  • Sarah Regino - Dell Technologies (Philippines)
  • Jessica Bragas - Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Philippines)
  • Catherine Lian - IBM (Malaysia)

Winner: Catherine Lian - IBM (Malaysia)

Catherine wins this award in recognition of a management career spanning more than two decades in Malaysia and South Asia, built on the foundations of business growth, customer success and individual mentoring. As leader of IBM in Malaysia, Catherine actively develops collaboration with educational institutions to provide young generations with “industry-relevant and high-quality skills” to excel in the digital economy, notably initiatives such as the PTECH program and IBM SkillsBuild@PBU Learning Institute.

Vendor (Regional):

  • Annette Chua - Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (Singapore)
  • Chiamin Lau - Autodesk (Singapore)
  • Kerri Lampard - Cisco (Singapore)
  • Camy Ooi - Citrix (Singapore)
  • Christine Delmas Monteiro - Cloudera (Singapore)
  • Ruma Balasubramanian - Google Cloud (Singapore)
  • May Lee - Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Singapore)
  • Fiona Lee - HP (Singapore)
  • Verena Siow - SAP (Singapore)
  • Marilyn Tan - Snowflake (Singapore)
  • Lee Libby - Syniti (Singapore)
  • Tan Sok Leng - Veeam Software (Singapore)

Highly Commended: Ruma Balasubramanian - Google Cloud (Singapore)

Winner: Tan Sok Leng - Veeam Software (Singapore)

Sok Leng wins this award in recognition of demonstrating outstanding leadership, commercial success and business acumen as a trusted executive across Southeast Asia, evident through standout achievements at Veeam, Gigamon and Dimension Data. Most recently, Sok Leng’s leadership has enabled Veeam’s Cloud Service Provider business to achieve 30 per cent growth since 2020, demonstrating her ability to deliver exceptional results in a short period of time.

D&I CHAMPION – Company

This award recognises the standout company in driving diversity and inclusion (D&I) across all aspects of the business, spanning employees, customers and key stakeholders. This organisation has gone beyond a surface-level commitment through the introduction of policies and programs to meet D&I goals, evident through targeted initiatives, strong leadership and clearly defined deliverables. This award is open to all aspects of diversity and inclusion (gender, race, age, disability, sexual orientation etc).

Partner:

  • Avanade
  • Logicalis
  • NTT Data
  • Vonage

Winner: Logicalis

Logicalis wins this award for building an inclusive and diverse workplace culture in Asia through a series of initiatives designed to convert employee-led feedback into company policies and projects. Such initiatives include the creation of a Diversity & Inclusion Council to provide ongoing education and training, in addition to launching an Employee Resource Group to promote inclusive practices and a Workday Peakon Employee Voice survey as a “continuous listening platform” to monitor ongoing progress.

Vendor:

  • Cisco
  • Dell Technologies
  • Here Technologies
  • HP
  • IBM
  • Palo Alto Networks
  • Twilio
  • Veeam Software

Winner: Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies wins this award as a strong advocate for female talent development across Asia Pacific and Japan, anchored by senior leadership action, employee-led initiatives and corporate company policies. One such example is the launch of Soaring Eagles, a six-month talent development program which provides standout female talent in the channel with the platform, tools and network to grow professionally and achieve their full potential.

D&I CHAMPION – Individual

This award recognises an influential individual who actively drives diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives through mentoring and thought leadership across the ICT industry. This candidate acts as a role model for aspiring executives, cultivating diverse teams to drive change both internally and externally. This award is open to all aspects of diversity and inclusion (gender, race, age, disability, sexual orientation etc).

Partner:

  • Naomi Rajendram - Accenture (Singapore)
  • Arissa Wong Liting - Logicalis (Singapore)
  • Jean Chua - NTT Data (Singapore)
  • Shweta Mishra - Rackspace Technology (Singapore)
  • Linzy Azimi - Sourced Group (Singapore)
  • Jane Hodgen - Tata Consultancy Services (Asia)

Highly Commended: Jean Chua - NTT Data (Singapore)

Winner: Naomi Rajendram - Accenture (Singapore)

Naomi wins this award in recognition of her tireless work in influencing industry thinking in relation to Diversity & Inclusion, combining a love of technology with a commitment to ensure the industry is more inclusive for people with disabilities. One notable initiative that Naomi has spearheaded is Deaf4Devs, a program dedicated to building the next-generation of Salesforce developers from the d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HoH) communities across Singapore, with plans to expand further across Southeast Asia and Australia and New Zealand.

Vendor / Distributor:

  • Ulrike Agostin - Cisco (Singapore)
  • Ishani Bose - Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Singapore)
  • Sowjanya Reddy - HP (Singapore)
  • Tracy Quah - Informatica (Singapore)
  • Juliana Cen - Microsoft (Indonesia)
  • Claire Li Yue - Palo Alto Networks (Singapore)
  • Angelica Uy - Rhipe (Philippines)

Winner: Claire Li Yue - Palo Alto Networks (Singapore)

Claire wins this award as an active role model for team members and aspiring young women in the industry, passionately living the values of D&I and continually seeking to improve corporate D&I initiatives. Claire is a founding member of the Women’s Network Community at Palo Alto Networks in Asia Pacific, helping the group expand to more than 100 members through a series of thought leadership and professional development sessions.