On December 2, 2021, after the WLDA Summit had concluded, attendees headed to the 2021 WLDA Awards Gala at the brand new L’Oreall building in Hudson Yards, NYC, where they celebrated leaders and influencers in tech, data, and AI, who have stood out, taken risks, and pushed their organizations and teams to new heights. These awardees are creating, leading, and demonstrating innovation and inclusion across the data and AI field.
Corporation of the year
Award Winner: Chevron
Awarded to the corporation that has made exceptional strides in expanding their company through recruitment practices, retention structures, career pathing, leadership training, etc, which generated quantifiable improvements in the growth of women in the field.
Changemaker
Award Winner: Chitra Narasimhachari, Head of Enterprise Analytics, Digital, and Data Science, Novartis
Awarded to women who have successfully revolutionized the field of data and AI. Whether these are new or improved products, services, tools or ways of doing things, this woman has helped the industry evolve towards success. (Must have 7+ years in a corporate career as a senior manager and up)
WLDA Woman Leader of the Year
Award Winner: Samta Kapoor, Managing Director, Accenture
This woman leader is a prominent change maker in her company or public sector role. She has demonstrated significant development for the industry, has influenced/motivated others, and is an overall leader in data and AI (Must have 15+ years in industry or the public sector and C-suite).
Best Motivator (male or female)
Award Winner: Sadiqah Musa, Senior Data Analyst, The Guardian, and Black in Data
Awarded to leaders who have made extraordinary efforts to motivate and teach others to become better women leaders in tech. Whether these are keynote speeches, group talks, or individual mentorship, this senior leader has gone above and beyond to motivate women and to be a knowledgeable resource and leader. Roles may include CEO, COO, CMO, CAO, or other tech roles.
Corporate Champion of the Year
Award Winner: Margery Connor, Data Science and Analytics Advisor, Chevron
Awarded to the corporation that has made exceptional strides in expanding their company through recruitment practices, retention structures, career pathing, leadership training, etc, which generated quantifiable improvements in the growth of women in the field.in data and AI (Must have 15+ years in industry, and be C-suite tech leader).
Rising Star
Award Winner: Josephine Ho, Senior Customer Success Engineer, Databricks
Awarded to women who have successfully revolutionized the field of data and AI. Whether these are new or improved products, services, tools or ways of doing things, this woman has helped the industry evolve towards success. (Must have 7+ years in a corporate career as a senior manager and up)
