Melbourne, Australia

Thoughtworks, a global technology consultancy that integrates strategy, design and engineering, today announced that Thoughtworks Australia and New Zealand’s Chief Financial Officer, Helen Barlow-Hunt, has won this year’s Women Leading Tech Awards. In addition, Claire Nelson, Karen Davis and Victoria McGloin have been recognized as finalists in the categories of Design, Data Science and Engineering respectively. This year’s result continues on from the success of 2022, where Thoughtworks also had four representatives recognized as finalists and Ange Ferguson named a category winner.

The Women Leading Tech Awards celebrates the extraordinary contributions of women in technology across Australia. This initiative was created to support gender parity and representation across the tech industry and shine a light on current inequalities.

According to Karin Verloop, managing director of Thoughtworks Australia and New Zealand, “Having three finalists and a winner in the awards for their extraordinary contributions in tech is a spectacular result and reflects our ongoing commitment to make Thoughtworks a home for all technologists. The opportunity to solve interesting problems, to be mentored and inspire others, and to learn and grow everyday is how we support our people in making important contributions, not only to our business but to the greater technology community across Australia, the Asia Pacific region and beyond.”

Thoughtworks team at the Women Leading Tech awards ceremony. From left to right: Karen Davis, Claire Nelson, Helen Barlow-Hunt, Ingrid Buenaventura and Pallavi Johnson.

This year’s winner include Helen Barlow-Hunt in the inaugural CFO category, which is dedicated to the industry’s all important financial leaders. Helen has been recognized for her role in Thoughtworks’ financial growth and stability as well as the positive outcomes from her longstanding commitment to our social impact program and fostering a flexible and diverse workplace. 

As Lead Data Consultant, Karen Davis is passionate about data engineering and developing complex architectures and designs for various data engineering solutions. Her place as a finalist in the Data Science category acknowledges her contributions to the Australian data industry as well as her commitment to community learning, exploring the societal value of data and supporting women in the machine learning community.

Claire Nelson has a passion for building technology solutions that create opportunities for vulnerable cohorts. As Lead Consultant, Product and Customer Experience, Claire is being recognized a finalist in the Design category for her work on the product strategy and CX and UX designs for the NSW Government’s Digital Birth Certificate (DBC) - which aims to be the world’s first verifiable credential (VC) for birth certificates. Claire also ensured the design phases included special consideration for vulnerable users.

For Victoria McGloin, Thoughtworks’ Head of Technology ANZ Public Sector domain, being a finalist in the Engineering category recognizes her passion for driving meaningful use of technology for public good as well as her leadership on two major Thoughtworks partnerships delivering innovative solutions for government. The first being an innovative modernization platform which enabled the Queensland Digital License to scale for state-wide roll out and secondly a unique secure digital identity solution in civil registration. Victoria is also a strong advocate for Women and Underrepresented gender minorities where Thoughtworks has proudly achieved 40.4% in technology roles.

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About Thoughtworks

Thoughtworks is a global technology consultancy that integrates strategy, design and engineering to drive digital innovation. We are over 12,500 people strong across 50 offices in 18 countries. Over the last 25+ years, we’ve delivered extraordinary impact together with our clients by helping them solve complex business problems with technology as the differentiator.