PCR Women of the Year 2015: Meet the judges

PCR Women of the Year 2015 – held on Friday October 16th at Sway bar, London – will introduce a new judging system, in which a panel of 8 experts will debate and decide the winners across the award’s four categories (Rising Star, Sales, Marketing and PR, and Woman of the Year).

The deadline for putting someone forward is August 14th – so you still have time to nominate yourself, a colleague, or anyone else from the PC and Tech industry you think should be recognised for their achievements. More details here.

Once the nominations period closes, PCR will publish the list of the finalists, who will be contacted for testimonials from a boss or colleague. The judges will then get together and decide the winners.

You can buy tickets for the event here, and for sponsorship enquiries talk to Jennie Lane on jlane@nbmedia.com.

– The Judges –

Maggie Zaboura, Zaboura Consultancy

Maggie’s career began in Sales, working as OEM and Strategic Alliances Sales Director for Corel and EMEA Sales Director for Matrox. Her consistent dissatisfaction with what PR agencies were offering was her inspiration for Zaboura Consultancy, a new type of business with a disruptive model focusing on accountability and transparency of results.

Zaboura are an integrated communications agency for the technology sector, connecting brands with media and delivering campaigns that create profit and accelerate growth for their clients. It is an organically grown company constructed entirely from Maggie’s personal investment; a business that started out in her living room and now sits overlooking Regent Street. From year one, Zaboura won prestigious clients such as Kingston Technology, the largest global memory manufacturer. They now represent some of the world’s most innovative, disruptive and established brands in the technology space including Netatmo, olloclip and Cyberlink, to name a few.

Maggie is constantly striving for new opportunities to challenge the status quo and expand her business. A regular mentor to the next generation and businesses seeking her input on strategic direction, she’s always involved in various start up projects and has recently taken on an additional business expansion programme.

She lives in West London, enjoying all that goes with living in a vibrant city, and supports various charities in active and sustainable ways.

Nancy Hammervik, CompTIA

As senior vice president, industry relations for CompTIA, Nancy Hammervik is responsible for elevating the association’s profile among its membership and across the IT industry. She is the principal liaison between members and the association; helps shape CompTIA educational programs, initiatives and standards for the IT channel; and acts as an advocate on behalf of members and the industry.

Hammervik joined CompTIA in 2011 after a 20+ year career with Everything Channel, a provider of IT channel-focused services. As senior vice president, Nancy oversaw all aspects of Everything Channel’s portfolio of large scale, regional, community, virtual and custom events, bringing together executives across the high tech industry.

During her tenure, Ms. Hammervik also founded Channel@Work, a charitable initiative that enables members of the industry to contribute to local communities.

Hammervik is a graduate of the University of Delaware, where she received a bachelor’s degree in marketing.

Recent industry recognition includes: Top 50 Channel Influencers 2015, The VARGuy, Penton Media; Bronze Stevie Award “Female Innovator of the Year" 2012 – Government or Non-Profit; “Ones to Watch in 2012: Associations/Channel Groups” ChannelNomics; MSPmentor 250 List 2014; 2013 SMB 150 Award; 2015 CRN Women of the Channel.

Lisa Carter, Mimram Media

Lisa Carter is Director of Mimram Media, a PR and content marketing agency which works with clients based in the retail, tech, toys, video fx and book publishing sectors.

In a former life, Lisa was a publisher at NewBay Media, home of PCR. There she launched video games trade titles MCV and Develop, toy industry title ToyNews, cycling industry bible BikeBiz and PCR itself. As well as overseeing the print and digital titles, she took those brands into the offline space, launching a series of affiliated awards, expo and conference events.

Lisa juggles her working life with bringing up a five year-old whirlwind of a son and therefore boasts an encyclopaedic knowledge of LEGO, Minecraft, Star Wars and Slugterra.

Sarah Shields, Dell

Sarah Shields is one of the UK’s leading women in technology with two decades of experience in the UK IT industry. Voted PCR Woman of the Year in last year’s event, Sarah has worked extensively in the channel and in retail, launching and developing big-name brands to consumers and businesses alike. Before joining Dell in 2008, Sarah worked for AMD, Acer and Gateway and now is Dell’s Executive Director and General Manager for UK sales. 

Sarah manages all sales through the channel, distribution, online and via Dell’s call centres direct to consumers and small businesses. Having been a massive advocate for entrepreneurship and promoting the opportunities for women in technology, Sarah is a regular speaker and industry commentator and is renown for her down to earth approach and passion for working women in IT. Outside of work, Sarah is a keen cook and balances a full on career and being mum to two small boys.

Adam Simon, Context

Adam joined Context in February 2013 to develop the company’s retail offerings and research coverage of ICT and technology. Adam is growing the Context panel of ICT retailers across Europe and, using the panel data, brings fresh thinking for exploiting new market opportunities. Recently he has pioneered research into the opportunities for retailers selling technology to small businesses (“R2B”) and has formed a pan-European Smart Home Research Group including Smart Home Associations, retailers and manufacturers.

He is the organiser of a number of Retail conferences and Summits, and recently chaired a panel at the PCR Bootcamp event. He also chairs the Context Smart Channels Summit which takes place at Distree EMEA in Monaco and APAC in Singapore, the Melco Forum in Valencia and the Context Retail CEO breakfasts at IFA and CES. In these events he brings together Context technology clients with retailers around topical issues.

Prior to joining Context, Adam spent his career in professional services, introducing operational best practices in large retailers across multiple market sectors. He has worked with many of the largest retailers in Europe at senior executive level.

Adam is a qualified Chartered Accountant, having spent 10 years working at KPMG, and has a degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford. He is married with 2 daughters and a son.

Charlie Le Rougetal, Circus

Charlie Le Rougetel is the founder of Circus, an independent communications agency creating social and traditional media campaigns for a wide range of clients. On the tech side, these include the Wearable Technology Show, digital arts studio seeper, YouTube gaming festival Legends of Gaming Live and Office Power, the managed services solution for office supplies dealers.

Prior to Circus, she worked in boutique agencies in London and Glasgow for 20 years leading campaigns for a multitude of consumer and business-to-business technology accounts, including video games publishers and developers (Capcom, Rising Star, NCSoft and Glu Mobile), live events (Gadget Show Live, Develop in Brighton Conference, London Games Conference, F2P Summit, ECTS), technology companies (Sony, Nvidia and the video gamers’ social network Pixwoo) and launching the Scottish Games Alliance for Scottish Enterprise way back in the late 90s. 

Charlie is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and was included in the top 100 Women in Toys in 2014 and 2015 hosted by ToyNews magazine. 

Megan Moore, GfK

Megan Moore, Business Group Director within the POS division at GfK, has over 8 years’ experience working within the tech market. Megan heads up IT, Telecoms, Photo, Office & Stationery working closely with leading global manufacturers, operators and retailers advising and consulting with them on market developments and future growth opportunities. Megan leads the development of the commercial activities across these 5 teams at GfK.

Megan’s history is in the Telecoms industry and was also was involved in developing Mobile Insights in the UK in 2014. Mobile Insights is an innovative business intelligence solution that integrates two powerful sources – Big Data usage metrics from mobile operators and GfK’s own curated consumer data. Megan is a specialist in multi/omni-channel strategies and is a frequent commentator at industry events.

Caroline Miller, Indigo Pearl

Caroline Miller is the founder and MD of Indigo Pearl, a PR and digital services agency in the Gaming and Entertainment technology sector. Indigo Pearl has been the leader in the field for 16 years and can boast clients from every area of gaming, from established publishers such as Sony, Activision, Ubisoft and Bethesda, through to cutting edge Indies like Devolver and Bossa and mobile giants Zynga. They also represent the UK’s biggest gaming consumer event EGX and its little indie sister, Rezzed. 

Being the biggest independent PR gaming agency is only half the story for Indigo Pearl as 50% of its business is providing digital solutions for some of the world’s biggest gaming brands, and tools that also allow smaller indie’s to distribute their code to thousands of press and influencers globally at the push of a button.

Caroline started her career at Virgin Interactive entertainment working in International Sales, her first game was Lion King on SNES and Mega Drive and she soon worked her way up to director level, but needed a career change after becoming a mum for something a with less travel involved, and so Indigo Pearl was born!

Caroline has served as a Vice Chair at GamesAid, and was mentioned in the Games Industry Top 100 Women. Indigo Pearl were the proud recipient of the MCV Agency of the year award at this year’s MCV Awards.