On Thursday, October 22nd, the WIT community filled the Georgia Aquarium for the 2026 WIT Awards. The evening was full of applause, laughter, and connections as we celebrated women and girls who are shaping the future of technology.
This year’s honorees cover the whole arc of a tech career. Some are students building campus communities. Others are executives setting enterprise strategy. They share a habit of lifting others as they rise. Each of them reflects what WIT exists to do: create possibilities for more women to explore, pursue, persist, and lead in technology.
The 2026 WIT Awards also started a new chapter for the awards. Our redesigned Woman of the Year categories considered each nominee’s full body of work, not her current title or employer, ensuring we recognized the individual leader.
Check out our photo album here.
Congratulations to our 2026 Winners
WOMAN OF THE YEAR
This is WIT’s highest honor. The award recognizes executive-level leaders who are accountable for significant, measurable outcomes, and whose leadership has created change that extends well beyond themselves.
Enterprise Executive Impact
Missy Lawson, SVP, Technology; Cyber, Risk, & Business Operations, Fiserv
Missy Lawson, SVP of Technology, heads cyber, risk and business operations for Finxact, a division of Fiserv Inc, a global leader in technology and payments that enables commerce, banking and the safe and secure movement of money. Missy is accountable for the delivery and operational stability of technology enabling our businesses, achieving revenue realization through client implementations of our digital products, roadmap enablement, and delivery of strategic technology initiatives.
With 30 years of IT experience, Missy has been a Fiserv employee since February 2006. During that tenure, she has served the company in a variety of Operations, Engineering, Architecture, and Merger & Acquisition roles, as well as Portfolio Delivery positions within Fiserv Technology Services.
An Expert Engineer at Fiserv, Missy is an active member of Women In Technology and Women We Admire and has been twice recognized as a Top 100 Women in Fintech by Fintech Magazine.
Organizational Executive Impact Winner
Tasha McCall, VP, Payments & Agentic Commerce, Synchrony Financial
Tasha S. McCall is VP, Payments & Agentic Commerce at Synchrony Financial, where she leads emerging payments product strategy, contributing to $6B+ in YTD sales toward a $12B digital payments portfolio goal. With more than 20 years in FinTech and financial services, including leadership roles at Fiserv, Worldpay, Truist Bank, Ceridian, CheckFree, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorganChase, Tasha is a proven FinTech Digital Transformation executive who has launched 50+ products and enhancements and managed multi-million-dollar P&Ls.
She holds degrees from Yale University, Columbia Business School, and Middlesex University, U.K. A dedicated champion for Women in Technology (WIT), Tasha serves as co-lead of Synchrony’s WIT partnership, securing ~$100K in overall WIT sponsorship.
Additionally, Tasha serves on the Leadership Perimeter Board, developing impactful Atlanta community leaders through a focus on civic engagement and regional impact.
Emerging Executive Impact Winner
Natalie Hogg, CEO, Method Q
Natalie Hogg is the founder and CEO of Method Q, a full-service marketing agency that helps AI, fintech, cybersecurity, and B2B tech companies turn complexity into clarity and grow through strategic branding, thought leadership, and demand generation. She has served as a fractional CMO and is a trusted advisor to CEOs, CROs, and corporate boards, helping technology organizations differentiate in crowded markets and align go-to-market execution with business strategy. Natalie built Method Q as a self-funded, 100% women-led, WBENC-certified company on her registered methodology, Applying the Scientific Method to Marketing®. She serves on the board of StandUp for Kids, is an incoming board member of Conscious Capitalism Atlanta, and is a founding member of Women on the Cap Table. Her work has helped both early-stage disruptors and global enterprises gain traction with customers, investors, and the media, while she invests in the next generation of women leading in technology.
WOMAN TO WATCH
This award recognizes a mid-career leader in technology who has already delivered measurable results beyond her formal role, expanded her scope of influence over time, and made a deliberate, visible investment in advancing others.
Stella Ihenacho, Team Lead, RTE Organization, Data & AI, Red Hat
Stella Ihenacho is Team Lead of the RTE Organization for Red Hat’s Data & AI division, the first person appointed to this role. She leads RTE assignment strategy, talent alignment, and delivery coordination while driving Agile transformation across 200+ people in 20+ globally distributed teams delivering enterprise data platforms, AI solutions, and business intelligence products. With over a decade in enterprise technology, Stella has held progressive roles spanning program management, Agile coaching, team leadership, and organizational transformation. She is Co-Founder of NSTAR Technologies, helping 800+ professionals enter enterprise tech careers, and Co-Founder of the African Immigrant Collective and AIM Women’s Conference. Stella is a TEDx speaker, PMI Global Steering Committee member, and certified Leadership and Agile Coach. She holds an MBA, PSM II, PMI-ACP, and ICP-ACC.
GRADUATE SUCCESS AWARD
This award recognizes a graduate of WIT’s Single Mothers’ Program who is thriving in her technology career, growing her skills, and delivering real results that show what is possible when determination meets opportunity.
Shana Shell, Technical Analyst, DevSecOps, Norfolk Southern
Shana N. Shell is a high-performing Technology Analyst and DevSecOps professional known for delivering secure, scalable, and data-driven solutions that drive enterprise transformation. She excels at embedding security into the software development lifecycle, leveraging automation, CI/CD pipelines, and advanced data engineering to improve system performance, reliability, and compliance.
With a strong foundation in business analysis and consulting, Shana translates complex challenges into actionable, high-impact technical strategies—enabling smarter decisions and measurable results. A continuous learner and innovation advocate, she stays at the forefront of DevSecOps, cloud technologies, and data platforms, consistently elevating the teams and organizations she supports.
EARLY CAREER EXCELLENCE AWARD
This award recognizes an early-career professional in technology whose initiative, creativity, and investment in others significantly exceed what is typical at her stage.
Roshina Rafee, CoreAI Senior Engineer, Agentic Solutions, The Home Depot
Roshina Mohamed Rafee, Sr. Systems Engineer, Agentic Solutions at The Home Depot, where she leads engineering efforts at the intersection of personalization, AI infrastructure, and enterprise technology. She spearheaded the Component Selector expansion initiative — a critical personalization system powering homedepot.com, one of the largest retail websites in the U.S. with over 2.2 billion annual visits — enabling marketing teams to run large-scale A/B experiments that drive customer engagement and conversion. Roshina also owns the engineering infrastructure behind The Home Depot’s Gemini Enterprise AI platform, serving over 6,500 associates nationwide with secure access to enterprise-grade AI tools. Her work on access provisioning, agent sharing, and GCP infrastructure has been instrumental in scaling the company’s AI capabilities. Roshina is passionate about driving innovation and empowering teams through technology.
CAMPUS CLUB OF THE YEAR
The Campus Club of the Year Award recognizes an official WIT Campus Club that has created meaningful opportunities for students to connect, develop skills, and build confidence and community in technology.
Georgia Southern University’s WIT Campus chapter is built on a simple belief: No woman in tech should feel like she’s navigating it alone. Through a technical interview workshop with a Google recruiter; semester project groups in cybersecurity, data analytics, and hackathon prep; and an invite-only Women at Microsoft ATL event, members are gaining hands-on skills and direct industry exposure. Service runs just as deep, with members volunteering at the Statesboro Food Bank, Willow Pond Senior Living, and a STEM Night for middle schoolers at Statesboro STEAM Academy.
This year, Georgia Southern is turning that foundation into access. A new certification initiative will help members earn industry-recognized credentials, while planned travel to WIT events in Atlanta brings more opportunities within reach from Statesboro. The chapter is also hosting a Women Empowerment Workshop and expanding to the Armstrong Campus in Savannah in Spring 2027. After rebuilding its leadership team in a single semester and growing from four officers to six, the Georgia Southern WIT community stands out for its resilience, its culture of service, and its commitment to holding the door open for the next woman.
GIRL OF THE YEAR
The Girl of the Year Award recognizes a high school student participating in the WIT Girls program who brings genuine curiosity and initiative to her exploration of technology, growing more confident with every project while lifting up the people around her along the way. Here’s a closer look at this year’s three finalists.
Garvita Singh, Wheeler High School
Garvita Singh is an ambitious senior in the STEM Magnet Program at Wheeler High School deeply interested in computer science, artificial intelligence, and the intersection of tech and public policy. In order to pursue her passion for technology, she has interned under Emory University where she contributed to a data visualization tool, and she is currently interning at Kennesaw State University to research machine learning and explainable AI. Additionally, Garvita has won nationally for programming and was recently selected for a summer program at MIT where she worked on Autonomous Underwater Vehicles and gained experience in robotics, autonomy, and machine learning.
Beyond technology, Garvita values community service and public speaking, which drives her involvement in leadership roles in Scouting America and Model UN, where she debates global issues such as the digital divide, participates in service projects, and mentors others. She is equally passionate about creating opportunities for girls in STEM, and being an ambassador for the WIT Girls Program has given her the space to do that by helping organize WIT events. Her advocacy for greater representation of women in STEM also stretches to her personal programming projects and work at the Congressional Youth Advisory Council under state leaders. Overall, whether it is through WIT events or growing her knowledge in STEM, Garvita is always excited to learn more and support her peers.
Thank you to our WIT Awards Partners
