Upcoming Event - Women in Technology

Introducing the 2026 WIT Awards Finalists

September 1, 2026 by ameredith Leave a Comment

A collage of 21 women finalists for the 2024 WIT Awards, each in a circular frame, with three college logos below: Georgia Gwinnett College, Georgia Southern University, and University of Georgia. Purple abstract background.

We’re thrilled to introduce the women who make up the 2026 WIT Awards Finalist class.

This year’s Finalists span every stage of a technology career, from rising leaders already delivering results beyond expectations for their level to executives driving transformation at the highest level. They have inspired their teams, innovated new products and services, and opened new possibilities for the women coming up behind them.

Each was nominated by a colleague, a mentor, or herself. From a pool of 150+ nominations, these Finalists were selected for the impact they have already made in their organizations. On October 22, one Finalist in each category will be named the Winner.

Reserve Your Table

Every Finalist on this list will be celebrated live at the WIT Awards Gala on October 22 at the Georgia Aquarium. If someone on this list is part of your team, or if your company wants to stand behind women shaping technology, this is your moment to show up for them in person.

Reserve your table

Tables and sponsorships are limited. Reserve now to make sure your organization is in the room when these women are recognized.

Meet the 2026 Finalists

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.

Emerging Executive Impact

For executives who are early in their executive leadership journey but are already delivering results that significantly exceed what would be expected at their tenure level.

Natalie Hogg, CEO, Method Q
Missy Taylor, CEO, Phobio
Dr. Irene Thong, Chief Information Officer, Oglethorpe Power Corporation

Click to learn more about the Emerging Executive Impact Finalists

Organizational Executive Impact

For executives driving meaningful, measurable transformation within their organization, regardless of company size.

Caroline Cochran, Chief People Officer, Candescent
Tasha McCall, VP, Payments & Agentic Commerce, Synchrony Financial
Jaga Saravanan, Chief of Technology Operations, MagMutual Insurance

Click to learn more about the Organizational Executive Impact Finalists

Enterprise Executive Impact

For executives who have delivered sustained, large-scale impact within a major or highly complex organization.

Arati Chavan, Vice President, Cyber Security, McKesson
Naomi Lariviere, Chief Product Owner, ADP
Missy Lawson, SVP Technology; Cyber, Risk, & Business Operations, Fiserv

Click to learn more about the Enterprise Executive Impact Finalists

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.

Devi Battina, Application Development Manager, Primerica Financial Services
Selma Dogic, Senior Director, Data + Analytics, Carter’s
Stella Ihenacho, Team Lead, RTE Organization, Data & AI, Red Hat

Click to learn more about the Woman to Watch Finalists

Early Career Excellence Award

This award recognizes an early-career technology professional whose initiative, creativity, and investment in others significantly exceed what is typical at her stage.

Vivian Milender, Product Manager II, Cox Automotive
Roshina Rafee, CoreAI Senior Engineer, Agentic Solutions, The Home Depot
Nicole Rebolledo, Senior Analyst, IT Governance Operations, Southwire Company

Click to learn more about the Early Career Excellence Finalists

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.

Delilah Freeman, AVP, Delivery Lead – Technology, Bank of America
Marilyn Scott, Business Information Security Officer, Equifax
Shana Shell, Technical Analyst, DevSecOps, Norfolk Southern

Click to learn more about the Graduate Success Finalists

Campus Club of the Year

This 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.

Click to learn more about the Campus Club of the Year Finalists

Girl of the Year

This award recognizes a high school student who demonstrates genuine curiosity, initiative, and growing confidence in exploring technology, and who lifts others around her in the process.

Gabi Angryk, Walton High School
Hailey Blackmon, THRIVE Christian Academy
Garvita Singh, Wheeler High School

Click to learn more about the Girl of the Year Finalists

Why the WIT Awards Matter

The WIT Awards exist to give women in tech the recognition and visibility they’ve earned, and to create role models for the next generation of leaders and innovators across all industries. Making their stories visible is how that next generation sees what is possible for themselves.

Reserve your table

Learn more about the WIT Awards

Women in Technology (WIT) creates possibilities for more women to explore, pursue, persist, and lead in technology careers.

The 2026 WIT Awards: A Night That Changes Careers

August 24, 2026 by ameredith Leave a Comment

A large crowd attends the WIT Awards 2023 ceremony in a spacious, modern hall with blue lighting, decorated tables, a stage with speakers, and an aquarium visible on the right wall.

The WIT Awards puts a spotlight on women who are shaping the future of technology, and that spotlight does more than light up a room for one night. It tells the woman on stage and the thousands of women watching her story unfold that their work is valued, and that staying in tech is worth it.

That’s the real impact of the WIT Awards. It’s more than a gala. It’s visibility, and visibility leads to retention.

Why This Night Matters

Women in Technology (WIT) exists to encourage, retain, and elevate women and girls across all industries and at any stage in their tech careers. The WIT Awards is where that mission becomes tangible. When a woman’s name is called, when her company fills a table to celebrate her, when her peers share her story, that recognition becomes part of her career momentum.

The data behind this is simple: Women don’t leave tech because they lack ambition or talent. They leave when the systems around them stall their growth and make their contributions invisible. The WIT Awards interrupt that pattern.By honoring the women who are building, leading, and staying in tech, the WIT Awards give them the recognition they deserve and remind companies why their success is worth investing in.

The women we recognize aren’t exceptions. They represent thousands of others just as capable and just as driven, who are simply less seen. When we put one woman’s name on a stage, we’re telling every woman in that room that she belongs there too.

What to Expect

This year’s celebration will be held at the Georgia Aquarium on October 22 from 5:30 pm to 9 pm ET, bringing together more than 600 executives, senior leaders, and innovators from across Georgia’s tech community.

The evening opens with an exclusive VIP reception from 5 pm to 6 pm, designed for deeper conversation and connection with honorees, partners, and executives before the main program begins. From there, guests will enjoy a seated dinner created by Wolfgang Puck’s culinary team, set against the backdrop of the Georgia Aquarium.

The night builds toward the awards ceremony itself, the true highlight of the evening, where this year’s honorees, finalists, and winners across categories from Woman of the Year to the Emerging Executive Award will be celebrated in front of the full room.

It’s a room full of people who want to see each other win. Tables are available now for companies ready to celebrate their team members and stand with the broader community of women building the future of tech in Georgia.

The Power of Partnership

None of this happens without the companies who invest in it. WIT’s high-visibility partnership opportunities, including Presenting Partner, VIP Reception Partner, and Awards Spotlight Partner, put your company at the center of a night built around recognition, community, and momentum for women in tech.

Partnership with WIT is more than a sponsorship line item. It’s a strategic investment in the talent your company already has, and a direct line to the women shaping Georgia’s tech community. Partners are featured throughout the campaign leading up to the event and recognized live at the ceremony.

Interested in partnering with WIT for the 2026 WIT Awards? Contact partnerships@mywit.org to learn more about available opportunities.

Thank You to Our Partners

The 2026 WIT Awards would not be possible without the companies who invest in making women in tech visible. We are grateful to the organizations showing up for this community.

Presenting Partner

The top tier. Your company’s logo on signage, the stage, and all promotions will visibly demonstrate your leadership in supporting women in tech careers, making your brand stand out in the community. If your company is committed to advancing women in tech, we would love to talk. Contact partnerships@mywit.org to learn more.

VIP Reception Partner

Awards Spotlight Partners

Red CDW text in bold capital letters with a red swoosh encircling the letters on a white background.

Spirits Partner

Photo Booth Partner

Impact Partners

Premier Table Partners

Interested in joining this list? Reach out to partnerships@mywit.org.

Join Us

Tables are available now. Whether you’re celebrating a team member, building connections with Georgia’s tech leaders, or investing in the community helping women explore, pursue, persist, and lead in technology careers, this is the night to be in the room.

Reserve your table today here: https://witawards2026.givesmart.com/

Women in Technology (WIT) creates possibilities for more women to explore, pursue, persist, and lead in technology careers.

The Leaders Who Changed the Equation

August 14, 2026 by ameredith Leave a Comment

November WIT Forum | November 18, 2026 | 7:30–9:00 AM ET | Maggiano’s Buckhead

Every leader in the room on November 18 has a story. A moment when the path forward wasn’t clear. A relationship that changed everything. A decision that felt like a risk and turned out to be the best one they ever made.

The 2026 WIT Awards winners are being recognized not just for what they’ve achieved, but for what they changed, in their organizations, in their fields, and in the conditions around them. This Forum puts them on stage not to celebrate their titles, but to learn from their turning points.

What does it actually take to lead in technology? What do women who’ve reached the highest levels of the field know that they wish they’d known sooner? And once they had the power to change something, what did they do with it?

This WIT Forum closes out the year with both a celebration and a masterclass. The winners are the content. Their recognition is the occasion. And the conversation belongs to everyone in the room.

What This WIT Forum Is About

The winners of the 2026 WIT Awards didn’t just reach senior leadership. They used what they found there to open doors for the people coming up behind them. This Forum brings that experience to the stage.

Through candid panel discussion and interactive table conversation, you’ll hear directly from women who navigated real gaps between their potential and their opportunity, who built things that didn’t exist before them, and who chose, again and again, to stay and change a system from within. The conversation covers what it took to get there, what changed once they arrived, and what they did with the influence they built.

This is a close-up look at how leadership actually happens.

Who Should Attend

This WIT Forum is for women in technology careers at every level, along with the leaders and allies who champion them.

Whether you’re early in your career and starting to think about what leadership could look like for you, mid-career and weighing your next move, or already leading and looking for what to do with the influence you’ve earned, there’s a version of this conversation waiting for you.

What You Will Walk Away With

Attendees can expect to leave with:

A real picture of what leadership takes. Not the highlight reel, but the actual decisions, risks, and relationships that shaped these leaders’ paths.

A model for using influence well. The panel doesn’t stop at “how I got here.” It gets into what each leader did once she had real organizational power, for herself and for others.

A personal commitment to carry forward. Table conversations and a take-home reflection guide will help you turn what you hear into a concrete next step, whether that’s an action for your own path or a change you make possible for someone else.

As one WIT community member shared, “You get confidence from being around people who want to see you win and thrive.” That’s the spirit of this WIT Forum.

Join Us on November 18

This WIT Forum is in person and open to women and allies across industries. Come for the recognition, and leave with a model for what to do with your own influence, wherever you are in your career.

One hour and thirty minutes. Real conversation. The kind of insight that stays with you long after you leave the room.

Meet the Panelists

The November panel is made up of the 2026 WIT Awards winners, women whose paths reflect a range of journeys: the executive who changed the conditions around her, the founder who built something new, the leader who stayed and transformed an institution from within, and a leader earlier in her executive journey showing what’s possible right now. Full panelist profiles will be announced once winners are confirmed.

Thank You to Our Partners

This WIT Forum is made possible by the generous support of our partners.

A special thank you to our Presenting Partner, Tier4 Group, for their commitment to advancing women in technology and making conversations like this one possible.

We also extend our gratitude to our WIT Forum Partners:

A grid of 21 company logos, including Adapture, Cargill, CDW, Cox, Home Depot, Salesforce, State Farm, Truist, Coca-Cola, Synchrony, and others on a white background.

Women in Technology (WIT) creates possibilities for more women to explore, pursue, persist, and lead in technology. Learn more at mywit.org.

The Retention Equation: Personal Investment + Organizational Responsibility

August 14, 2026 by ameredith Leave a Comment

September WIT Forum | Wednesday, September 16, 2026 | 7:30–9:00 AM ET | Maggiano’s Buckhead

Some people stay in a technology career because the conditions are right. Others leave, quietly, for the same reason. On September 16, we’re bringing both sides of that story into the same room, and we can’t wait.

The retention conversation in tech usually gets told from one angle: individuals need to be more resilient, more strategic, more patient. But ask anyone who’s actually stayed, or left, or come back, and the story is rarely that simple. It’s a two-sided equation. What people choose to own about their own career trajectory, and what organizations choose to build around them. Neither side gets it right by accident, and that’s exactly what makes this conversation worth having.

This WIT Forum brings senior technology and HR leaders together to talk about what retention actually requires, not just what most organizations assume it requires.

What This WIT Forum Is About

Through candid panel discussion and interactive table conversation, you’ll hear from technology and people-strategy executives who’ve sat on both sides of the stay-or-go decision. Some have had to advocate for what kept them in the field. Others have had to build the kind of environment that keeps people around.

The conversation moves through what individuals can evaluate and act on right now, where well-intentioned organizations invest in retention and still lose great people, and what it really takes, structurally and culturally, to close that gap. This isn’t a session about perseverance. It’s a warm, honest look at what’s working, what isn’t, and what’s in each person’s power to change.

Who Should Attend

This WIT Forum is for women in technology careers at every level, along with the leaders and allies who shape the environments around them.

Whether you’ve been navigating the stay-or-go question for years, stepped away and found your way back, or are just beginning to ask it, there’s a place for you in this conversation. And if you’re the one building the culture others are deciding whether to stay in, this one’s for you too.

What You Will Walk Away With

Attendees can expect to leave with:

A clearer read on your own career trajectory. You’ll hear what separates the people who build lasting technology careers from those who stall out or leave, and what that means for the decisions in front of you right now.

A model for what organizational commitment actually looks like. Candid insight from leaders on what retention requires structurally and culturally, beyond the programs that look good on paper.

Specific, personal next steps. Table conversations and a take-home reflection guide will help you name one action for your own career sustainability and one action to make your workplace a place people choose to stay.

As one WIT community member put it, “You get confidence from being around people who want to see you win and thrive.” That’s the kind of room we’re building on September 16.

Join Us on September 16

This WIT Forum is in person and open to women in technology at every career stage, along with the leaders and allies who champion them.

One hour and thirty minutes together. A conversation that treats retention as a shared responsibility, not a personal failing. The kind of insight you’ll actually carry with you.

Meet the Panelists

Michael Park, Chief Information Officer at Infor, joins the panel to speak to what organizational commitment to retention looks like from the inside, and what leaders can take back to their own teams.

Sallie Graves, Chief Operating Officer at MagMutual, brings a senior operating leader’s view of what it takes to build a culture people choose to stay in.

Oneka Cornelius, Senior Director of Human Resources for Digital Technology & Data and Atlanta Hub HR Lead at Cargill, speaks to the structural and cultural levers that actually move the needle on retention.

Thank You to Our Partners

This WIT Forum is made possible by the generous support of our partners.

A special thank you to our Presenting Partner, Tier4 Group, for their commitment to advancing women in technology and making conversations like this one possible.

We also extend our gratitude to our WIT Forum Partners:

A grid of 21 company logos, including ADapture, Cargill, CDW, Cox, Google Cloud, Salesforce, State Farm, The Home Depot, and The Coca-Cola Company, displayed on a white background.

Women in Technology (WIT) creates possibilities for more women to explore, pursue, persist, and lead in technology. Learn more at mywit.org.

Find Your Path: WIT Campus Career Exploration Day

August 14, 2026 by ameredith Leave a Comment

A woman hands a microphone to a smiling attendee in a conference room while others watch. The attendees have name badges, trays, and coffee cups on their desks.

This September, WIT Campus Career Exploration Day will give 100 college students the chance to see what working in tech really looks like.

At host companies across the Atlanta metro area, they’ll get a firsthand look at the day-to-day experience of working in technology roles across industries. That kind of immersion is one of the best ways to help women at the beginning of their careers build confidence, understand their options, and see real evidence that they belong. Our confirmed host companies include: Cox Enterprises, Fiserv, Norfolk Southern, Salesforce, State Farm, and The Coca-Cola Company.

What to Look Forward to

The full-day experience includes:

Hands-on problem solving: A chance to work together on a real-world challenge and present their findings and ideas.
Office and lab tours: A behind-the-scenes look at the spaces where tech innovation happens and the teams and processes that make it possible.
Inspiring conversations: Time to talk with and learn from women from all stages of the tech career journey.
Career guidance and insight: Valuable discussions about internships, skill-building, career paths, and workplace culture.

Details

September 25, 2026

8:30 a.m – 2 pm

Locations of host companies: Cox Enterprises, Fiserv, Norfolk Southern, Salesforce, State Farm, and The Coca-Cola Company

Attendees are responsible for their own transportation

How to Apply

WIT Campus Career Exploration Day is open to women currently attending colleges and universities in Georgia with an interest in pursuing tech careers. It’s a great way to connect with other women in tech, potential employers, and the broader WIT Community.

Fill out our interest form or send it to any college students you know who may be interested! Eligible participants will then be invited to apply.

Introducing the 2026 WIT Awards Honoree Class

August 14, 2026 by ameredith Leave a Comment

We’re thrilled to introduce the women who make up the 2026 WIT Awards honoree class!

This year’s honorees represent every stage of the career journey, from rising leaders just starting to make their mark to executives shaping strategy at the highest level. They have inspired their teams, innovated new products and services, and opened up new possibilities for other women in their field.

Nominated by others and by themselves alike, each is being celebrated for the impact they’ve already made in their community.