The Woman to Watch 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. Here’s a closer look at this year’s three finalists.
Lalitha “Devi” Battina is the Enterprise API Practice Lead at Primerica, with over 28 years of experience delivering enterprise technology solutions across telecommunications, aviation, financial services, and enterprise platforms for organizations including Primerica, Delta, Cox, and Verizon. For the past six years at Primerica, she has led a 20+ person cross-functional team with full lifecycle ownership of a shared-services ecosystem supporting 300+ Kubernetes-hosted enterprise APIs — driving platform modernization, operational excellence, and engineering mentorship. Beyond her enterprise role, Devi founded Covenant (withcovenant.app), a platform helping women recognize, document, and understand the value of their financial, and household contributions, including a “Career Sacrifice” calculator. An AWS Certified Solutions Architect and Primerica’s internal WIT chapter lead, she is committed to mentorship, technical excellence, and using technology for lasting social impact.
Selma Dogic is Senior Director of Data and Analytics at Carter’s, Inc., where she leads the Analytics Center of Excellence, Business Intelligence, and AI Center of Excellence. Her work spans analytics strategy, data governance, machine learning, and enterprise AI enablement. Prior to Carter’s, she held analytics roles at The Home Depot and NCR. Selma is a contributing author of Analytics Interpreted and has served on the board of the Technology Association of Georgia’s Analytics & AI Society. She has spoken at industry conferences including DataConnect and is a mentor in the Women in Analytics community. She holds a Master’s in Economics from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
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.
The 2026 WIT Awards winners will be announced October 22 at the Georgia Aquarium. See all 2026 finalists →