Digital Women Awards 2022: Winners, Runners Up and Photos

The Digital Women Awards event was held on 14th October 2022 and it was brilliant! It was great to see so many Digital Women out to celebrate. The annual Digital Women Awards celebrates women working in and around digital and digital-based businesses who are doing the most incredible work in their respective industries. We welcome and celebrate women from the Digital Women community and beyond! The awards are open to any woman working in and around digital and entrepreneurship who has gone over and above in their field.

The 2022 awards was held at the gorgeous Ivy at Tower Bridge, in a beautiful room overlooking the River Thames! The day kicked off with Peach Bellinis and canapés, with plenty of networking and catching up, all alongside a fabulously empowering music soundtrack. Then we went straight into the awards!

Official Photos can be found here

Here are your winners and runners up….

Digital Woman of The Year

Winner: Ayo Abbas

Ayo is a built environment marketing consultant with other 20+ years’ experience in B2B marketing. Ayo has worked for many of the world’s major firms including Arup, Mace working on projects such as the Olympic Park transformation, the redevelopment of Birmingham New Street Station and King’s Cross Rail and Underground stations.

Runners Up: Marzia Bolpagni, Victoria Longdon, Danni Osbourne, Ashleigh Holmes, Dr Libby Kemkaran.

Young Digital Woman of The Year

Winner: Amy Walters

Amy is a freelance graphic/digital designer based in Kent, UK. She has had an intense 12 months which have led to her becoming fully freelance, working for some brilliant clients across the UK and further afield.

Runner Up: Neha Shukla

Podcast of the Year

Winner: Berenice Howard-Smith – The Full Stop

The Full Stop is the only continually produced podcast for the childless not by choice community who comprise 48m women. The podcast picked up 200 listeners on our first episode and it’s grown to over 14,900 downloads in a market that’s hard to get into.

Runner Up: Aoife O’Brien – Happier at Work

Women’s Champion of the Year

Winner: Joy Foster

Joy firmly believes that tech, when used and applied correctly, can be a force for good, and her training was founded on the basis of doing just that.

Runner Up: Kelly Cuesta

Digital Woman for Good

Winner: Kerry Ferguson

As a woman in business, being a role model and inspiration to others is really important to Kerry. She is keen to prove to anyone that being a woman does not stop her at all – whether that is for business, or for her personal life and community work.

Runner Up: Shaleen Sheth

Community Leader The Year

Winner: Kavita Trevana – The Unlikely Mummy

Kavita created The Unlikely Mummy for herself, to support her own mental health but she quickly realised that she wasn’t alone and that she could make a difference. Kavita has now created The Unlikely Mummy CIC, a community for change, a community for support. The company is a not for profit community investment organisation, which means everything it does is for the good of others and the community, not just around Kavita, but digitally as well.

Runner Up: Adelle Martin

Role Model of The Year

Winner: Kay Kukoyi

Kay’s business, Purposeful Group, supports the next generation of digital entrepreneurs and champions the upward mobility and professional development of people from all backgrounds, including women, BAME entrepreneurs, individuals who are unemployed, students, and young people on a local, national and international level.

Runner Up: Ally Zlatar

Digital Entrepreneur of The Year

Winner: Kay Kukoyi

Kay’s company, Purposeful Group, is an international training company, and online centre for learning, but fundamentally, they exist to empower people to reach their goals with their friendly and accessible approach to learning and developing new skills.

Runner Up: Christine MacKay

Digital Freelancer of The Year

Winner: Joanna Cates

When Joanna’s children were young, she studied photography and gained several qualifications. Fast forward ten years and she is at the start of new career opportunities. Joanna wrote and self-published romance fiction based on characters in their marvellous midlife years.

Runner Up: Angela Lyons

Digital Carer of The Year

Winner: Katy Styles

Katy’s campaigning has brought together a largely dispersed community of individual unpaid carers and carers organisations to take action to raise political awareness of carers issues. The campaign has run digitally, as carers are a harder to reach group and often cannot meet in person, even before the pandemic.

Runner Up: Michelle McCance

Virtual Assistant of the Year

Winner: Rosemarie St. Louis

Rosemarie helps coaches and consultants achieve growth by providing supportive and professional Admin & Social Media business support. With 30+ years PA experience, Rosemarie has a generalist skillset around helping people get organised and in the right place at the right time.

Runner Up: Ann Read

Product Creator of The Year

Winner: Natalie Whitcombe – The Newbie Box

The Newbie Box is a one stop shop for everything that you need when it comes to bringing on your first employee. And although this includes everything from contracts to appraisal templates, the most important thing that it does is make sure the business owner is compliant with employment law. Natalie has created a product that it is extremely accessible and a cost-effective way of ensuring employers are HR ready.

Runner Up: Bridget Daley

Women Led Community of The Year

Winner: Mi Elfverson

Mi runs an online accountability programme for women, called Rise&Shine, where a mixture of videos, applications and live-streamed events give the women new insights and learning. This supports them to get more confident both in front and behind the camera, to understand how to share more relevant and engaging content, to step forward in their own power to grow their audience and to thrive.

Runner Up: Naomi Mellor

Digital Creator of The Year

Winner: Elena Small

Elena is proud of what she has achieved on behalf of her employer. She uplifted their lead generation via our social media channels by a jaw-dropping 1,720%, by not only refreshing their existing content but by collaborating with other members of the team to create new and engaging content to attract leads into the business.

Runner Up: Danielle Bayes

Social Media Manager of the Year

Winner: Rebecca Holloway

Rebecca has always been passionate about social media. Back in 2014, she started a blog, and this prompted her to complete a digital marketing apprenticeship and work my way up to where she is now. Her skills centre around paid social media ads, with a particular interest in TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Runner Up: Karen Thatcher

Content Marketer of the Year

Winner: Charelle Griffith

With a passion for supporting solopreneurs and small business owners, Charelle focusses on taking the overwhelm out of marketing and instead creates marketing strategies that allow her clients to shine online, consistently create content that converts and ultimately build a business they love (and that pays them properly).

Runner Up: Kathryn Black

Trainer/Educator of the Year

Winner: Sue Thompson

Sue puts together workable strategies that allow a nice period of growth for her client’s businesses that is mangeable to them and doesn’t create overwhelm or overpromising for their clients. Sue works with her clients and they know she is there when they need me to ask questions, to make changes or react to their businesses.

Runner Up: Joy Foster

Digital Marketer of the Year

Winner: Azahara Corrales

Azahara has been building her career in digital marketing and is focusing on helping other women that they may think they don’t have the chance to do and create whatever they want for their lives. She became a mentor for her university to help students in their journey, and she has organised different activities and meetings with her female colleagues to empower them and show them that everything is possible when we believe in ourselves.

Runner Up: Afua Akoto

Website Designer of the Year

Winner: Heather Hulbert

As a Freelance branding and website designer, Heather helps small companies put their mark on the digital world, creating their brand identity, refine their brand strategies, and really connect with their audience, as well as helping them get online with user focused WordPress websites.

Runner Up: Cheryl Laidlaw

Digital Leader of the Year

Winner: Rachel Baines

Rachel fell in love with digital after getting the opportunity to work for an educational publishing house in 2011, with no experience or education in digital! Rachel is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), having passed her level 6 diploma in digital with merit in 2019, and she is working on her chartered designation. She is also a Fellow of the Institute of Digital Marketing (IDM).

Runner Up: Holly Kelly

SEO Practitioner of the Year

Winner: Marion Leadbetter

Marion has been an SEO strategist and trainer for over 15 years. She loves helping female entrepreneurs grow their businesses through SEO and is a firm believer that anyone can master SEO for their business. She has made it her mission to help teach SEO to as many female entrepreneurs as she can so they can tap into google to grow their sales.

Runner Up: Fiona Watson

PR Practitioner of the Year

Winner: Rhea Freeman

Rhea is an award winning PR adviser, #SheMeansBusiness trainer and Meta lead trainer dedicated to supporting small businesses and helping them learn how to use the free tools available to promote themselves better, regardless of budget. Rhea produces a weekly podcast – Small & Supercharged- to help inspire and educate small business owners, run a free Facebook community, have a membership group and offer one to one coaching to achieve better growth and brand exposure for clients.

Runner Up: Amy Leonard

Graphic Designer of the Year

Winner: Angela Lyons

Angela has a vast graphic design experience (over 15 years) which led her to be a self-employed freelancer, celebrating her 10th year recently. Her skills and experience are demonstrated in both her approach and the delivery of her work. She understands and interprets the briefs to present unique and thoughtful graphics that compliment brands and strike at the heart of the organisation’s ethos.

Runner Up: Amy Walters

Copywriter of the Year

Winner: Afua Akoto

Spearheading the content of a Microsoft Gold partner firm, Afua creatively produces material for the generation of customer leads and traction. She exhibits thought leadership through her persuasive copy which spans creatively across board. Additionally, she successfully lead and drove campaigns on various platforms for client retention and acquisition.

Runner Up: Pru Gayton

Thank you to our amazing judges, our fabulous Digital Women community and everyone who supported the Digital Women team during the Awards!

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