We are very excited to announce Xena’s first women in tech awards celebrating inspiring women in tech. Taking place on Friday, March 3 at Palais Kultuerbrei, this highly anticipated event promises to be an exhilarating afternoon celebrating the trailblazers in Europe.

With over 300+ nominations across 8 unique categories, the Xena team has been busy viewing your submissions and is proud to present the 40 finalists for the awards.

But how will the winners across 8 categories be decided? Our nomination and winner process has been a detailed and multi-tiered one. The winners of the awards will be chosen by a panel of tech industry experts, along with the number of community votes for each nominee – it’s not too late to cast your vote!

So who are Xena’s tech industry experts and what gives them credibility to decide on the winners? The burning question you have all been asking. Well, allow us to introduce them to you…

1.Holger Hammel – VP Software Engineering – avien.io

Holger is an experienced Engineering Leader focussing on flow of value and enabling companies, teams and individuals. Being a strong believer of “transparency, accountability and openness” makes Holger the perfect ally for women in tech.

With over 14 years of experience in the industry, Holger has been leading transformational change at companies like eBay, Mobile International and OneFootball. Currently the VP of Engineering at avien, a database-as-a-service for open source data solutions where he helps organizations fuel the continuous innovation needed to create awesome, data-intensive applications by using leading open source technologies.

Who better to be our trusted advisor for the Open Sourcer Award.

2. Kave Bulambo – Founder – TalentDiverse

Named as a finalist by the Impact of Diversity Awards 2021 in the category of most influential women in the Diversity and Inclusion Space in Germany, Kave is a trailblazing pioneer on a mission to challenge the status quo around women and underrepresented groups.

Kave has built an extraordinary career in Talent Acquisition and has worked with some of the most innovative organisations in the technology industry in Europe. This experience coupled with her personal journey led her to establish and build enterprises and communities of empowerment.

She is the visionary behind BlackInTech Berlin, the first community of people of African descent in Tech in Berlin. Next to that she launched TalentDiverse EU to connect both Women and BIPOC talent to excellent career opportunities in Tech.

Kave will be supporting our panel decision for the Social Impact and D&I Leader Award.

3.Greg Ryzhov – CTO – Clue

Greg joined Clue as Chief Technical Officer (CTO) in 2021. With extensive leadership experience across Product, Data and Engineering, he previously served as the CTO for Urban Sports Club, Europe’s largest fitness and wellness aggregator. He has also been in leadership positions at eCommerce innovators Lazada and Westwing Home & Living. Under his leadership, the Clue technical team develops and iterates on a global mobile health tech platform that can serve millions of people around the world.

As the CTO of one of the largest Femtech companies in the world, Greg will offer his expertise for the CTO Award.

4.Lina Chong – Investment Director – Target Global

Lina joined Target Global in 2018 after having worked in product and monetization at ResearchGate, a company aiming to connect the world of science. Prior to ResearchGate, she was an investor at Hasso Plattner Ventures, a fund backed by the Chairman of SAP. Lina began her career as an entrepreneur operating not one, but two startups, one of which was acquired by Living Social.

Now working in early-stage funds, Lina’s role is to review incoming investment deals and present the right opportunities in front of the right partnerships. Essentially running the whole process of investment strategy, from closing to due diligence.

Who better to help us uncover Xena’s Entrepreneur Of The Year.

5.Manjuri Sinha – Global Director of Talent Acquisition – OLX

Manjuri globally Heads the Talent Acquisition (including Employer Branding & Onboarding ) strategy and team for OLX Group,  across all our markets in Europe, India, Indonesia, Latam, North America and Turkey.  She possesses 19+ years of international experience in leading HR and Talent Acquisition teams for mid to large organizations such as Zalando and Accenture. She possesses key expertise in scaling tech teams. She has worked and lived in India, Sweden, Czech Republic and Germany. Being an avid traveler, she also wears a dual hat of a speaker, mentor, and blogger.

Having a breadth of experience across the tech industry makes Manjuri the perfect advisor across all 9 categories for our awards.

6. Anita Singh – Director of Engineering – FreeNow

Anita is an Engineering Leader and international conference speaker with 10 years of experience in building mobile apps and leading teams to build quality software that delight users. Her professional journey began when she studied Computer Science at the University of Southern California and started her engineering career at Microsoft and Intuit.

After working with these tech giants, she has worked at startups in Silicon Valley and Berlin, where she has scaled teams, culture, processes and software from the ground up.

Anita’s leadership and public speaking experience make her the perfect council for our Leadership Award with Uber.

7.Dipti Dhawan – VP Engineering – Omnius

Dipti is the VP of Engineering for omni:us. Omni:us are a SaaS provider for the claims management sector, transforming the way insurers interact with insured parties. Dipti has been involved in software engineering all her life, from being young and having family connections, through to graduating in Computer Science and building her career across technology up to a VP of Engineering where she now leads and inspires a team of tech professionals in Berlin.

Dipti’s experience in Engineering makes her the perfect panelist across multiple categories including the Leadership and  One To Watch Award

8. Nina Buffi – CEO – OSPIN

Dr. Nina Buffi is the CEO of OSPIN, a technology-enabling company in the fields of tissue engineering, cell-therapy, and cultivated meat. Nina helped build the company from scratch offering custom lab solutions for bioprocess automation and digitisation.
Micro engineer by training, Nina was fascinated by the interaction between engineering and biology during her PhD, during which she developed a biosensor for the detection of arsenic in water. To her credit, she has been featured among the women pioneering the cultured meat field and is an inspiration to those in her industry and beyond.

Nina will join our panel and offer her expertise for the Leadership, CTO and Social Impact Award.