Women in Leadership Power List 2025 Winners
Women in leadership have taken significant steps forward across a wide range of industries, from corporate finance to non-profit organizations. This year’s list highlights professionals who have driven growth, handled complex market shifts, and championed diversity within their organizations.
Jenna Abbott joined Shard Financial Media in 2012 and became operations director in 2017 while on maternity leave. She steered the company through post-Covid uncertainty, integrating automation and refocusing on the customer experience to restore profitability. Abbott now leads a team of 16 and founded the Women & Diversity in Credit Steering Committee.
Pippa Begg co-founded Board Intelligence, a UK-based technology and governance business. Under her sole leadership, the company serves more than 3,000 organizations globally. Begg built a workforce of over 200 people across London, Stockholm, and Mauritius, with a leadership team that is more than 50% female. Her background combines a high-octane career with family life as the mother of three small children.
Natalie Billingham leads Akamai’s EMEA region, overseeing more than 2,500 employees in 15 countries. Billingham joined the company in 2007 and played a key role in establishing the Nordic media business. In 2017, she received the Danny Lewin Award, Akamai’s highest honor, after selling the company’s largest individual deal in EMEA. She has driven growth in security and cloud computing while securing partnerships with ITV and Douglas Group.
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Expanding Scope in Tech and Media
Melissa Di Donato became CEO of Kyriba in 2023, bringing more than 20 years of experience in the tech industry. She previously made history as the first woman CEO to take a multibillion-euro company public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Her career includes senior executive roles at SAP, Salesforce, IBM, and Oracle. Di Donato serves as a member of the supervisory board of Porsche and a non-executive director at J.P. Morgan Europe.
Victoria Newton leads The Sun as editor in chief. Under her guidance, the publication has modernized into a digital-first newsbrand while maintaining a focus on investigative journalism. Newton has run campaigns on the cost-of-living crisis and domestic abuse. She has also increased opportunities for women in the newsroom, with a raft of female leaders now in senior editorial positions.
Clara Govier has managed the People’s Postcode Lottery for 15 years. The lottery is now played by 4.5 million people and has raised £1.5bn for charities. Govier has galvanized charity leaders behind a campaign to scrap the limit on charity lottery sales, taking the issue to Westminster and Holyrood.
Leadership in Corporate Transformation and Inclusion
Patricia Cobian serves as CFO of Virgin Media O2, a role she assumed after orchestrating the £31bn merger of the two companies in 2021. She led negotiations for the acquisition of altnet provider Upp and oversees a complex capital expenditure programme worth more than £2bn per year. Cobian sponsors the company’s senior leaders’ women’s network and served as co-chair at the British Red Cross’s Tiffany Circle.
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Susie Burrage is the president of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR). She is a fourth-generation recycler who took over the business in 2001 and became the first female president in the organization’s 75-year history in 2016. Since then, the federation has seen rapid growth and record numbers of attendees at its conventions.
Louise Rudaizky transformed Atomic London from a male-dominated organization into one with a 60% female workforce and zero pay gap in just five years. She implemented inclusive policies, including blind scorecarding and inclusive interview processes, while the agency grew 63% despite a difficult market.
Sandi Wassmer is the CEO of Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion (enei). She is a blind leader with ADHD who co-authored the government’s eAccessibility Action Plan. Wassmer developed the ‘Ten Principles of Inclusive Web Design,’ which became the blueprint for the accessible.gov.uk platform.
Georgia Grimes is the director of fibre build operations at Openreach. She oversees a team of more than 8,000 people and a £15bn investment to replace copper broadband lines with ultrafast fibre. Grimes is executive sponsor for Openreach’s Gender Equality Network and spearheads social mobility initiatives across the industry.
