Meet the speakers

Stephanie Szeto manages large-scale programs in Developer Infrastructure at Facebook, where she builds products, services, infra that enable Facebook developers to be among the most productive in the world. She spends her time thinking about organizational health, cultural change in large organizations, and helping people maximize their potential at work. In her free time, she enjoys devising frameworks to think about life, making spreadsheets, and organizing things.

Shea Harty is a woman passionate about helping others with their career development, even if you are unemployed. She has a background in Human Resources and Communications. She was born and raised in New York and currently lives in Amsterdam. Being a foreigner in Europe and being from the United States gives her a keen awareness of the benefits and difficulties of creating diverse communities.

Shea Harty is the Managing Director of Empower Amsterdam. A non-profit organization that believes in creating inclusion and community for foreigners in different cities. They help unemployed professionals get back to work faster with free career coaching and workshops. The organization also partners with companies to outsource their career development for their employees.

In addition, Shea is the Captain of the Women in Tech Regatta Amsterdam. A yearly European boutique conference that brings together women and men to discuss topics around tech, career, start-ups & scale-ups, leadership, and culture in a way that helps women become more involved in the tech industry. They have a unique format that combines panel discussions with in-depth small group discussions creating a space for everyone to laugh, learn, share, as well as an opportunity to be seen & heard. Their motto is #relationshipsarethetruecurrency.

As Catalyst Ambassador for the Benelux and Nordic regions, Caroline speaks regularly in both English and Dutch within the corporate community about Catalyst research and the practical issues surrounding inclusion, diversity and talent management. She is an experienced trainer, building, delivering and facilitating customised D&I events and language programmes across a wide range and scale of businesses and institutions. Well-used to diverse environments, Caroline has held positions within logistics, recruitment, high-tech and the teaching and training sectors. Caroline is originally from the UK and graduated with Honours in Geography from the University of Bristol.

Part-time Gamification Geek & Full-time Education Enthusiast. Co-Founder of EduHeroes Club - An education initiative dedicated to rethinking how we teach & learn. With an emphasis on helping learners thrive in the future, by promoting 21st century skills through project-based learning and design thinking. Community Builder & Communications Manager in education - Organising meetups & workshops for adults, promoting educational topics and gathering like-minded people that want to change something within education. Her quest: Engaging with entrepreneurs and specialists, fostering innovation and dynamic exchange of ideas with a mission to challenge and improve education as we know it.

Even before leaving university with an MBA in late 2003 Sonna Barry wanted to have a sales career. Achieving that goal was harder than she expected. Two years into her professional career Sonna managed to land her first sales job at a start-up (which were not yet all the rage in 2005). Since then Sonna has worked in SaaS-related sales working her way up from telephone sales rep to leadership positions, learning from her successes and failures. Today, Sonna believes that everybody can be successful by defining what success truly means for oneself and then taking responsibility for making it happen.

Giovana Vega is a certified Forex Trader (King Juan Carlos University, Madrid), and an International Motivational Speaker and Money Mindset Strategist who grew up in Peru.

Arriving in Holland in 1997, she learnt Dutch, studied bookkeeping and took on a job in Finance, discovering a passion for currency interactions. In 2014, she launched her personal journey into the world of trading and investing, a decision she never regretted.

Founder of Trading for Women, her business focuses on money-mindset, wealth-creation and lifestyle. She is dedicated to encouraging women to take control of their financial future. She inspires women to create financial awareness and wrote the book “Trading for Success, 8 secrets why women are better forex traders”.

She is also international speaker and author. “Phenomenal Global Women Project”, which she co-authored, has also been released as a film documentary. Giovana has been featured in international magazines such as “Star People” and “Global Woman Magazine”. Twice guest on Dutch National TV channel RTL4, Giovana has also been selected as 1 of the 10 finalists of TEDx Amsterdam Women in her role of inspiring women. She is also the National Director of Global Woman Club the Netherlands, a platform that connects professional women around the world.

Eugenia is a Software Development Manager at Vistaprint. In her role, she leads a team of software engineers that build customer-centric experiences on the promotional products website for Vistaprint. In addition, she manages recruiting activities for the expansion of the Vistaprint Technology Team in Europe, which aims to significantly grow the Software Development team in the Barcelona and Prague offices. As a Women in Tech, and often the only women in the room, she is keen on reducing the gender imbalance through hiring and getting involved in local communities that support Women in Tech to attract talent. She is an avid supporter of agile methodologies, having facilitated many agile trainings to different departments within the company. She is passionate about building valuable software fast and empowering teams to become autonomous and productive.

Outside of work, Eugenia enjoys travelling and running. She has ran 7 half marathons in 7 different cities of USA & Europe and 1 full marathon in Paris.

Eugenia was born and raised in Caracas (Venezuela) and went to Boston for college. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and holds an Industrial Engineering Degree from Northeastern University, where she was awarded Top 100 Most Influential Seniors due to her impactful engagement in tutoring Statistics and Database.

Hannah Johnson is Experience Director at Demodern, one of Europe’s leading creative technology boutiques. Here, she looks after storytelling and narrative design across all their projects, ranging from interactive exhibition spaces to augmented reality solutions for clients like Dumont, Ikea and Nike.

Over the course of her career, Hannah founded a London-based tech start-up, worked in strategic and creative roles at advertising agencies, before moving to Demodern, with the goal of creating experiences so immersive and compelling, they feel like magic.

In 2017, Hannah was one of 15 “future female creative leaders” worldwide chosen by Cannes Lions festival of creativity. In 2018 she was selected as one of Horizont Magazines "top 35 creatives under 35”.

Dr Anastasia Dedyukhina is a coach, TEDx speaker, Huffington Post blogger and author of Homo Distractus. She got rid of her smartphone as well as her senior international career in digital marketing, when she realised how dependent she had become on her gadget. She eventually set up Consciously Digital, a London-based consultancy that helps people develop a healthier relationship with technology. She is frequently quoted in the international press talking about tech-life balance and has appeared in The Guardian, BBC, Metro, Channel 4 etc. and is a speaker at major tech conferences, including World Mobile Congress (Barcelona).

Simone is the founder and designer of MINOIS - smart minimalist handbags. With an MSc in Industrial Design Engineering from Delft University of Technology and a minor ‘Création Industrielle” from Paris Design school, Simone combines solid technical knowledge with a keen eye for elegant designs.

Simone worked for several tech companies (Siemens, TNO and TomTom) before starting her own company MINOIS.

Ellen Meekels is a Business Intelligence and Finance executive with more than 15 years of international experience. As leader of Reporting and Data analytics, Ellen pioneered the alignment of business KPIs and performance measurement across Global Business Services and Country Operations. Ellen is a strong advocate for rationalization and converging of processes and systems. She implemented a global dashboard platform, enabling accessibility to data, dynamic reporting and analytics for associates worldwide. Her recent work includes the development of a data literacy program, ranging from introduction to data and analysis to critical thinking. These elements are fundamental to transform to a data-driven organization.

As executive sponsor of the ‘Diversity and Inclusion program’ at Ingram Micro, Ellen’s vision is to promote a positive, fulfilling and work-related state of mind where everyone feels valued, empowered, and respected by their peers.

Ellen holds a Masters degree in Applied economics from University of Antwerp, Belgium and attended leadership and executive education programs at University of Irvine and Stanford, Graduate school of Business.