Accelerated Action for Women’s History Month: These Female Trailblazers are Helping to Build the Future of Work in 2025

Gender parity or equality aims to ensure that all genders have access to the same rights and opportunities. While it’s true that huge strides forward have already been achieved, the United Nations predicts it will take 134 years to reach full parity, which is roughly five generations from now. 

Over the upcoming generations it’s important that we don’t lose the significant progress that has been made for women’s equality in the workplace. 

The increase in females holding leadership positions means we now have more data to work from that showcase the benefits of pushing for this parity. For example, research shows that diverse leadership teams unlock better decision making abilities that ultimately drive innovation. 

Despite this, women still face significant barriers to career progress. The Young Women’s Association found that workplace discrimination against women hit a three-year high in 2024. 

Meanwhile, aspiring first-time female founders need to work harder to secure funding. A new study from Yale University, in fact, found that women represent just 16% of first-time VC-backed entrepreneurs. 

Addressing gender equality and creating positive change through meaningful dialogue and collaboration is core to the vision and mission at Horasis, as demonstrated by Horasis Chairman Frank-Jürgen Richter’s recent event with Only Women. 

To support the International Women’s Day theme of accelerated action, we shine the spotlight on inspiring examples of female entrepreneurs, speakers and mentors, tech visionaries and senior leaders who are helping to build the future of work. 

Elizabeth (Liz) Rafferty, Ness Digital Engineering

Elizabeth Rafferty is the Global Chief People Officer at Ness Digital Engineering, a global full-lifecycle digital services transformation company.

Rafferty, an accomplished HR leader with experience in technology, professional services and marketing, began with Ness in October 2024 following a successful tenure at Dentsu. At Ness, Rafferty is spearheading the company’s growth strategy by enhancing people and cultural practices, setting a forward-looking HR vision, and highlighting the strategic importance of personnel. 

More broadly, this approach means that Rafferty is building pathways to leadership and company culture to support team members in the future of work.

Sarah McGarr, Sim Local

Sarah is the Chief Digital Officer at Sim Local, a leading global eSIM company. As an astute e-commerce leader with expertise across revenue management and ownership of full customer KPIs, McGarr is central to the strategy at Sim Local. 

She represents an influential figure that helps to work against the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles. 

Furthermore, a recent study on tech solutions for female travelers emphasized the importance of authentication, location detection, and sensing technologies to improve safety. One of Sim Local’s core goals is to empower travelers—especially women—by ensuring seamless, reliable mobile connectivity.

With eSIM solutions, travelers can connect to local networks immediately upon arrival, avoiding the hassle of physical SIMs or expensive roaming fees. This enhanced connectivity provides peace of mind, making business and personal travel more accessible and secure.

Deepti Juturu, Prezentium

Deepti Juturu is the CEO and founder of Prezentium, an award winning business presentation firm. Before becoming a founder, Deepti honed deep and rich expertise drawn from her time at McKinsey & Company and Genentech.

Additionally, she holds an MBA from Wharton Business School, a BS in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University, and she has been recognized in Silicon Valley Business Journal’s “40 Under 40.” Deepti is also a Mentor at the Yale Entrepreneurial Society and has been published frequently on themes around women in business. 

These contributions are supporting the next generation of female founders and business leaders both through her direct actions and work as a mentor. 

Through Prezentium, Deepti offers a proprietary way to support Fortune 2000 companies with business understanding, visual design, and data science to excel in business critical communications and presentations.  

Laura Hernandez, Source Meridian

Laura Hernández is a passionate leader when it comes to talent development within the tech industry, and currently is a Technological Project Manager at Source Meridian.

Her leadership role helps to tackle gender bias in a male dominated development world and bring a new perspective to the table.

With over six years of experience in management and team building, Laura excels at leading high-performance teams, promoting collaboration, and driving professional growth. 

At Source Meridian, Laura advises companies on critical certifications such as SOC 2, HITRUST and HIPAA, while actively contributing to projects focused on business expansion, building a strong company culture, and developing products that have a meaningful impact.

Alexandra Hudak, SQream  

Alexandra Hudak is the Director of Strategic Alliances at SQream, a data acceleration company at the forefront of machine learning infrastructure solutions. 

Hudak is a lifelong tech enthusiast who has a deep passion for building strategic alliances and fostering collaboration across teams. She has extensive experience in developing innovative co-sell strategies including the launch of partner programs that have generated significant new business opportunities alongside industry giants like NVIDIA, Oracle, and AWS. 

Her work offers a prime example of a visionary female tech leader driving results with an alternative approach. 

Hudak is also a regular speaker at Oracle Data & AI Forums, promoting GPU-accelerated data processing, driving industry-wide adoption, and acting as industry thought leader for AI and data analytics. 

Shagun Malhotra, SkyStem 

Shagun Malhotra is the CEO of SkyStem, and is a certified CPA, CIA and experienced auditor and process consultant. With a passion for seeing how internal controls and systems can help to mitigate business risk, Shagun founded SkyStem in 2009 to offer an industry-wide solution to the manual account reconciliation processes that had major implications to business compliance. 

She is an entrepreneur and businesswoman recognized for her contributions to the fintech industry and for promoting women in technology and entrepreneurship.

Furthermore, she is a speaker for Fast Trac, a Kauffman Foundation program, and NY Business Plan Competition Awards ceremony.

Shagun started her career in public accounting and has worked in Fortune 100 companies such as Marriott and Freddie Mac. 

Odille Sánchez, Tec de Monterrey

Odille Sánchez is the leader of the tech and scientific-based Entrepreneurship Center of Excellence at Tec de Monterrey, spearheading entrepreneurship in Mexico and throughout Latin America. She is also a Mentor at Techstars and the Universidad de los Andes, where she supports the next generation of founders and entrepreneurs. 

Sánchez is on a mission to help more women start businesses by creating meaningful change within the formal startup ecosystem, and to support a higher ratio of female founders in Latin America. 

This includes creating more robust information sharing networks such as dedicated conferences, entrepreneurship-focused podcasts and social media channels, public and private accelerator programs dedicated to female founders, and more mentorship programs for female business school and STEM students.

Ana Aguilar Pérez, <IMPACT> Accelerator

Ana Aguilar Pérez is a Project Manager at <IMPACT> Accelerator, the accelerator where startups, public institutions and corporations work together to change the world. The program is part of ISDI business school in Madrid, Spain.

Pérez takes a leading role in managing both national and international initiatives, focusing on business acceleration programs and EU-funded projects. She is responsible for helping to support dozens of startups through tailored growth strategies, and taking an active role in mentorship and training.

On a European level, Pérez helps lead communications strategy for RoboSAPIENS, an EU-funded project aimed at making industrial robots safer to work alongside humans.

Through these varied contributions, Pérez not only helps to bring forward innovative new startups but creates pathways to change to build the future of work for women.

Maeva Riley, Prezent

Maeva Riley is the VP of Marketing at Prezent, the AI platform for business presentations for executives. 

Riley brings over 10 years of experience to the role, with a proven track record in developing and executing successful B2B marketing programs and adapting to both corporate and startup environments. 

Her contributions to the field of marketing are setting new standards and inspiring more female leaders in the discipline. 

She holds a knack for creating clarity and simplicity around complex, technical products and solutions and has a passion for building and scaling businesses and teams that are entrepreneurial, empathetic, diverse, insight-driven, and growth-focused.

Katie Fritchen, ManagedMethods

Katie Fritchen is the Vice President of Marketing at ManagedMethods, a leading data security and student safety platform for K-12 schools.

Fritchen has a deep passion for the field of marketing, with a commitment to integrated marketing programs. She represents an important example of a female executive focused on excellence and results. 

She holds a breadth of experience that spans from strategic marketing plans and market trend analysis to content creation and results reporting. 

At ManagedMethods, Fritchen is responsible for an ambitious marketing program that includes managing a high-performing team, creating tactical plans, owning multi-channel marketing campaigns, developing mutually beneficial partner opportunities, and ensuring that all marketing plans align with business goals. 

Toni McPherson, Humble ISD

Toni McPherson is the Director of Network Systems at Humble ISD, which has more than 49 campuses and over 48,000 students. Humble Independent School District began over 100 years ago as Harris County Common School.

McPherson has been named a 40 Under 40 Award recipient and has a broad background in planning, implementing, and maintaining various technology solutions. 

She has a balanced combination of proven project management skills, broad technical expertise, and business sense.