At Girls In Tech Switzerland, we strongly believe in the importance of role models.
Through our Women Who Inspire Us interview series, we share the stories of inspiring Swiss women in tech as they are reflecting on their careers.
We shine a light on brilliant engineers, leaders, and entrepreneurs in the tech industry in Switzerland.
Their stories and aspirations aim to encourage more and more women and young girls to pursue a career in tech.
Are you or do you know an inspiring woman in tech that we should feature in this blog post series? Reach out to [email protected] & let us know!
Ansuya Ahluwalia, CTO at Thirty3
Ansuya is a tech entrepreneuer and software engineer who has found her passion in solving complex problems. She discovered self-care practices that transformed her life and allow her to create an impact in tech and to make meaningful connections.
Read the full story here
Julie Picarel, Senior Project Lead at Zurich Airport
Julie is a Senior Project Leader in Civil Engineering and BIM at Zurich Airport who has an inspiring career in the construction industry that has presented her with a number of challenges that allowed her to grow into an effective leader.
Read the full story here
Laura Köppen, Head of the Department for Audience at SRF
Laura is an inspiring leader in the area of audience research at SRF. Learn about her supportive leadership style and how she fosters an environment of diversity and inclusion, e.g. with the “chance50:50” initiatives that aims to have an equal representation of experts in television and beyond.
Read the full story here
Priska Herzog, lecturer in mechanical engineering at the Hochschule Luzern
Meet Priska Herzog, the trailblazing lecturer at Hochschule Luzern, challenging norms and carving her own path in a traditionally male-dominated domain. Her journey from an art lover to tech exemplifies resilience and determination. Her advice? Embrace support networks and focus on your passion. Let’s champion diversity in engineering together!
Read the full story here
Sandra Sulzberger, IT Consultant & Digital Transformation at OIZ (City of Zurich)
Sandra studied Computer Science at ETH Zurich in the 1980ies when there were 2% female students and graduated cum laude. Learn about her inspiring career path, the challenges she had to overcome and what she does today in, what she calls, the third phase of her life.
Read the full story here
Eva Parth dos Santos, Founder of Mint Girls
Eva is on a mission to empower girls with a choice and show them that everything is possible with Mint Girls, a clothing brand for girls with motifs such as trucks, spaceships, robots & more.
Read the full story here
Alexandra Kowalewska, Front-end Engineer, and Sofia Cubillos, Head of Data Analytics, at On
Alex and Sofia share their career stories and the inspiring path of their internal community of women in tech called OnPower.
Read the full story here
Caitlin Kraft Buchman, CEO of Women At The Table
As the founder and CEO of Women at the Table and the co-founder of the A+ Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms, Caitlin is a driving force for more equality and diversity in tech. Caitlin was never afraid to challenge the status quo, to take action and making diverse voices heard – to literally bring people to the big tables of this world. Her career has brought her from Hollywood to the Silicon Valley and now Geneva, from TED to Human Right’s Watch and to working with the UN.
Read the full story here
Hana Harencarova, Software Engineer at GitHub & Founder of Moms Learn to Code
Originally from Slovakia, Hana did a Ph.D. in psychology where she discovered her passion for programming when analyzing statistical data. After moving to Switzerland and attending coding courses for Ruby and Rails, she realized that there aren’t many programming courses where parents can bring their young children. That’s when she founded Moms Learn to Code. Today, she works as a Software Engineer at GitHub on code scanning tools.
Read the full story here
Tatjana Schäfer, Director and Global Treasury Solutions Lead at KMPG
After having worked in Germany and Japan for multiple years, Tatjana now works in treasury at KPMG Zurich where she develops projects for clients all around the world in an international team. As the finance industry gets more technical, Tatjana lerned about many tech topics in order to provide her clients with the knowledge and solutions that would set them up for success.
Read the full story here
Dr. Marianne Charaf, Partner at itopia AG
Marianne immigrated to Germany from Bolivia at the age of 14 and pursued a PhD in business informatics – despite the language barrier. Today, she is a successful partner at the IT consulting firm itopia AG. Marianne is also actively engaged in improving the situation of foreigners in Zurich as co-president and board member of the council of foreigners.
Read the full story here
Melanie Tschugmall, Global Business Strategy Expert at SAP
Melanie grew up on the country side in Switzerland but evolved into a lover of cities and different cultures. As a strategy expert, she succeeds in bringing technology and people together, so that the business runs smoothly. She strongly believes in lifelong-learning as a beneficial mindset, and that women should make sure to choose managers and superiors that empower and enable them.
Read the full story here
Nadia Mojahed, founder of SEO Transformer
Nadia started out in digital marketing and found her passion in SEO (search engine optimization). Her career path is one of continuous learning and experimenting with various ideas. As the Geneva chapter lead of Women in Digital Switzerland she also knows about the importance of a strong and engaged network, and how to build communities.
Read the full story here
Sabine Do-Thuong, Head of Development at Verity
From studying computer science into software engineering and now leading a team of 50 engineers that build autonomous indoor drone systems. Sabine’s career path is as inspiring as it gets, and on top of that she is a huge advocate for more diversity in tech.
Read the full story here
Severina Pascu, Deputy CEO and COO of Sunrise UPC
Growing up in Romania has shown Severina that a woman can do any job. In Switzerland since many years, she has gained deep insights into the reasons for the lack of diversity in tech in this country. At Sunrise UPC, she is on a mission to change the face of tech.
Read the full story here
Leonie Flückiger, co-founder of Adresta AG
An engineer by training, Leonie has founded the blockchain start-up Adresta that is revolutionizing the watch industry. Learn about her path into tech, what it means to be an entrepreneur, and how she is advocating for more women in tech.
Read the full story here
Catherine Pawlotsky, CIO of TCS
With a distinct passion for people and transformation, Catherine has found her way from a non-technical background to being the Chief Information Officer of the largest mobility club in Switzerland. Her biggest lesson learned is that you don’t have to be a geek to work in tech, you just need to surround yourself with the right people.
Read the full story here
Chanel Greco, Founder & CEO at Saperis
Coming from a non-technical background, Chanel Greco has found her sweet spot in tech at the intersection to education, inspiring others to learn and grow their skillset. Read about her career path and why it is so important to make yourself visible as a woman in tech.
Read the full story here
Sara Kaiser, Program Director of the Luxembourg Tech School (LTS)
From her inspiring and non-linear path into tech, learn how Sara Kaiser fights for more diversity and inclusion through her work with children and teenagers. Sara is driven by a strong feeling of purpose – to have a positive impact on young people’s lives through the many facets of tech.
Read the full story here
Angelika Fuchs, Global Product Lead for Data Automation at Roche
With 10 years experience in Research Informatics, a passion for science and human-centric digitalization in drug discovery, Angelika has some great advice to share based on the experiences she made in her industry.
Read the full story here
Isabelle Ohnemus, Founder & CEO of EyeFitU
In the interview with Isabelle, we discussed the challenges of being a first mover in your field and what it means to be a female entrepreneur. Isabelle also shared with us some valuable career tips that she has learned along the way.
Read the full story here
Priska Burkard, Co-founder of TechFace & Founder of Skills Finder
We learned about Priska Burkard’s inspiring career path and how she transitioned into the tech industry. We also discover how she created her purpose: helping other women in tech through both Girls In Tech Switzerland & TechFace.
Read the full story here
Vanessa Gentile, Director Alliance & Channel at Salesforce
Vanessa Gentile is giving us inspiring insights into her career path, from being a child of immigrants to climbing her way up to being a leader at global tech companies. You will find lots of great advice in Vanessa’s career path and also learn about the Bring Women Back to Work program that she has founded.
Read the full story here
Nadia Fischer, CEO and Co-founder of Witty Works, Creator of the Diversifier
Witty Works raises awareness of how unconscious bias affects the workplace by supporting their clients with redesigned processes and structures to bypass unconscious bias and ultimately creating a more inclusive work culture. Learn why Nadia Fischer moved into tech as well as her past and upcoming challenges.
Read the full story here
Valentina Ricupero, Business consultant & Coach
Valentina Ricupero has worked in the tech industry for almost 15 years, leading teams in start-ups and corporates all around the world. She is now starting her own business consulting company. In this interview, Valentina shares her inspiring career path, her experiences as being the only woman in meetings, and also plenty of life advice.
Read the full story here
Anastasia Hofmann, co-founder of food tech start-up Kitro
Anastasia Hofmann’s company Kitro was co-founded together with Naomi MacKenzie with the objective to implement solutions that are pushing sustainability in the hospitality industry to new levels. Learn why Anastasia would have wished she had learned how to program years ago, and why it is so important to bring interest in technology and coding into tech – even if your background is rooted somewhere else.
Read the full story here
