In 2021, each month we will dedicate one of our weekly episodes to Women In Technology. This week, we will feature Maia Nikolova and Ana Söderström Persson, as we discuss their own journeys into senior positions, challenges, obstacles, advice to those looking to take their journey into technology and advices for businesses looking to add more diversity to their tech teams.

Maia Nikolova, Head of Business Analysis @ News UK

Maia is the Head of Business Analysis at New UK, the home of the well-known media brands like The Times, The Sun, Virgin Radio and talkSPORT. Her main focus at News UK is to build and develop a great team of BAs who work across Technology and to ensure business analysis needs across the company are covered. She has been a BA for more than 6 years initially starting as a product analyst at Dun & Bradstreet but quickly realising that her true calling was to prevent issues from happening in tech projects thus starting in her adventure as a BA. A firm supporter of Agile practices and with experience in the financial, online gambling and media sectors Maia is a key advocate for the value of the role of the Business Analyst within News UK and in the wider tech industry.

While an avid supporter of careers in Technology, she quickly noticed the minority representation of women in this ever expanding sector especially at the top levels. At News UK, she is part of the organising committee for the Women in Technology network whose goal is to provide a forum for the women in the tech teams to connect so that they can all collectively help make News UK Tech an amazing place for women to work and grow their careers.

Anna Söderström Persson, Technical Product Area Lad, KRY/LIVI

Anna is Technical Product Area Lead for the Growth teams at KRY/LIVI, a Swedish digital health care start-up.

As Tech Area Lead she works to enable teams to have the capacity, technology and working environment that they need to fast-forward the future of healthcare.

With a long experience from leading product and tech teams from Fintech, Telecom and now Health tech she has a passion for and a firm belief in self-leadership, growth and equal opportunities.

Geraldine Butler-Wright, Chief People & Culture Officer at Your.MD

Geraldine has developed her People career across multiple geographies to include EMEA and The United States. Most recently, her focus has been in the start-up and scale-up world, building and leading People functions in FinTech companies such as YoyoWallet and PayPal. Geraldine is also an executive coach who enjoys supporting the leaders and founders of tomorrow - both in the workplace and through her advisory role with global VC and start-up generator, Antler. Creating and driving innovative People programmes is a constant feature of her work and was core to her role leading transformative People initiatives at Imperial College.

Geraldine is originally from the North East of England and now lives in south west London with her husband, daughter and two spaniels. She adores swimming with her daughter, skiing and running with the dogs.