Novi Disruptor / Innovator of the Year

Recognizes an individual who demonstrates creative, innovative, or unique approaches to solving problems or product innovation.

2026 Novi Awards

Now in its 16th year, the Novi Leadership Summit and Awards honours the impact of female leadership, innovation and entrepreneurism in business. We continue to use our platform to showcase the achievements of women breaking barriers across the public and private sectors, giving them the recognition and visibility, they need to inspire the next generation of leaders. These women are changing lives and transforming the UK’s businesses, communities, and industries. They are the audacious ones, the innovative transformational female leaders – the game changers – the unstoppable ones. Check out the alumni and last years magazine. nominate apply

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Nikita Thakrar

Nikita Thakrar is the Founder & CEO of Included VC, the world’s first fully funded global venture capital institute dedicated to breaking barriers to entry in the VC industry. She is deeply committed to transforming the venture capital industry by ensuring that underrepresented talent isn’t just included, but is actively shaping the future of the sector. By focusing on sustainable, long-term change, Included VC is setting a new benchmark for how the industry operates, and who gets to be part of it. Nikita is also an Obama Leader, has been recognised on Management Today’s 35 Under 35, and received the Asians in Tech Pioneers Award.

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Dr Pauldy Otermans

Pauldy is a female UK tech leader and a neuroscientist/psychologist by academic background. She was awarded as the Inspirational Womxn in the Tech Industry by Hustle Awards, named one of ‘22 most influential women in the UK 2022’ by Start-Up Magazine UK, and was awarded by the UK Prime Minister in 2021. Apart from her work in Otermans Institute, she’s active in the research community of AI in Education (e.g., Topic Editor for Frontiers in AI). She also won Women in Tech Excellence award 2023 and Women in Management – Technology UK 2024. She regularly supports other women in tech.

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The 2025 Novi Awards

Now in its 15th year, the Novi Leadership Summit and Awards honours the impact of female leadership, innovation and entrepreneurism in business. We continue to use our platform to showcase the achievements of women breaking barriers across the public and private sectors, giving them the recognition and visibility, they need to inspire the next generation of leaders. These women are changing lives and transforming the UK’s businesses, communities, and industries. They are the audacious ones, the innovative transformational female leaders – the game changers – the unstoppable ones. Check out the alumni and last years magazine. Get tickets to the summit & awards Missed this Year’s Awards?

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Vivian Bertseka

Vivian is a co-founder and COO of BlueLayer. She brings deep experience as a climate and sustainability private equity investor and operator over the past 20 years. Before co-founding BlueLayer, Vivian was a founding partner of Just Climate, a climate-led private equity investment platform operating as part of Generation Investment Management, aiming to address the net-zero challenge at scale. She was responsible for bringing together a team and building Just Climate to its current size of 30+ people and launching the successful first-time raise of the $1.5bn Climate Assets Fund. Before that, she spent a total of 9 years as an investor with Generation, four of which on the Climate Solutions Funds, Generation’s Growth Equity platform focused on Cleantech, before joining the Global Equity strategy in 2015, covering the Global Consumer sector. Vivian began her career at UBS Securities, where she advised corporate and financial sponsor clients on leveraged buyouts and subsequently spent 3 years at Apollo Management evaluating credit and equity investments in leveraged buyouts. Vivian grew up in Athens, Greece, received an AB in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard University and an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD. Vivian splits her time between London, Berlin and Athens with her family and loves yoga and year-round open-water swimming.

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Breaking Barriers

Now in its 14th year, the Novi Leadership Summit and Awards honours the impact of female leadership, innovation and entrepreneurism in business. We continue to use our platform to showcase the achievements of women breaking barriers across the public and private sectors, giving them the recognition and visibility, they need to inspire the next generation of leaders. These women are changing lives and transforming the UK’s businesses, communities, and industries. They are the audacious ones, the innovative transformational female leaders – the game changers – the unstoppable ones. Check out the alumni and last years magazine. enter the awards get tickets

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Unstoppable Women

With this year’s theme being “unstoppable women”, we are celebrating women who are showing exceptional leadership abilities in their teams, challenging and breaking glass ceilings and uplifting communities across the entire UK and globe. These women are changing the world with their craft, talents, creativity, eloquence, leadership and impacting generations all around the world. The FL Leadership and Summit Awards will bring together women from all fields, organizations, industries and backgrounds to discuss their journeys and careers and celebrate their exceptional leadership. We are bringing together carefully curated expert panels, as well as industry-leading speakers to share thoughts on how we create a safer, healthier and more gender-balanced working environment for all.

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Mae Yip

Mae left her accountancy job at PWC to co-create ERIC. Her mission in life is to make sure young people from all walks of life were told about their career options in the creative industries. Her role is to work with creative employers and connect them with young creatives.

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Novi-winners-stage

Breaking Barriers

Now in its 13th year, the Forward Ladies Leadership Summit and Awards honours the impact of female leadership, innovation and entrepreneurism in business. We continue to use our platform to showcase the achievements of women breaking barriers across the public and private sectors, giving them the recognition and visibility, they need to inspire the next generation of leaders. These women are changing lives and transforming the UK’s businesses, communities, and industries. They are the audacious ones, the innovative transformational female leaders – the game changers – the unstoppable ones. As we celebrate another International Women’s Day, we are excited to launch The Forward Ladies Leadership Summit and Awards to identify and recognize the women breaking barriers.  Our theme for this year is Breaking Barriers.

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