Top 50 most influential women in the UK channel

Over the past month, CRN has been delving into the issues females in the industry face as part of our inaugural Women in the Channel project.

While we are not the first media outlet to run a Women in Technology project, we have tried to make it specific to the UK channel, and also made an effort to look at the issue from all angles.

For example, we asked if the topic should even be an issue at all; after all, many leading women in the channel find the topic patronising and believe they ought to be considered in the same way as their male counterparts - not given any special consideration.

Click here to view the full list of the Top 50 Most Influential Women in the Channel

The project has also looked into a variety of other issues, such as returning to work after having children; how to attract more females into the industry; and what can be done to hire more women when the vast majority of applicants are men. We've also interviewed senior channel figures, such as Insight's Emma de Sousa and Microsoft's Clare Barclay to find out their views on the subject.

Cream of the crop

To top off our Women in the Channel project, we've rounded up a list of the top 50 most influential women in the UK channel, which can be viewed here.

Great effort has been made to ensure we have included the widest range of the UK channel's most senior women. The following considerations were made when drawing up the list:

- Relevance to UK: Global executives have not been included, and those with EMEA roles who have been included have a strong UK focus.

- Seniority: Roles of director level and above have been considered.

- Position in the channel: We've tried to include as many senior women from resellers and distributors as possible, with only the largest and most channel-relevant vendors making the cut. Priority was given to founders/CEOs/managing directors of companies, then women at director level.

- Relevance of job title: Channel-facing (for vendor and distributor) and customer-facing (for resellers) executives took priority when compiling this list. Those in finance, HR, marketing, or non-exec roles have been considered, but priority has been given to other roles such as CEO, sales director, business unit director, technical/solutions director and similar.

- 'Women in the Channel' activities: Many women on the list partake in 'extra-curricular' activities to help promote the channel to women and girls. This was a consideration when compiling the list.

Furthermore, we've gone to great lengths to find the channel's most senior women. We asked as many people as we could for suggestions before finalising the list. Here is how we did it:

- Asked for recommendations: We have spoken to dozens of people for various features and news stories throughout the Women in the Channel project. During our calls and meetings, we asked people for recommendations of women for the list.

- ResponseSource: This is a tool for journalists that allows us to submit a query which goes to the PR and marketing departments for companies in a variety of sectors. We used this when appealing for suggestions so we could reach people we may not have spoken to in the past.

- Social media: We've made numerous appeals on Twitter and LinkedIn for suggestions of women for the list.

We hope we've done a good job in rounding up all the UK channel's most senior women, but if we have missed off anyone who fits the criteria, please do let us know and we will consider them for future projects of this nature.