Congratulations Angelina Priya, Quinita Lindley and Renata Di Stefano on becoming a finalist at the ARN Women in ICT Awards

Congratulations Angelina Priya, Quinita Lindley and Renata Di Stefano on becoming finalists at the ARN Women in ICT Awards 2024

19 August 2024. ARN has announced the finalists of the Women in ICT Awards (WIICTA) for 2024 — with three blueAPACHE colleagues among them.

Congratulations to Angelina Priya, Quinita Lindley and Renata Di Stefano.

The 2024 programme at a glance

Mirroring the entire local ecosystem, the 178 finalists were shortlisted from a pool spanning partner, vendor and distributor businesses. Female leaders were located across the entire country, from multiple cities spanning Australia.

In 2024, WIICTA housed the largest celebration of female excellence within the technology channel across the country.

The eight categories

The awards programme honoured the channel across:

1. Innovation
2. Technical
3. Entrepreneur
4. Graduate
5. Rising Star
6. Shining Star
7. Achievement
8. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Champion — Individual

Winners are selected by an executive panel of more than 150 industry judges, acknowledging creativity, innovation and excellence.

On the judging model

The scale of the panel is what gives the result its weight, and it deserves a moment's attention.

A panel of 150-plus judges is not a formality. It means each submission is assessed by multiple people with direct knowledge of the discipline in question, rather than by a small committee applying general impressions across every category at once. It also means the outcome is resistant to any single judge's bias, and that it cannot be influenced by an organisation's marketing reach — this is a judged programme, not a public vote.

For a finalist, that translates into something specific: a substantial number of independent industry practitioners reviewed evidence of the work and concluded it stood among the best submitted nationally.

Three finalists from one organisation

The number is worth noting on its own. From a pool of over 101 organisations producing 178 finalist placements, having three colleagues shortlisted from a single mid-market business is a disproportionate result.

It is also consistent rather than isolated. blueAPACHE has been represented at WIICTA across multiple consecutive years:

• WIICTA 2022 — Jayati Gulati, Shining Star Partner Award winner
• Earlier years — representation in two categories, with Rahwa Salew as a Rising Star and Renata Di Stefano as a Shining Star finalist
• WIICTA 2023 — Renata Di Stefano, Shining Star – Partner winner, from a record field of 230 finalists
• WIICTA 2024 — Angelina Priya, Quinita Lindley and Renata Di Stefano, finalists
• WIICTA 2026 — Ellie Sarabi, Wireless SME Network Engineer, finalist in the Partner – Technical category, from a field of 222

Separately, Jayati Gulati was recognised with an ARN 30 Under 30 Sales Excellence Award in that programme's inaugural year.

Renata Di Stefano's repeat placements across multiple years are notable in their own right. Different panels, different fields, the same conclusion.

Why WIICTA matters

The programme exists to address a persistent characteristic of the technology sector: women remain significantly under-represented, and the imbalance is most pronounced in the deeply technical and senior roles.

Its practical function is visibility. Most work in a technology business is invisible from outside the team that does it. A programme that surfaces it — assessed independently, published nationally — changes what is visible both to the industry and to people deciding whether it has a place for them.

The category structure supports that directly. By spanning Graduate and Rising Star through to Achievement, WIICTA recognises people early in their careers alongside those with long records, rather than defaulting to seniority.

Congratulations

blueAPACHE congratulates Angelina Priya, Quinita Lindley and Renata Di Stefano, and all 178 finalists recognised in the 2024 programme.

Frequently asked questions

Who from blueAPACHE was shortlisted in WIICTA 2024? Three colleagues: Angelina Priya, Quinita Lindley and Renata Di Stefano. The finalists were announced on 19 August 2024, with winners named on Thursday 19 September at Jones Bay Wharf, Doltone House, Sydney.

How large was the 2024 field? 178 finalists drawn from more than 101 organisations, shortlisted from over 375 nominations across eight categories, assessed by a panel of more than 150 industry judges. Finalists came from partner, vendor and distributor businesses across multiple Australian cities.

Why does the page emphasise the size of the judging panel? Because a panel of 150-plus means each submission is assessed by multiple people with direct knowledge of the relevant discipline, rather than by a small committee applying general impressions across every category. It makes the result resistant to any single judge's bias and immune to an organisation's marketing reach — this is a judged programme, not a public vote.

What were the eight categories in 2024? Innovation, Technical, Entrepreneur, Graduate, Rising Star, Shining Star, Achievement, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Champion – Individual.

Why is three finalists from one organisation notable? Because the 178 placements were spread across more than 101 organisations, so three from a single mid-market business is a disproportionate share.

Is this a one-off result for blueAPACHE? No. Jayati Gulati won the Shining Star Partner Award in 2022; Rahwa Salew and Renata Di Stefano were finalists in earlier years; Renata Di Stefano won Shining Star – Partner in 2023 from a record field of 230; and Ellie Sarabi was a Partner – Technical finalist in 2026 from a field of 222.

What does the page say the programme is for? Addressing the persistent under-representation of women in technology, most pronounced in deeply technical and senior roles. Its practical function is visibility: most work inside a technology business is invisible from outside the team that does it, and independent national assessment changes what both the industry and prospective entrants can see.

Why does the category structure matter? Because spanning Graduate and Rising Star through to Achievement recognises people early in their careers alongside those with long records, rather than defaulting to seniority.

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Additional information

ARN article: Finalists revealed for ARN WIICTA 2024 — available on the ARN website at arnnet.com.au.

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