As we approach International Women’s Day in 2025, the female entrepreneurship and funding landscape has evolved significantly, presenting opportunities and challenges in the UK and Europe. Just this week, the Female Innovation Index 2025 report revealed that 1,196 European female-founded startups raised €5.76 billion through 1,305 deals in 2024.
The rise of women-led startups has become a defining trend, with an increasing number of funding programs specifically targeting female founders. The theme “Accelerate Action” resonates strongly with current developments, as women are entering new industries and creating more inclusive and diverse business ecosystems.
International Women’s Day in 2025 is thus a call to action — to celebrate, yes, but also to actively support and promote the inclusion of women in all aspects of business and technology.
So, to mark the occasion, TFN is spotlighting 12 extraordinary women who have significantly impacted tech. Coming from diverse backgrounds, these change-makers have led inspiring and transformative journeys, making them truly deserving of a place on this list.
Alexandra French, CEO, Xampla
Career journey so far:
Armed with a Natural Sciences degree from the University of Cambridge, Alexandra French embarked on a remarkable 25-year journey at Johnson Matthey, an FTSE-listed speciality chemicals company. Starting as a development chemist, she rapidly advanced through commercial roles into general management, leading initiatives in emissions control, precious metal products, and battery materials for electric vehicles. Her expertise culminated in a role as CEO of a global AIM-listed ventilation business.
In October 2023, she joined Xampla – a next-generation Cambridge-based plastic startup among the portfolio of UK-based VC firm Parkwalk Advisors. She joined their as a CEO, drawn to the company’s compelling mission to eliminate plastic pollution, its world-class team, and the exciting stage of the business: scaling, commercialising, and launching products into the market.
What makes her on the list?
As an accredited coach, she brings a unique blend of strategic leadership and personal development skills. Her coaching approach has proven instrumental in nurturing talent and building high-performing teams. At the same time, her commitment to sustainability is evidenced through her work on emission control catalysts, N₂O abatement, and eco-friendly materials.
Breaking barriers in the male-dominated automotive and chemical industries, Alexandra established herself as a transformative leader. Her success story goes beyond personal achievements – she actively championed women’s advancement in operational and technical roles. At Xampla, she cultivates an inclusive environment with 43% female representation while dedicating significant time to mentoring and coaching emerging female talent across the industry.
Her diverse background:
Alexandra’s global experience spans three continents, with significant work in China, Japan, South Korea, the Americas, and South Africa. A two-year leadership stint in Canada, where she headed a battery materials business, enhanced her cross-cultural expertise. Her career encompasses technical innovation, commercial strategy, operations management, quality control, supply chain optimisation, and executive leadership across diverse sectors, including automotive, aerospace, medical components, nitric acid manufacturing, and temperature sensing.
Annika Rahm and Charlotte Dehnert, co-founders of Hey Holy
Career journey so far:
Annika Rahm, co-founder and co-CEO of HEY HOLY, oversees finance, operations, and sales. Her eight-year tenure at McKinsey & Company, culminating as a Junior Partner in the Private Equity Practice, provided her with extensive expertise in business operations. Her motivation is personal: Owning a Doberman exposed her to the challenges of finding breed-specific nutrition.
Charlotte Dehnert, co-founder and co-CEO of HEY HOLY, brings over a decade of consumer industry expertise from L’Oréal and Roland Berger. She leads marketing, branding, and product development at HEY HOLY, leveraging her brand-building experience and product innovation. Her venture into pet nutrition stems from her belief in nutrition’s role in health and longevity.
What makes this powerful duo on the list?
What sets this powerful duo apart is their pioneering of a successful subscription-first model in the traditional, retail-dominated pet food industry. Unlike many subscription-based ‘online only ‘D2C businesses that have struggled in Germany, they have shown that a different approach can lead to success.
Through two funding rounds totalling $3M, they have proven their ability to attract top-tier investors and build a sustainable business in a competitive market. Launching their venture just after the Ukraine war began, they showed remarkable resilience and adaptability, steering their mission through unprecedented market uncertainty.
Their diverse background:
Both founders left successful, high-paying consulting careers to pursue their entrepreneurial vision with HEY HOLY, demonstrating their ambition and dedication to building a scalable business. Their success comes from a powerful combination of shared strengths and unique abilities. While their consulting backgrounds provide a common foundation in work style, structure, and strategic thinking, their different areas of expertise bring valuable complementary skills and fresh perspectives to decision-making.
As an all-female founding team with many female employees, they foster a culture of inclusion and empowerment. They demonstrate that female-led startups can achieve significant scale, secure substantial funding, and pursue ambitious international growth plans.
Eleanora Barkun, founder, Qlode
Career journey so far:
Eleanora Barkun built her marketing and business development career, starting with selling digital ads when the field was nascent. After roles in channel marketing at Carlsberg, she managed partnerships at 3M across Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Then, she led digital transformation at A1.by, including eCommerce migration to SAP Commerce Cloud.
As marketing and business development lead at LeverX, she achieved Gold Partner status and expanded SAP partnerships across continents. Eventually, she pivoted to the startup world when a friend’s project became her entrepreneurial journey.
Eleanora’s unique perspective spans corporate structure and startup agility, giving her insight into the leadership challenges across these different environments. Check out her full interview in our TechTalks with TFN series over here.
What makes her on the list?
Eleanora’s career journey stands out through her skillful navigation of corporate and startup environments in male-dominated tech spaces. Starting in marketing and business development, she led digital transformation projects and scaled global partnerships before courageously building something from scratch.
As a woman in tech and founder of Qlode, Eleanora has overcome biases while balancing leadership and family responsibilities. She believes women in tech should not only represent but also redefine leadership and create inclusive spaces for others, demonstrating that women can drive innovation while managing multiple life roles.
Her diverse background:
Eleanora strongly believes in the power of diversity and people, as demonstrated through her leadership experiences. While managing teams in the USA, she worked with an employee who initially had almost no event management experience. Despite others’ doubts, Eleanora recognised the employee’s potential. Two years later, that same employee successfully led a 300-person event in Miami, proving that people can achieve remarkable results with the right opportunities and support.
Her experience in Kazakhstan further reinforced her core belief: teams with diverse perspectives and problem-solving approaches deliver stronger outcomes. She understands that each person brings a unique worldview, and these differences create collective strength.
During a performance review, Eleanora received feedback that her greatest strength was her ability to recognise potential in people and trust them to grow.
Erika Maslauskaite, CEO and co-founder, Deverium
Career journey so far:
Erika Maslauskaite is a Tech Entrepreneur based in Vilnius, Lithuania. She is the CEO and co-founder of Deverium, a forward-thinking software development company with headquarters in London, Stockholm, and Vilnius. With more than 15 years of experience in business development, marketing, and change management across various sectors, she has led numerous tech companies to become market leaders through effective business, brand, sales, and marketing strategies.
What makes her on the list?
Erika co-founded the largest Tech and Innovation Festival in the Baltic States, LOGIN. It started as a small initiative among three friends back in 2009 and has now grown into a premier event attracting over 6,000 attendees annually. The festival features renowned speakers like Steve Wozniak (Apple) and Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia). She also served as a board member at the Fintech Association Lithuania from 2022 to 2024.
Her diverse background:
Erika has built expertise across the Tech, Media, and Telecommunications sectors, becoming a go-to expert for companies navigating growth and digital transformation challenges. Beyond her role at Deverium, she is an Ambassador at the WomenGoTech mentorship initiative, a Member of the European Women Payments Network, and a Founding Member of AmberTech Cluster, where she inspires and supports emerging tech professionals and entrepreneurs.
Heather Cook, CEO, Wellmind Health
Heather’s career journey so far
Heather Cook began her career at PA Consulting Group, specialising in public sector strategy and digital transformation. She then joined Brain in Hand during digital health’s emergence, which led her to found Propel Digital Health Consulting to help companies scale and navigate healthcare systems. Heather served as Interim UK Director at Big Health (2022), promoting digital therapeutics for mental health, before joining Wellmind Health as Advisory Board Chair (2023) and later CEO (2024).
She contributes to the tech and healthcare sectors through her positions on TechUK’s Board of Directors, the Health and Social Care Council, and NHS England’s SME Commercial Advisory Board.
What makes her on the list?
Despite no formal STEM background, Heather excels in digital health by understanding human interaction and organisational change rather than technical expertise. As a bridge between innovation and implementation, she helps organisations adopt impactful digital solutions.
Her leadership spans key roles at Big Health, Wellmind Health, and her venture, Propel Digital Health Consulting, where she helps companies scale despite gender barriers in tech entrepreneurship. Through board positions at TechUK and NHS England, she influences healthcare technology policy—an area where women remain underrepresented.
As Wellmind Health’s CEO, Heather champions evidence-based digital therapeutics while prioritising mentoring and diverse teams. Her success demonstrates how connecting technology, healthcare, and business expertise creates scale-based human-centred solutions.
Her diverse background:
From a working-class family, Heather was the first university graduate on both sides, with no early role models. Her comprehensive school didn’t emphasise academics, and her worldview expanded only after she left to study Politics, Economics, and public sector urban planning at Birmingham University.
Her natural curiosity drove her to explore unfamiliar territories despite limited guidance from family and school about career possibilities. This background fuels her passion for mentoring students and early-career professionals. Seeing her daughter and niece in STEM careers reinforces her commitment to creating opportunities for women in STEM and digital health.
Iheakachi Nwabueze, Head of Global Marketing and Growth, Grey
Career journey so far:
Iheakachi Nwabueze currently serves as Head of Global Marketing and Growth at Grey, a US-based neobank transforming digital financial services in emerging markets, expanding in Europe now. In this role, she oversees global marketing and PR programs. Under her leadership, Grey has expanded its reach across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
Before joining Grey, Nwabueze built her expertise at various tech startups, consistently delivering strong results. She has qualifications as an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (ACIM) and an MBA in International Business, strengthening her global business perspective. In 2022, she was recognised as a StackShift dWeb Fellow, highlighting her expertise in the digital space. Nwabueze has also established herself as a thought leader and speaker, regularly sharing insights with audiences worldwide.
What makes her on the list?
Iheakachi Nwabueze’s success in tech stems from her focus on measurable results rather than gender narratives. As Head of Global Marketing and Growth at Grey, she’s driven significant market expansion across different continents, letting performance metrics speak for themselves.
Her digital nomad perspective and expertise in emerging markets provide unique strategic value that transcends gender considerations. Rather than focusing on being “a woman in tech,” she positions herself as a strategic leader who delivers consistent results while bringing diverse perspectives.
Her diverse background:
Nwabueze’s extensive geographical experience, particularly in Africa, gives her unique insights into emerging markets beyond theoretical understanding. Her hands-on experience in different regions allows her to create culturally-relevant campaigns and navigate complex regulatory environments.
As a digital nomad, she gains firsthand market understanding across different regions. Her diverse startup experience — from customer support to cryptocurrency — has built a versatile skill set. This intentional career path has equipped her with practical expertise in various business models and market conditions, which she now applies to global marketing strategy.
Miroslava Betinova, fintech expert and ex-Griffin
Career journey so far:
Miroslava Betinova is a leading fintech expert and an ex-Griffin, head of fintech. Her career in fintech wasn’t meticulously planned during her studies. She landed a payments job by chance, simply wanting to work in central London. Since then, her journey has evolved from mastering localised payment methods and prepaid card systems to championing financial inclusion through alternative banking programs and bank building. While one might say this completes the circle, the dynamic industry continues to evolve and innovate, making the journey endless.
What makes her on the list?
Tenacity and a positive outlook define her approach. Miroslava continuously moves forward by bringing high energy and positivity to everything she does. As she puts it, while you might not succeed at every task, you’ll certainly become unforgettable.
Her diverse background:
Being born behind the Iron Curtain into a family of teachers wasn’t the ideal foundation for building a career in technology and financial services in the UK and Europe. The events of 1989 dealt Miroslava a lucky hand, and once she was old enough to grasp this opportunity fully, she was determined to maximise it. Armed with courage, she became fluent in two world languages, bought a one-way bus ticket to London (return was too expensive for her then), ventured beyond the borders of her native Slovakia, and hasn’t stopped exploring since.
Irene Jia, co-founder and CTO, Level Zero Health
Career journey so far:
Diverse experiences and notable achievements mark Irene Jia’s career journey. She holds a double Master’s in Innovation Design Engineering from Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art. Her career began as a contemporary ballet apprentice in London, followed by roles in the fashion industry at Ada Zanditon and Threeasfour in New York City.
In 2019, Jia co-founded Reverence sports tech, a dancewear company, serving as creative director for over four years. She gained corporate experience at Philips in R&D and industrial design, focusing on healthcare products. She is the co-founder and CTO of Level Zero Health, a position she has held since October 2023.
What makes her on the list?
Jia’s inclusion on notable lists stems from her groundbreaking work with Level Zero Health. She helped secure a record-breaking $6.9 million pre-seed funding round, the largest ever raised by female founders in Europe. The company is developing an innovative continuous hormone monitoring device that could revolutionise hormone health management.
Her work has been recognised with awards such as the Analytics for Society Award and the Good Interventions Award in 2023. Jia’s ability to lead a cutting-edge healthtech startup while breaking funding records makes her a standout figure in the industry.
Her diverse background:
Irene Jia’s background is remarkably diverse, spanning multiple disciplines. She has artistic experience as a ballet apprentice and in fashion design. Her technical expertise comes from her engineering degrees and work in R&D. She gained healthcare knowledge while at Philips, developing medical technology and healthcare products.
Jia’s entrepreneurial skills are evident in co-founding two companies in different sectors. Described as a transdisciplinary designer and technologist, she brings holistic perspectives and systems thinking to her projects.
Layla Hosseini-Gerami, co-founder and CDSO, Ignota Labs
Career journey so far:
Layla Hosseini-Gerami is the Co-Founder and Chief Data Science Officer of Ignota Labs, a pioneering drug turnaround company. After completing her MChem/BSc in chemistry at the University of Leeds where she was named Outstanding Graduate of the Year, she earned her PhD at the University of Cambridge under AI drug discovery expert Andreas Bender.
Her research at Cambridge focused on integrative cheminformatics and bioinformatics strategies, winning the Chemistry Theory Outstanding Thesis Award in 2023. Joining Ignota Labs full-time in 2022, she has helped the company achieve significant technical and commercial milestones, including securing a $6.9M seed round.
What makes her on the list?
Dr. Hosseini-Gerami’s innovative work bridges chemistry, biology, and AI to tackle drug safety challenges. At Ignota Labs, she has developed a novel platform that identifies and mitigates drug toxicity mechanisms. Her contributions have earned recognition from major pharmaceutical companies like Sanofi, government bodies including Innovate UK, and prestigious scientific organisations. In 2025, she won an Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award and was invited to 10 Downing Street to advise on AI applications in medicine — a testament to her growing influence in the field.
Her diverse background:
As the daughter of Iranian immigrants, Dr. Hosseini-Gerami’s upbringing instilled in her a strong sense of resilience and determination. Her passion for science was nurtured by enthusiastic teachers who captivated the natural world—a year in industry placement revealed opportunities in computational chemistry beyond traditional lab work.
As a woman and ethnic minority in the predominantly white and male AI sector, she has overcome significant barriers to establish herself as a leader. She actively champions diversity in STEM through mentoring programs and initiatives like Next Tech Girls, using her own journey to inspire the next generation of underrepresented scientists and entrepreneurs.
Amber Hill, founder and CEO, R.grid
Career journey so far:
Dr. Amber Michelle Hill is a pioneering figure in healthcare technology. After earning her PhD in Biomedical Neuroscience from University College London, she dedicated 14 years to medical research, gaining deep insights into clinical trial inefficiencies. In 2020, she founded R.grid, developing machine learning-powered software for healthcare R&D. Her vision gained traction quickly, joining the prestigious Shott Scale Up Accelerator program in 2022. Dr. Hill secured over £1 million in initial seed funding, and in November 2024, R.grid secured a substantial $6.5 million seed round led by Fuel Ventures.
What makes her on the list?
Dr. Hill’s groundbreaking work in healthcare technology has earned her recognition. She developed AI-powered, cloud-based systems that automate clinical trial processes, addressing critical issues like patient recruitment and diversity. Her solutions have demonstrated remarkable results: 30% reduction in costs, 90% increase in administrative efficiency, and a threefold improvement in patient engagement. These achievements showcase her technical expertise and ability to translate complex scientific concepts into practical, impactful solutions.
Her diverse background:
What sets Dr. Hill apart is her unique position at the intersection of medical research, technology, and entrepreneurship. Her academic foundation in biomedical neuroscience combined with years of hands-on research provides deep understanding of healthcare sector needs. Her knowledge and grasp of AI applications in healthcare allow her to develop innovative, grounded solutions.
Her international experience implementing research impact programs across the UK, Germany, the US, China, and Africa gives her a global perspective on healthcare challenges. Dr. Hill’s journey from dedicated researcher to CEO exemplifies her ability to identify critical needs and develop solutions to accelerate medical breakthroughs and improve patient outcomes globally.
Fajer Mushtaq, CEO and co-founder, Oxyle AG
Career journey so far:
Fajer Mushtaq is a pioneering environmental technology entrepreneur known for her innovations in wastewater treatment. After earning a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Aston University (2012), where she won the Dr. Edwin Griffith’s Memorial Prize and IET H.E. Pulsford Memorial Prize, Fajer worked as an electrical engineer designing entertainment systems for luxury car brands. She then pursued a Master’s in Micro- and Nanosystems at ETH Zurich, researching ferromagnetic shape-memory alloys.
Her doctoral research at ETH’s Multi-Scale Robotics Lab (begun in 2014) focused on smart nanomaterials for environmental remediation. This work resulted in significant advancements for treating toxic micropollutants and heavy metals in wastewater, leading to multiple publications and a patent.
In 2020, she co-founded Oxyle AG, an ETH Zurich spin-off specialising in sustainable wastewater treatment. As CEO, she has led the company to recognition for its nanotechnology approach to PFAS elimination, raising several millions in CHF through grants and competitions, establishing Oxyle as a leader in environmental technology.
What makes her on the list?
Fajer Mushtaq’s development of a nanocatalyst that mineralises micropollutants using vibrations represents a significant leap forward in wastewater treatment technology. As co-founder and CEO of Oxyle AG, she has demonstrated exceptional business acumen by securing funding and winning international awards such as the SEIF Award for Social Innovation.
Fajer was named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by SEF—WomenAward for her outstanding entrepreneurial track record, which highlights her impact on the technology and business landscapes.
Her diverse background:
Growing up in Delhi, India, Fajer faced water quality challenges firsthand, igniting her passion for addressing global water issues. Her educational path spanned multiple countries and disciplines, providing her with a robust foundation in engineering and environmental science.
With experience ranging from engineering roles in the automotive industry to pioneering research in nanotechnology and entrepreneurship, Fajer’s diverse skill set enables her to approach problems from multiple angles.
Please note: The arrangement of profiles in this article does not indicate ranking, priority, or sequence.
TFN accepted a commission for the creative cost associated with this article.
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