PowerWomen Speak

PowerWomen Speak with Shiva McMahon

Shiva McMahon is the CEO and MD of Petro Australis Energy (PAE), an Australian exploration and production company. With over 30 years of experience in the energy industry, she has built a distinguished career in business leadership, delivering safe and sustainable operations, strategy development and implementation, financial management, business development, and risk management. Before joining PAE, Shiva was Executive Vice President for International Operations at Woodside Energy, where she managed operations across Gulf of Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, Canada, and Senegal. Her tenure at Woodside followed its merger with BHP Petroleum, where she was the Managing Director for the Australian business. Shiva spent a significant portion of her career at BP, primarily in the Upstream business. She also served as CFO for Castrol, BP's global lubricants business and prior to that ,held various leadership roles across multiple geographies, including as Chief of Staff for Upstream from 2014-2017. Her governance experience includes serving as a Non-Executive Director and Shareholder Representative on the Board of Castrol India, listed on the Mumbai Stock Exchange. She has also served on the boards of The Greater Houston Partnership, the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA), and the Australian Energy Producers (formerly APPEA).

PowerWomen Speak with Emilia Wickstead

Established in 2008, the luxury womenswear label Emilia Wickstead has become known in the industry as the epitome of modern femininity. Born in New Zealand to a part-New Zealand part-Italian mother and a part-Samoan father, Emilia was raised in the suburbs of Pakaranga, Ellerslie and Parnel in Auckland. After her father, an artist, passed away when Emilia was four, her mother Angela Wickstead founded her own successful made-to-measure fashion line. Emilia spent her formative years observing her mother build her business, assisting in fittings after school. At the age of fourteen Emilia moved to Italy when her mother married an Italian, spending her teenage years studying in Milan. There, Emilia became mesmerized with the world of luxury fashion. At eighteen she moved to London to study Design and Marketing at world-renowned university Central Saint Martin's, graduating with Honours in 2007. After her studies Emilia worked at American Vogue and at fashion houses including Giorgio Armani and Narciso Rodriguez before returning to London to establish her eponymous label, opening her first store in Belgravia in 2009. Known for her fluent use of colour and exacting craftsmanship, Emilia Wickstead's designs effortlessly combine tradition and the romance of bygone eras with refined silhouettes and contemporary twists to create timeless, elegant clothing with a clear point of distinction. Originally founding her business with a unique made-to-measure model, Emilia's collections now comprise seasonal ready-to-wear, homeware and bridalwear, as well as bespoke and made-to-order services operated from her West London atelier. Her designs have been showcased at London Fashion Week since 2011. Emilia Wickstead collections are held by some of the most prestigious retailers in the world, including Net-A-Porter, MyTheresa, Nordstrom, Harrods, Harvey Nichols UK, Tuckernuck, and Simon James.

PowerWomen Speak with Serpil Timuray

Serpil Timuray is an Independent Non-Executive Director at British American Tobacco Plc. Most recently, Serpil was the CEO of Vodafone Investments and a member of Vodafone Group's Executive Committee. Her previous roles at Vodafone Group's Executive Committee included CEO of Europe Cluster, Group Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer, and CEO of AMAP (Africa, Middle East, Asia, Pacific). Prior to joining Vodafone, Serpil spent 10 years at Danone Plc, latterly as the CEO of Danone Dairy Turkey. Prior to Danone, she held several marketing roles at Procter & Gamble Plc. Serpil also serves on the boards of various non-profit organisations. She is the Founding Chair of ChangeTheFace Alliance, an industry-wide global cooperation to accelerate diversity and inclusion in the tech sector. She was awarded GSMA's "Diversity in Tech Outstanding Achievement GLOMO Award" in 2022 for this. She is a Board Member of Digital Leaders Europe at WEF, a member of Founders4Schools, and a Board Member of DEIK DTIK (Global Turkish Business Council) and the UK Representative of DTIK. She has also served as a board member of GSMA (Global Mobile Communications Association) and chaired the GSMA Board's Public Policy Committee. Serpil has been recognised in various international rankings, including HERoes "100 Women Executives Role Model List" six times, ranking 4th in 2024, Financial Times HERoes "Champions of Women in Business" ranking 20th in 2018, Fortune's "Most Powerful Women International" ranking 27th in 2017 and Newsweek's "World's 125 Women of Impact" ranking 79th in 2013.

PowerWomen Speak with Margarida Garcia

Margarida is a founding team member and VP of Operations at poolside. Before joining poolside, Margarida spent two years as a venture capitalist at Beacon Capital, primarily investing in early-stage deep tech companies. Prior to that, she served as COO at Lifebit, an AI genomics platform for developers, where she played a key role in growing the company from Day 0 to their $60M Series B round. Margarida's earlier experience includes working at source{d}, applying AI to code and software. In both source{d} and Lifebit, Margarida joined when the companies were Day 0 and only had its founders, while at Beacon Capital she was critical to raising their first fund. Next to her day jobs, Margarida helped raise over $100M in capital for founders she mentored.

PowerWomen Speak with Nneka Orji

Nneka is a Senior Director at Alvarez & Marsal, where she leads the UK's Wealth Management Performance Improvement practice. She was previously Chief Operating Officer at a wealth management business and prior to this, Nneka spent almost 10 years in Management Consulting at Deloitte and Accenture. A passionate champion of improving social mobility, Nneka is a mentor with the Social Mobility Foundation. She previously mentored with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and Amos Bursary, and she is a supporter of Women of Colour Global Network (WOCGN), Women of the Future Future and Inspiring the Future.