WiC congratulates the winners of our inaugural Leading Lights awards: Cisco's Yvette Kanouff, Zayo Group's Sandi Mays and startup Grid4C.

Sarah Thomas, Director, Women in Comms

May 24, 2016

2 Min Read
Women in Comms' Leading Lights Awards Winners Revealed

What better way to cap off a fantastic day of networking, panel discussions and a job fair than by honoring some of the leading women in the comms industry? That's just what Women in Comms did last night at the Leading Lights awards dinner at the Hotel Ella in Austin, Texas.

Congratulations to the three winners of WiC's inaugural 2016 Leading Lights awards:

  • Female-Led Startup to Watch: Grid4C and CEO Noa Ruschin Rimini, Ph.D.

  • Most Inspiring Woman in Comms: Sandi Mays, EVP of IT, Billing, Client Service Management, Tranzact, and Big Data, Zayo Group Inc. (NYSE: ZAYO)

  • Hedy Lamarr Award for Female Tech Pioneer of the Year: Yvette Kanouff, Senior Vice President/General Manager (SVP/GM) of the Service Provider Business (SP), Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO)

Figure 1: Grid4C's Noa Ruschin Rimini (right) accepts her WiC Leading Lights awards from Intel's Lynn Comp at Monday evening's awards presentation. Grid4C's Noa Ruschin Rimini (right) accepts her WiC Leading Lights awards from Intel's Lynn Comp at Monday evening's awards presentation.

You can read more about our winners and their fellow finalists in the following blogs: WiC Leading Lights Finalists: Hedy Lamarr Award for Female Tech Pioneer of the Year , WiC Leading Lights Finalists: Most Inspiring Woman in Comms , WiC Leading Lights Finalists: Female-Led Startup to Watch and Women in Comms Leading Lights: The Finalists.

The winners were voted on by the WiC Board of Directors, with help from the editors of Light Reading and analysts of Heavy Reading. They were announced Monday evening, at the Leading Lights dinner, after WiC's one-day conference and job fair and ahead of the Big Communications Event, taking place today and tomorrow in Austin. Check back all week for more coverage of all the action.

Congratulations to our winners -- and all the finalists -- and thank you for leading the way for women in comms!

— Sarah Thomas, Circle me on Google+ Follow me on TwitterVisit my LinkedIn profile, Director, Women in Comms

About the Author(s)

Sarah Thomas

Director, Women in Comms

Sarah Thomas's love affair with communications began in 2003 when she bought her first cellphone, a pink RAZR, which she duly "bedazzled" with the help of superglue and her dad.

She joined the editorial staff at Light Reading in 2010 and has been covering mobile technologies ever since. Sarah got her start covering telecom in 2007 at Telephony, later Connected Planet, may it rest in peace. Her non-telecom work experience includes a brief foray into public relations at Fleishman-Hillard (her cussin' upset the clients) and a hodge-podge of internships, including spells at Ingram's (Kansas City's business magazine), American Spa magazine (where she was Chief Hot-Tub Correspondent), and the tweens' quiz bible, QuizFest, in NYC.

As Editorial Operations Director, a role she took on in January 2015, Sarah is responsible for the day-to-day management of the non-news content elements on Light Reading.

Sarah received her Bachelor's in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She lives in Chicago with her 3DTV, her iPad and a drawer full of smartphone cords.

Away from the world of telecom journalism, Sarah likes to dabble in monster truck racing, becoming part of Team Bigfoot in 2009.

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