Nina is helping redress the gender imbalance

Nina Monckton, Chief Insight Officer and Caldicott Guardian for the NHS Business Services Authority, took the title Transformation Lead of the Year at the annual Women in IT awards, bestowed for playing a part in her authority’s recent IT transformation.

Women in IT, “the world’s leading tech diversity event”, highlights the fact only nine per cent of IT leaders globally are women and aims to tackle this issue and redress the gender imbalance by showcasing achievements of women in the sector and identifying new role models.

Nina, Vice Chair of the University of Brighton’s Maths and Computing Industry Advisory Board which ensures students develop the right skills and knowledge, graduated from the university in 1993 with a BSc(Hons) Combined Sciences degree.

Nina Monckton (second from left) with other award winners

She said: “I was really surprised to win the award because the other finalists were from big companies with very strong online presence. It just goes to show that technology in the public sector can be just as good as or even better than large corporates.

“The technology sector still seems to have a problem with attracting and promoting females. My heart does sink when I go to conferences and have to look hard for women attendees; sometimes there are no female speakers. Events like the Women in IT Awards are needed to showcase the talent and potential of women working in the sector.”

Nina said the NHS Business Services Authority, an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health which provides some support services to the NHS in England and Wales, often recruits data engineers and data scientists, adding: “I am looking forward to the University of Brighton launching its masters-level data analytics apprenticeship.”

She recalled her time at the university: “I remember coding in Fortran (programming language) and stats packages. I gained confidence in playing around with data, coding and running simulations while I was at university.

“I loved being a student in Brighton. I fell so deeply in love with Brighton that I still live here.”