Digital Women Awards 2025 Winner: Katrina Young

Introducing Digital Women Award 2025 Winner

Katrina Young: AI Specialist of the Year 2025

AI is transforming the way we work, think, and create. This year, we recognised the innovators harnessing AI to solve problems, spark progress, and make technology more accessible for all. Meet our winner, Katrina Young.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m Katrina Young, a futurist and Fractional CTO/CDO, founder of Katrina Young Consulting, KYC Digital and Aggregator Digital. My work focuses on ethical, inclusive, and sustainable AI adoption. What drives me is making technology work for people at all levels – building solutions that don’t just scale profits but also scale positive impact.

What does winning this award mean to you?
It’s recognition of years of pushing for responsible, AI since 2017, long before it became fashionable. This award validates the belief that you can merge innovation with ethics and still create powerful commercial outcomes.

What career achievement are you most proud of?
Launching Aggregator Optima – an AI-powered SaaS that helps businesses streamline operations while tracking their sustainability metrics. Seeing enterprises adopt it to reduce emissions and drive efficiencies has been a standout moment.

What impact have you seen from your work?
My clients have cut digital waste, increased backend revenue, and unlocked new growth opportunities. I’ve also helped SMEs access enterprise-level AI without barriers, creating opportunities for women, founders, students, corporates, diverse founders, and underrepresented voices in AI, Digital and Tech.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve had to learn, and how did you grow from it?
Failure is feedback. Every setback forced me to reframe, adapt, and return stronger. Embracing failure as data – not defeat – has made me a more resilient leader and strategist.

What’s one thing people might be surprised to learn about you?
I learned ballet at 45. It taught me grace, discipline, and balance in both movement and mindset – all qualities I carry into boardrooms and builds.

What advice would you give to the next wave of Digital Women?
Be a lifelong learner. Technology moves fast, but curiosity and adaptability move faster. Stay open, embrace failure as part of the process, and build with purpose as well as profit.