Rise Awards announces joint Woman of the Year winners ahead of ceremony

Rise, the award-winning advocacy group for gender diversity in the media technology sector, announced two recipients of the Woman of the Year award for this year’s Rise Awards, taking place next week.

Inga Ruehl of Sky Sports and Borika Vucinic of Bell Media will receive their awards, sponsored by Zixi, during the ceremony, which will be held on Thursday 18 November from 17:00 GMT as part of the DPP Leaders’ Briefing event at 155 Bishopsgate in London. The Rise Awards 2021 will also be streamed globally by Red Bee Media.

Mark Harrison, CEO, The DPP, said, “We are honoured to host this year’s Rise Awards, celebrating some of the outstanding achievements by exceptional women in the media technology sector. The event is an important platform to promote their contributions and inspire more women to seek and seize opportunities in this dynamic industry.” 

The Woman of the Year award, sponsored by Zixi, is awarded by the Rise Advisory Board and is open to any woman from across the sector and at any level. The Award is presented to an extraordinary and inspirational woman who has made a significant contribution within her field. This year, the judges were unable to choose just one winner from a shortlist full of extremely talented women from around the world, so they decided to honour both Ruehl and Vucinic. 

Inga Ruehl is executive director, production services and operations for Sky Sports. Her teams look after the planning and delivery of all home-produced content across 11 live sports channels, with responsibility for studios, post-production staff and facilities, as well as outside broadcast and crewing. Ruehl and her teams led the way for Sky Sports’ introduction of remote production operations, experience which came to the fore during the pandemic. She is a rare example of a female leader in a male-dominated environment and is passionate about creating a more diverse workforce within Sky Sports.  

Borika Vucinic is vice-president of Bell Media’s network, Canada’s largest media conglomerate. Her role is to oversee engineering support and operations for the Bell Media network broadcast sites in Montréal and Toronto, and project engineering and network support for television and radio stations across Canada. With 25 years of experience with the Bell team, Vucinic has earned a reputation as an innovator and team builder, driving people and process transformation to enable new features, services and cost efficiencies. She also lends her passion for broadcasting to industry organisations, currently serving on the NABA (North American Broadcasters Association) board of directors as a Vice President, and is recognised as a pioneer and a voice for women in communications and technology. 

The Rise Awards will be hosted by Sarah Champion, the British presenter, radio DJ and actress. Cuescript will provide the teleprompter for the event.