Celebrating the Trainer/Educator of the Year Finalists

Jun 19

Trainer/Educator of the Year Finalists 2025

The Trainer / Educator of the Year award honours the women who light the way – turning emerging tools and tough concepts into practical know-how that empowers people and businesses to thrive online. Our 2025 finalists have delivered innovative programmes, measurable impact, and a passion for inclusion that is reshaping digital learning.

Rabia Syed - WebPro School of Freelancing

About:
Rabia is a business school graduate with a passion for digital marketing who has turned her academic foundation into real-world impact as a certified digital marketing trainer. Specialising in social media marketing, SEO and content creation, she equips individuals and businesses with the skills they need to succeed in today’s online landscape. An aspiring entrepreneur as well as an educator, she continually scouts fresh ideas, builds connections with like-minded professionals and refines growth strategies.

Reason for Shortlisting:
Rabia has trained a huge number of learners from diverse backgrounds, equipping them with SEO, social media and content skills. By designing programmes that deliberately target underserved communities, she advances UN goals on quality education and reduced inequalities. By pairing sound business principles with a keen eye for digital trends, Rabia aims to inspire through her training and contribute meaningfully to the fast-moving world of business and digital marketing, and this mentality embodies the spirit of our award.

Annacristina Panarello - Kosmos Lingua

About:
Annacristina is the founder of Kosmos Lingua, a language-services company that helps businesses expand internationally through bespoke solutions. Central to her vision is Kosmos Lingua Academy, a personal initiative she created to make language learning more accessible, personalised, and effective. Over the past year, Annacristina has also explored AI-driven tools to scale her model, ensuring even more people gain the confidence – and practical skills – to learn a new language.

Reason for Shortlisting:
Annacristina earned her shortlist spot for revolutionising adult language learning through her fully personalised methodology. In under a year she has secured training contracts with IPO-listed firms, delivering executive-level programmes tailored to each learner’s pace, cognitive style, and professional needs. By replacing one-size-fits-all courses with AI-enabled, adaptive teaching paths, she removes the frustration and stigma that often deter adults from mastering new languages.

Vicky Galbraith - Podcast Pathway

About:
Vicky is the founder of Podcast Pathway, a business devoted to giving podcasters the tailored support, coaching, and community they need to thrive. Backed by more than two decades in radio and voice work, she guides creators through every technical and creative step, making podcasting approachable whether someone is launching their very first show or refining an established one. By fusing mindset tools with practical podcast strategies, Vicky empowers clients to feel confident, visible, and successful.

Reason for Shortlisting:
Vicky’s place on the shortlist is due to her skill at marrying hands-on podcast expertise with mindset coaching to deliver a holistic pathway from idea to profitable show. Through Podcast Pathway she has: made podcasting accessible via a launch program packed with branded templates, technical training and confidence-building exercises; embedded personal development tools that tackle fears and self-doubt; and begun building an inclusive community that provides continuous learning and collaboration.

Nicola Talbot and Davina Stapley - Teaching From Text

About:
Davina Stapley and Nicola Talbot are primary school teachers and co-founders of Teaching From Text – a digital platform created to give teachers back their evenings, weekends, and peace of mind. Having seen countless talented colleagues leave the profession because planning spills far beyond contracted hours, they set out to change the system. Their model is simple yet transformative: scour children’s publishing for the most engaging, inclusive, and diverse titles, then build fully resourced English units around those books.

Reason for Shortlisting:
Since launching Teaching From Text in 2021, Davina and Nicola have created 66 fully resourced English schemes, each offering lesson plans, bespoke teaching videos, and every printable a teacher needs – saving thousands of classroom hours and safeguarding teacher wellbeing. By shouldering the heavy lift of planning, Teaching From Text enables classrooms worldwide to enjoy rich literature while helping teachers protect their mental health, family life, and long-term love for the job – making them contenders for this award.

Helen Morgan - Giraffe Digital Ltd

About:
Helen has spent nearly 15 years in online marketing and now runs two successful businesses focused on making professional digital support truly affordable for start-ups and small firms. A verified Canvassador for the past two years, Helen designs branded assets and delivers training workshops to clients. Currently completing the Oxford School of Marketing’s Specialised Social Media Management qualification, she also guides clients with clear strategies and steps in with social media management whenever extra support is needed.

Reason for Shortlisting:
Helen’s shortlisting recognises how far she has taken Giraffe Digital in just a few years: evolving from a solo trainer who gave free lockdown support into the founder of a business that now serves clients across the world. Helen is continually learning and pivoting to help the needs of her clients, putting together new workshops, and making sure their businesses remain visible. Helen has built an operation that removes overwhelm, lifts visibility and gives entrepreneurs the confidence to focus on what they love.

Susanna Reay - Susanna Reay

About:
Susanna is a scalable business mentor, speaker, and author who has spent 22 years helping entrepreneurs across the globe sell their services online. She teaches experts to develop their own framework – a step-by-step model that helps clients to scale their business with ease. In 2021 she published The Introvert Way Roadmap, mapping the growth stages introverted founders must follow to scale without burnout. Susanna believes business should be fun, empowering, and integrity-driven.

Reason for Shortlisting:
Susanna has spent years helping small business owners get their ideas out of their heads and into the world. Her support ranges from free online classes and podcast slots to hands-on workshops, and even her DIY courses come with personal video feedback so no one is left to figure things out alone. Whether it’s a one-off clarity session or ongoing coaching, she meets business owners where they are, guides them step-by-step, and leaves them feeling confident to show up as the experts they already are.

Melanie Boylan - STOMP Social Media Training Ltd

About:
Melanie is a digital marketer and social media trainer who specialises in giving small business owners, community groups and nonprofits the confidence to promote their work online. Melanie tailors every lesson to the learner’s pace, budget and tech comfort level. She also co-hosts a podcast, sharing bite-sized tips, interviews and real-world examples to make marketing feel less overwhelming.

Reason for Shortlisting:
In just the past year Melanie has delivered workshops and one-to-one sessions for more than 850 learners – many of them micro-business owners, community groups and start-ups with little or no marketing support. Beyond the classroom she mentors placement students, and offers ongoing support that turns a single lesson into lasting impact for whole organisations. This record of accessible, empowering digital education is why she has been shortlisted.

Emmaline McAndrew - Brain Candy Digital

About:
Emmaline is a social media strategist and trainer who creates bespoke training materials for corporate brands. She designs end-to-end programmes that let in-house teams take full ownership of their social channels with clarity and confidence. Alongside her corporate work, she is building a digital venture dedicated to teaching women how to grow values-led businesses at a sustainable pace.

Reason for Shortlisting:
Through Brain Candy Digital, Emmaline builds every resource from scratch – video walkthroughs, content creation guides, algorithm updates explained simply, tone-of-voice toolkits, branded templates, and more. Training remains the core of her upcoming digital venture: she is developing resources, templates and courses that support women who feel sidelined by traditional high-pressure models, proving that digital success can be both intentional and human – making her a contender for this award.

Lorna Tatham - The Kent Autistic Trust

About:
Lorna is a Digital Trainer in the charity sector, specialising in bringing tech-shy colleagues up to speed with practical, easy-to-use tools. In her organisation, she led the shift from paper records to digital care processes, providing hands-on sessions and bespoke guides so frontline support staff could adopt the new system with confidence. Blending innovation with people-centred training, she is building a more efficient and digitally confident workforce across the organisation she works for.

Reason for Shortlisting:
Lorna has onboarded hundreds of new starters with her digital-skills induction, turned paper-based care records into streamlined digital workflows, and personally built Power Apps that frontline staff now rely on every day. Colleagues who once dreaded technology now describe her as their “IT guru,” praising her patience, creativity and can-do attitude. By coupling human-centred training with bespoke tech solutions she wasn’t even hired to build, Lorna has sparked a true culture shift toward confidence and efficiency – exactly the impact this award exists to recognise.

Sooz Young - Technology Coaching

About:
Sooz is the founder of Technology Coaching, a digital educator, learning designer, and fractional CTO. After honing her craft as a mentor at the University of Strathclyde, an English teacher in Japan, and a trainer at Apple, she launched Technology Coaching to give professionals outcome-focused, confidence-building tech education. Today she delivers courses through a gamified online hub, teaches AI, automation, and data.

Reason for Shortlisting:
Sooz’s shortlist rests on the measurable impact she makes by turning “digital overwhelm” into confident, practical action. She has upskilled more than 4000 learners – everyone from micro-business owners to Facebook and NHS teams – showing them how to automate workflows, strengthen web presence, harness AI and make data-driven decisions. The fact Sooz’s approach is rooted in education, powered by systems, and driven by the belief that digital learning should be engaging, actionable, and built for people – not platforms – sums up what this award is about.

The Digital Women Awards are proud to celebrate these extraordinary individuals.