TORONTO, Ontario—The North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) has announced that its vice president Borika Vucinic (Bell Media Network) has been jointly named Woman of the Year by Rise, the advocacy group for gender diversity in the media technology sector. Vucinic shares the award with Inga Ruehl of Sky Sports.
“We celebrate and congratulate Borika receiving this award in recognition of her leadership, accomplishments, and professionalism as a trailblazer in our industry,” said Michael McEwen, NABA director-general. “Diversity is part of NABA’s remit, so this award not only reflects Borika’s role at Bell Media but also the many contributions she has made to the NABA Board of Directors as a Director and Vice-President. Rise has gender diversity as its core mandate, and I thank them for their work and the recognition of a very deserving industry leader.”
The Woman of the Year award, sponsored by Zixi, 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 honor both Vucinic and Ruehl.
Borika Vucinic is vice-president of Bell Media 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 organizations, currently serving on the NABA Board of Directors as a Vice-President and is recognized as a pioneer and a voice for women in communications and technology.
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.
The two women will be presented with the award during the Rise Awards ceremony on Thursday, November 18th at 17:00 GMT as part of the DPP Leaders’ Briefing event in London. The Rise Awards 2021 will also be streamed globally by Red Bee Media.
Rise has been working with universities and key industry partners to investigate and address the lack of new talent entering the broadcast technology sector, specifically engineering and technical operational roles.
