2020 NSW Award
In a widely attended Pearcey virtual event, Jamila Gordon received the 2020 NSW Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Jamila is the CEO and founder of Lumachain, a technology platform using AI, IoT and blockchain to bring transparency to global supply chains, benefitting producers, enterprises and consumers. Jamila was presented with her award by 2014 Pearcey Medallist and inaugural Ada Lovelace Medallist Professor Mary O'Kane.
The NSW Pearcey Entrepreneur Award recognises a NSW person in 'mid career', who is already a successful technology entrepreneur, and who has the potential to succeed further. The criteria are centred around taking a risk, making a difference and being an inspiration. The other award finalists this year were Carolyn Mee, CEO and founder, Sound Scouts; Joshua Ross and Adam McCurdie, co-founders of Humanitix; and Anna Wright, co-founder and CEO, BindiMaps.
Jamila Gordon is one of Australia's most respected digital and technology leaders. In 2018, she was selected by Microsoft to be their global Awardee in the International Women Entrepreneurship Challenge. Her background includes roles as Group CIO of Qantas Airways and Leighton Holdings/CIMIC, and prior to this, as a global executive with IBM based in Europe, leading some of IBM's largest global IT transformational deals, including Solectron Manufacturing, AXA Insurance and ABN AMRO Bank.
Jamila's professional success is made more remarkable by her personal story. She arrived in Australia at the age of 18 having escaped the Somali civil war alone and being virtually homeless in Kenya. Upon arriving in Sydney, Jamila began a nine-month TAFE course in English at TAFE before completing a diploma in accounting. While studying for her Bachelor of Accounting at La Trobe University she found her passion for programming and IT, completing a Bachelor of Business and Information Technology. She is also a board member of Questacon and the recipient of La Trobe University's Distinguished Alumni Award, serving on the university's board for five years.
"Jamila has already had a distinguished career and some remarkable achievements in the IT industry. It's great to see her applying her commercial and technical nous to address a pressing issue in the world - the ethical and environmentally sustainable production and supply of goods," said Simon Foster, Co-Chair of Pearcey NSW.
Lumachain's platform tracks and traces the origin, location and condition of individual items in a supply chain, in real time, from farm to fork. This incentivises farmers and manufacturers to create high-quality, ethically-produced products. It allows enterprises to reduce waste, increase efficiency, and grow revenues and margins. And it allows consumers to know, with absolute certainty, the provenance, condition and quality of what they buy, and that it has been ethically and sustainably sourced.
